Last Chance Theater » Episodes » Ep. 8

This week on Last Chance Theater, Justin and Laura take on One-Eyed Willy in the Goonies (1985).

When a country club development threatens to foreclose their entire neighborhood, a group of kids search for a hidden treasure to save their home. When Mikey (Sean Astin) finds a map to a mysterious pirate treasure, he enlists his friends and older brother, Brandon (Josh Brolin), to head out on an adventure. It takes them from downtown Astoria, Oregon through booby-trapped tunnels to a real pirate ship. Chased by high school bullies and a criminal family, the Goonies have to work together to make it out alive.

As Laura explains why she chose this movie, she and Justin discuss how the Goonies influenced current pop culture like Netflix’s Stranger Things. The hosts compare the similarities between this movie and the other major 80s kids-on-bikes film, Stand By Me: dead bodies, adventures, bullies, and of course, bikes. Justin and Laura struggle to rationalize how Andy could not figure out that she was kissing a child – couldn’t she feel the braces? It’s just too creepy, on both sides. They also note that people in movies seem to get knocked out quite easily, and with no apparent brain trauma. Who needs realism? And finally, at long last, Justin figures out the Ataris’ “So Long, Astoria.”