The Goonies!

We had an epic evening!
The Varsity theater, a historic movie theater on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, closed a while back, much to the dismay of folks like us who saw many a movie there through the years. Fortunately, the owners of the Chelsea Theater, another independent movie theater across town, re-opened the Varsity with a new purpose. Old-school movies or films that are slightly past their release dates are shown, and tickets are cheap. The concessions are good (real butter!) and they even have beer (Russell says Yay!)
They've played some great flicks in the past few months - we went to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was way fun! But last week I noticed the current weeks' line-up included my all-time favorite movie from childhood:
The Goonies!
For those of you who haven't seen it, The Goonies is an adventure film directed by Richard Donner and produced by Stephen Spielberg. It came out in 1985 and includes young actors like Sean Astin and Corey Feldman. It's about a group of misfit kids in Astoria, Oregon, who are about to lose their community to the evil rich folks who want to build a golf course. The kids find a treasure map in the attic, and go after the lost pirate ship in hopes of saving their homes. Along they way they get tangled up with a group of bumbling villains who are also after the treasure. Adventure and high-jinks ensue.
I saw it in the theatre when it came out, and I even remember that event fairly well. We loved this movie as kids; we rented it every weekend, to the point that I wonder now why no one just bought us a copy of it on VHS - we certainly spent at least as much renting it from the local grocery store. We even used to organize the neighborhood kids into 'playing Goonies' wherein we'd choose characters and run around the neighborhood looking for pirate treasure and quoting lines from the film. We all used to fight over who got to play Mouth, the character played by Corey Feldman, because we all thought he was the funniest character. In fact, I still think that. Though Chunk is absolutely hilarious, too!
It was poignant for me to see The Goonies on the big screen again, as it really brought me back to childhood, and made me think of my best friend Amy from my elementary years. I recently found out that Amy was murdered at age 21 by some idiot criminals in a car jacking, and have been thinking about her a lot lately. Granted, she's been gone for many years now and I hadn't spoken to her in even longer, but one always remembers their childhood friends with fondness. Though I had already grieved the loss of her in my own life when we moved to NC, I also had to grieve the loss of her in the world - even ten years later when I heard of her death. She and I used to spend the night at each others' houses every weekend (we lived next door to one another) and a typical sleep-over night involved watching The Goonies and quoting lines, planning the next neighborhood adventure game. She was my first "BFF" and I was very sad to hear that she had been taken from us in such a violent way. When we sat down in the Varsity as The Goonies started, I thought to myself, "This one is for Amy."
On a lighter note, this was the first time that we left Orion with someone other than us! Russell's mom Jo Ann was kind enough to come to our place to take care of him while we were gone. She played baby olympics to keep him occupied and they had a good night together! I'm glad that it went well; though I thought about him a few times, I wasn't anxious like people might expect. Partially that's because I know Jo Ann's got the 'magic touch' with babies and I was leaving him with someone who loves him so much. And it was really nice for Russell and I to get out together and have a little break. My dad Kevin also joined us, so it was a good night and a lot of fun. I definitely left the theatre with a big smile on my face.
So here's to The Goonies, childhood friends, family, and of course: PIRATES!