Movie Trivia: The Goonies

Who hasn’t seen The Goonies at least five times? It’s one of the best movies ever. Even though I’ve seen it a million times (and consider myself somewhat well-versed in movie trivia), I learned a ton of new stuff by watching the commentary. Here’s what I learned… and if you have your own tidbit to contribute, leave a comment!

The actress who played Harriet Walsh, Mary Ellen Trainor, married Robert Zemeckis. She was in four of his movies – Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future Part II, Death Becomes Her and Forrest Gump. They divorced in 2000.

Corey Feldman memorized all of the Spanish for the scene where he purposely mistranslates all of Mrs. Walsh’s instructions for the maid. If you recognize the housekeeper, by the way, it may be from Selena – she played Selena’s killer Yolanda.

It took them two days and more than 100 takes to shoot the scene in the attic where the kids discover One Eye Willy’s map. One Eye Willy’s full name is William B. Pordobell, by the way.

Mouth’s real name is Clark.

The cast said they were all terrified to shoot the Cyndi Lauper video “Goonies R Good Enough” because all of the wrestlers (Rowdy Roddy Piper and Andre the Giant) intimidated them.

The guy who played Sloth is John Matuszak. Have you ever noticed that he’s wearing an Oakland Raiders t-shirt in part of the movie? That’s a little inside joke – Matuszak actually played for the Oakland Raiders. His nickname was the Tooz. He died from a heart attack just four years after The Goonies came out at the young age of 38. It’s widely assumed it was caused by his massive steroid use.

Sloth took about five hours of makeup every day. His eye was operated by remote control off camera. Photo from Goonies.org, which is a really neat place to visit if you like Goonies trivia.

At about 40:30, (they’re in the Fratellis’ hideout), Sean Astin and Josh Brolin are arguing. Sean Astin accidentally finishes up one of his exclamations with “Josh!” instead of “Brand!” Check it out. I was kind of delighted by this one.

When rocks are falling from the cave ceiling and Data yells “Holy S-H-I-T,” it’s not because that’s the line that was scripted. It’s because Jonathan Ke Quan promised his mom he wouldn’t say any curse words in the movie.

Robert Davi, who plays Jake Fratelli, the singing brother (AKA, the Fratelli who isn’t Joey Pants), is really a trained opera singer.

The Goonies are called the Goonies because they all come from the “Goon Docks” neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon. Do they explain that in the movie somewhere? I swear I’ve watched this movie about 30 times and I’ve never noticed an explanation. Maybe I’m really unobservant.

When Chunk is sobbing while being interrogated by the Fratellis, he was really crying – he said he thought of his mother dying.

Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk, stopped acting around 1991. He’s now an entertainment lawyer in L.A. He says he ran for class President at U.C. Berkeley with the slogan “Chunk for President,” which is pretty smart. I would have voted for Chunk. Word is that he used to do the Truffle Shuffle at football games. I love that he has a sense of humor about it.

Goonies never say die… which means don’t count Goonies 2 out. Rumors about an animated sequel have been floating around for years – some actors have said it’s not even being discussed, and others say it’s nearly a certainty.

The guy that plays Troy, Andy’s boyfriend before she and Brand hook up, is Steve Antin. Not only is he a writer, his whole family is pretty famous – his brother is the celebrity hair stylist Jonathan Antin, his sister Robin Antin created the Pussycat Dolls (the burlesque act, not the group), and his other brother Neil Antin is also an actor. Steve dated David Geffen for a while in the late ’80s.

The kids hadn’t seen the pirate ship set until the moment you see in the film, so if they look particularly awed, that’s why. Corey Feldman claimed he and Sean Astin saw it before the fact, but none of the other actors would believe him. Sean Astin had slipped out of the commentary by this point so he didn’t have any backup. Sadly, the pirate ship was just junked afterward – they tried to donate it to an amusement park or another movie, but no one would take it, so it was destroyed.

Wow, random bit of information: Martha Plimpton, who plays Stef, is Keith Carradine’s daughter (and David Carradine’s niece). “Plimpton” is her mother’s name.

Richard Donner said that after the kids wrapped for the day, the rest of the cast and crew would sometimes go back in and turn the water jets on so they could ride the slide in the caves where the Goonies flew down to get to the pirate ship.

Richard Donner still has the head of One Eye Willy in his office.

If you’re ever in Oregon and want to go on your own Goonies tour, check out TheGoonies.org – it lists all of the locations the movie was shot at and what still exists today. You can still go do your own Truffle Shuffle in front of the Goonie House – the owners don’t mind.

When the kids escape from the pirate ship and are thrashing about in the water, they encounter an octopus. You don’t see this in the movie because it was cut, but Data still references it when he’s telling his mom about their adventures at the end of the movie.

And I was very pleasantly surprised to see that all of the kids – even Josh Brolin – came back to do the commentary for the film. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to watch your child self for two hours… I think it’s hard enough just looking at pictures in passing. The ’80s were not kind to most children (and I definitely do not exclude myself).

Do you have a movie you’d like to know some behind-the-scenes info on? Leave me a Tweet and let me know!

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Movie Trivia: Stand By Me

I didn’t intentionally mean to pick another Rob Reiner film for this week’s movie trivia post, but when RiderAng suggested Stand By Me, I knew immediately that I needed to dig it out of our DVD cabinet.

Don’t worry, though, I’m not in a rut: I think we’re going to visit the Coen Brothers next week. But for now, enjoy the Stand By Me trivia.

The film was originally called The Body because that was the title of the Stephen King novella the movie was based on. The novella was subtitled “Fall From Innocence.”

Don’t worry: Rob Reiner made all of the kids smoke lettuce leaves, not cigarettes.

Jerry O’Connell (Vern) had never really acted before – he had just one commercial under his belt. When he auditioned, he recognized Rob Reiner and said, “Aren’t you the guy on channel 5?” At the time, the local channel 5 had been airing reruns of All in the Family at the time and Jerry recognized Rob as Meathead.

A lot of the dialogue was taken right out of the novella.

John Cusack (Gordie’s dead older brother, Denny) was cast because Cusack had just made The Sure Thing with Rob Reiner and the two of them became good friends. Reiner felt certain that Cusack would be able to make a good impression on the audience even though his screen time was very limited.

Kiefer Sutherland (Ace) used method acting during his time on the set – he liked to pick on the four younger boys even when the cameras weren’t rolling, just to keep the mood flowing. Jerry O’Connell later admitted that he was actually really terrified of Kiefer.

When they filmed the scene where Teddy (Corey Feldman) wants to play chicken with the train, the boys were really standing in front of a real, moving locomotive. But they were never in any danger: a long-angle lens was used to make it look like train was a lot closer than it actually was. The same technique was used in the scene where Vern and Gordie (Wil Wheaton) almost get run over by the train.

Incidentally, the reason the kids are crying during that scene is because Rob Reiner yelled at them. They had done the take over and over and the actors wouldn’t cry; the guys operating the cameras and the dollies were getting tired from running alongside the kids and filming them. Reiner started yelling that everyone was sick and tired of doing this scene because these kids wouldn’t do their jobs, and that was all it took. Once it was over, the kids were thrilled that they were finally able to cry and everyone made up.

In the book, Chris Chambers (River Phoenix in the film) references other Stephen King fictional spots – at one point, he says something about how towns often have stupid names, such as the nearby Jerusalem’s Lot. Also in the novella, Teddy says something about not getting sent to “The ‘Shank,” which is, of course, Shawshank Penitentiary from The Shawshank Redemption.

Likewise, characters from The Body are referenced in other Stephen King books. For instance, in Carrie, an Amoco gas station was once owned by Teddy Duchamp. And bad greaser dude Ace Merrill meets his maker in Needful Things.

Wil Wheaton had to fake like he was running slower than River Phoenix in the junkyard race scene; in reality he was a lot faster than River.

Rob Reiner said a couple of times during the director’s commentary that Corey Feldman was the only kid they auditioned who had the kind of rage to pull off the Teddy Duchamp character. Feldman’s audition was the scene where he and the junkyard guy get into it and apparently he nailed it.

Horrifically, the leech scene really happened to Stephen King when he was a kid. It was his friend who passed out, though, not Stephen.

The part where the kids find the body was supposed to be overcast and dreary, but of course, it was a gorgeous afternoon in Oregon that day. So the production crew used artificial means to make everything look the way they wanted – they even had monofilament fishing line tied to the bushes and had people pulling them off-camera to make them look like the wind was blowing (in addition to having wind machines, of course).

The novella, like most Stephen King books, is set in Maine. Although the movie is based in Oregon, the town name, still pays homage to the story: it’s Castle Rock.

Kent Lutrell, the kid who played the dead body of Ray Brower, grew up to be a stuntman and stunt rigger. He has worked on Baywatch, Army of Darkness, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series), Titanic, Corky Romano and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

If you’re looking for more reading material, Wil Wheaton has a very interesting blog. I can really relate to his Rock Band addiction.

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Five Celebrity Wikipedia Entries They Clearly Wrote Themselves

I have to say, Cracked.com nailed this one. I grew up loving Corey Feldman. My cousins and I used to fight over who would get to marry him someday (thank God I lost that one, I guess). But even I have to admit his career is less than stellar at the moment. However, the “anonymous” person who wrote this section of his Wikipedia entry begs to differ:

“In November of 2008 he released his most ambitious musical project to date, a new album with his band Truth Movement entitled Technology Analogy. This high concept album has been met with tremendous reviews, and features an all-star line up, including Jon Carin (Pink Floyd), Mark Karan (Rat Dog, Grateful Dead) Scotty Page (Pink Floyd), and artwork by the legendary artist Storm Thorgerson. To order his album check out his website at www.coreyfeldman.net”

Aw… yeah. Cracked has also outed Bruce Willis, Hulk Hogan, Paul Stanley and William Shatner as the authors of their own Wikipedia entries. And maybe the entries were written by lackeys or overzealous fans, but the article is funny either way.

Link

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