Another Day, Another DVD, Another Celebrity Crush

Picked up the Goonies DVD at Wal-Mart the other day. Watched it last night.

Holy goddamn shit.

I'd only ever seen the Goonies on channel 11 (that's the WB here in NJ) before, so watching the full, uncut movie was nothing short of a religious awakening for me, as I had no idea how much of the film gets chopped out for network TV. There must have been ten solid minutes' worth of extra scenes that were 100% new to my eyes. None of it was absolutely essential to the story or anything like that (they spend a waaay more time on the broken-dicked David statue than I ever knew, for example), but it was still really, really fucking neat to see all this footage that was basically brand new to me.

And then there are the deleted scenes, including the fabled "crappy octopus" bit. I was amazed and delighted: Whole entire chunks of film that were never shown in theaters, for various reasons (the octopus looked too crappy, at least according to the test audiences at the time, and the scene in the convenience store would have fucked up the continuity considerably, though it was a cool scene anyway, featuring some grade-A bullying brought to you by dickhead Troy), finally making their way to my hungry eyes.

And the commentary? Absurdly, miraculously great. They actually reassembled the entire Goonie squad and sat them down with director Richard Donner in a little room and videotaped them watching the movie. As you watch the film with commentary on, the movie will occasionally shrink to one corner of the screen, revealing the cast as they appear now, talking, laughing, and yelling about the movie as they watch it. Corey "Mouth" Feldman introduces himself as Corey Haim, Jeff "Chunk" Cohen's a slim, handsome guy now, and you already know what Sean "Sam the Hobbit" Astin looks like these days. This brings me to Martha "Stef" Plimpton.

Watching this movie for the first time in several years has rekindled the fiery, magma-hot crush I used to have on Martha Plimpton, and to make matters worse, I just discovered (courtesy IMDb) that we share the same birthday, though she's 10 years my senior. If that doesn't spell 'love connection,' I don't know what does.

One last thing, and then I'll shut the fuck up about the fucking Goonies DVD. Also among the special features is the two-part Cyndi Lauper video, 'The Goonies 'R' Good Enough.' I can say with assurity that this is the greatest music video ever made. Yes, even 'Thriller' has to take a backseat to this one. Does 'Thriller' have Rowdy Roddy Piper, the aforementioned crappy rubber octopus, all the Goonie kids, and a surprise appearance by Andre the Giant? No, it sure doesn't.

Now you understand: The Goonies DVD is the greatest, most fantastic and wonderous thing ever created by anyone, anyplace, ever.