I caught a bit of The Goonies on American Movie Classics last night. What a great movie that was. I wonder where a movie like The Goonies would rank on a "Best Movies of the 80's" list. The 80's was *the* decade for popcorn films, yet so few of those popcorn flicks end up on the hoity toity "Best of the Decade" lists that people like me obsess over.

Well, I have news for you so called "critics," The Goonies was one of the best films of the 80's. Yeah, I said it. Sure, it didn't have a James Brooks, tear jerking cancer death or have any maniacal Mozart laughs, but it had Rocky Road ice cream in it. And it had all kinds of crazy stuff in it that you'd never seen in movies before and haven't seen since.

I'm talking about things such as:

- Cussing kids. CUSSING KIDS! Kids talking in a movie in the same exact way the kids watching it do. Seriously, when's the last time you saw a movie in which 12-15 year old boys said "shit," let alone talked about a statue with a broken penis? No, seriously. I want to know. If you can answer that question (the first half of that question anyway), I'll do the truffle shuffle.

- Awesome 80's villains! I'm talking mainly about the *actual* villain of the movie; the rich, preppy white dude. Any great 80's movie worth it's grain in salt has a dude that yells, "Andy, you GOONIE" down a well. They even had the requisite 80's villain hijink of him tilting a rearview mirror to look down a girl's blouse. That's straight up James Spader level of douchery.

- Unironic use of "One Eyed Willie."

- Corey Feldman! People forget just how great of a child actor he was. Well, Feldman was the DeNiro of child actors and The Goonies was his shining hour. If his part in Gremlins was his Taxi Driver, then his part in The Goonies was his Raging Bull. Everything he did with Corey Haim (God rest his pimple free soul) was his Meet the Fockers and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

- A physically and mentally retarded man in a Superman shirt, locked in a basement. That story arc would have never made it past the Dreamworks committee that would have made this movie today. Not saying that's a bad thing, but are we so touchy a society that we'd sacrifice "ROCKY ROAD?" and "HEY YOU GUYS!"

- The first lesbian in the history of children's movies. And not only her, but it had a token Vietnamese kid. Seriously, a Vietnamese kid in Oregon?

- Movies in which kids lives are actually in danger. And not just their lives, but their limbs. I don't think I've ever really been able to shake the thought that if the bats hadn't blown right through the chimney floor, they would have put poor Chunk's hand in that tomatoey blender.

- Cyndi Lauper. Yeah, Goonies made today would have a Miley Cyrus song on it. And you know what, the quality of that song wouldn't have been "good enough."

So you can have your Raging Bull, Terms of Endearment, and Platoon, Mr. and Mrs. Critic, I'll stick with the kids that actually changed movies... and then the country... and then the WORLD!