You know you’re old when you realize The Goonies is full of faults

FROM JASON’S DVD COLLECTION — In many ways, I am still 10 years old. Just ask my wife. I still watch Transformers cartoons. I eat cereal with marshmallows. And I’m pretty sure girls have cooties.

But never have I felt further from 10 and closer to 30 than last night while watching The Goonies. A nice little patch of gerascophobia hit when I realized that the 1985 Richard Donner flick just wasn’t that good.

It was the first time in probably 15 years that I had watched it all the way through, and the very first time for the wife. I noticed very quickly that she was not laughing. Her eyes were glossing over. She was not caring.

I was embarrassed on behalf of the movie because I’d repressed all its nasty little faults. There were Sean Astin’s awkward moments talking to the skeleton of One-Eyed Willy. There was Kerri Green’s inability to deliver a convincing line. And there’s the disgustingly Jar Jar Binks-ish character of Sloth.

Watching as an adult, I couldn’t believe how long it took to get through the exposition and into the pirate tunnels where the real adventure happens. The Goonies isn’t about the impending foreclosure of Mikey’s home — it’s supposed to be about the booby traps and treasure maps, right?

There were also the wet child actors and their constant, cacophanous yelling back and forth. When they should have been biting their tongues to avoid detection by the murderous Fratellis, they were screaming like little girls. And when by modern movie standards they should have had slick wordplay and clever turns of phrase, they delivered childish little lines.

Or they just swore with sailors’ mouths and a surprising frequency for a PG-rated movie (especially when the new PG-13 rating had been invented the previous year, in response to other Steven Spielberg films like Jaws and Temple of Doom). Characters riff on the word “shit” 19 times, and Data spells it out once more in the final sequence. In hindsight, I can’t believe my tightly-strung, religious parents let me wear out the VHS copy we had (it might have been the television version).

“That was a waste,” the wife said when the credits rolled. I prodded her for some more explanation, and she said it was “too unbelievable” that a pirate ship would be moored off the Oregon coastline for 350 years — from 1632 to 1985 — without sinking from saltwater corrosion. That might happen in fantasy books, like Harry Potter, she said, but not in the real-world setting of The Goonies.

Of course, that’s why the rest of us liked the film as children. We wanted to believe that doubloons and pitfalls and Spanish galleys were awaiting us, just a stone’s-throw from our homes if only we looked hard enough and had the help of a secret map.

Apparently, thrill-seeking fans don’t share my wife’s concerns. The chamber of commerce in Astoria, Oregon, says the film continues to draw crowds to the Goonie House at 268 38th Street (now a private residence) and the old jail from which Jake Fratelli escaped.

The chamber has even produced an audio tour, available in MP3 format, highlighting not just The Goonies landmarks, but also filming locations around town for Kindergarten Cop, Short Circuit, Free Willy, and The Ring II.

You know, people always complain about remakes of films “raping” their childhood. But I think The Goonies would be an excellent candidate for an old cult classic to get a modern sensibility with updated cinematics and some better acting. Just roll with me, here. It could be good.

‘Up’ is a beautiful downer you should see

FROM JASON’S $3 CINEMA — He is not cut like Brad Pitt. He is not slick like James Bond. He is not cunning like Jason Bourne. He is not overbrimming with bravado like Indiana Jones.

No, the hero of Pixar’s stunning Up is world-weary and melancholy, sore in his bones and relying on a cane for support.

And in the first 10 minutes of Up, the animators at Pixar managed to pump so much life and loss and love into him that my wife was already bawling, and I — the hardened macho man that I am — was swallowing every two and a half seconds to keep down the aching lump in my throat.

Carl Fredrickson is the eager-eyed boy who finds true love in a young neighborhood girl. They live happily ever after together, growing old while their dreams of adventure-seeking in South American are trumped by domestic reality. When his Ellie dies, Carl uses a flotilla of helium balloons to soar his entire home to an idyllic jungle vista and live out his wife’s fantasy.

That fervent tribute to a lost soulmate would have been a terrific movie. Being infatuated with my own wife of seven years, I was entirely emotionally vested in Carl. I would be a shell without my Lisa.

But instead of telling that simple story in an appropriate 30-minute short, Pixar needed to bow to the feature-length convention and pollute its heartfelt tale with a kid-friendly cast of zany secondary characters.

There is a Boy Scout who gets roped into Carl’s adventure, along with a talking dog, a monstrous tropical bird long thought to be extinct, a geriatric and insane villain, and an army of anthropomorphized canine killers. Every single one is superfluous to Carl’s emotional journey.

There’s also a load of cheap jokes imposed on an otherwise perfect tragedy.

Look, I understand that Pixar makes money by targeting the under-12 demographic. Without the cartoonish faux-suspense and bad guys, youngsters wouldn’t be hooked and they’d lose out on ticket sales. Children certainly not going to care for a script about growing old. And in the United States, we for some reason still relegate animation to the realm of adolescents; it’s not considered a valid art form for an over-50 audience, like Up should have been tailored to.

That really annoys me.

So instead of a literary tale, we get a beautiful story watered down by sentient canines flying biplanes that shoot darts. That really happens. It’s somewhat mitigated by a nifty Star Wars reference, but it was still gratuitous.

It will make hundreds of millions of dollars for Pixar. It will also serve as the perfect example of how pandering to multiple audience demographics can sully a piece of art.

Fortunately, the visual part of the art was in no way soiled. The lighting, shadowing, and color were astounding; we saw the 2D version of Up, and even without 3D glasses it still looked like ViewMaster slides put in motion and perfect focus. The character models looked at points like real-world puppetry.

That’s a big admission coming from me, because I am typically critical of computer-generated content. But CG has certainly advanced since the days of Toy Story. Here, some of the rocky South American landscapes look photorealistic (remember how bad the same textures were back in the days of The Last Starfighter?), and praise is certainly due.

Overall, I ardently recommend Up with just those few reservations. If it doesn’t get to you, then you are either too young or Vulcan. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a film many will pay to own on DVD, as most of the comments I heard on exiting the cinema were along the lines of, “It was terrific, but it was just too sad.”

Elton John and Billy Joel: It’s still rock and roll to me

FROM JASON’S TICKET STUB — We followed the tide of aging men and their clean-cut cougar wives Saturday night from the halls of Cleveland’s Tower City, through the Gateway tunnel, and into The Q.

Everywhere we looked, there were polo shirts.

I quipped at one point that the security guards might single me out as suspicious since I don’t have a bald spot — the one thing almost every other man in the horde had in common. I’m a walking Rogaine commercial; each of my hairs has its own head of hair.

We laughed at the expense of the nearby 50-somethings, but my joke led me to wonder silently whether as 29-year-olds we’d be relevant at this concert. After all, there were very few people under 40 in the mass of 20,000 who crowded into the arena to see Sir Elton John and Billy Joel.

We felt isolated.

That changed when the lights came up and two concert pianos rose through the floor to settle on the stage. Here were two rock gods sitting (about a football field’s length) before us, perhaps the greatest musical geniuses of their era. I had listened to their songs hundreds and hundreds of times. Nevermind that their tunes had been repackaged into greatest hits compilations by the time I was ready to understand their tales of love, loss, pain, and triumph. These two pianists were my bards.

We were perched at the front of the second-floor balcony, a long (as the picture shows) way from the action. But it almost felt like I was stage-side as Sir Elton (at 62 years old) did a risky handstand on his piano. Meanwhile, Joel (50) mixed it up with bawdy jokes and some acrobatic mic stand-twirling drills.

I got my money’s worth. It was all I could do not to mist over in nostalgic elation seeing these legends belt out Benny and the Jets, Rocket Man, We Didn’t Start the Fire, and Piano Man. But I’m a man, so I kept it all inside. I’m also stupidly puritan, so I refrained from the drunken dancing the guppies were engaged in all around the arena.

Besides, I have little to no rhythm.

I like to think that what I lack in body-movin’ I make up for in analysis. When not reveling in the light show — which was amazing — I starting comparing and contrasting John’s and Joel’s performances.

My conclusion: Billy Joel is the winner (if it were a competition).

Joel’s portfolio is more technically dynamic, building on horns and complex counter-timing and overall musicality. John instead presents very simple, heartfelt melodies built on the backs of blues riffs. Johns’ style might be more effective in reaching his audience and building their time-tested loyalty (he received far more applause), but Joels’ sounds were better.

There was also a marked difference between the way the two giants metered out their energy during the concert. Joel compacted his into tight upgrades on the studio versions, while John elongated his standards into captivating, looping jams.

Regardless of who “won,” both men’s styles are remnants of a day when popular music engaged listeners by using something called “talent,” coupled with something called “innovation.” There is a dearth of such novelties in today’s clutch of cloned-sounding FM bar chords, howling vocals, distortion, and pop-princess bubblegum crap.

I just wish that the music of these two heroes wouldn’t be relegated to the murky realms of “adult contemporary” radio. John and Joel used to be revolutionaries. They were the rebellious young rockers. In their time, they were the ones bringing a crude new noise to challenge the old “good” music.

I don’t want them to be oldies.

‘I Love You, Man’ is maybe a little too accurate for comfort

FROM JASON’S LOCAL THEATER — The way my wife kept knowingly elbowing me in the ribs the entire 110 minutes of I Love You, Man was more than just physically uncomfortable.

Since graduating from college several years ago, I’ve found myself mired in those particularly strange doldrums where man-friends are awkward to come by. It’s not that I’m socially inept. It’s just that the workforce is a different playground than high school or college — relationships are much more casual and often competitive now that I’m almost 30.

So in the theater with Lisa, I was squirming a bit about the film’s main theme: When all-around good guy Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is engaged and needs to find  a best man, he realizes his old friends have fallen by the wayside and goes in search of a new blood brother.

Lisa’s been hassling me now about this for ages. “Why don’t you have any close guy friends?” she asks. “Don’t you want to go get a beer with someone?”

The problem is that at my age, how do you 1) find a guy with common interests, 2) build a relationship without feeling totally, totally gay, and 3) find time to juggle a bro and a wife?

1. This step was easy in college. There were so many dudes packed into such confined dorm space that you couldn’t help but find somebody interesting doing something awesome, and the social barriers to entry were lowered. These days, I’d almost have to join some sort of club to meet other guys with my humor, cultural knowledge set, and sensibilities.Church is right out of the question; I don’t do sports because I’m uncoordinated; I refuse to hang out at a game shop; and I refuse to join activist groups because they always sour. A favorite hang-out is the library, but that’s no place to strike up a conversation.
2. Anyone familiar with the Man Code knows it’s easy to strike up relationships with women. It’s finding common ground with other guys that’s the delicate matter.First, there is my northeastern US puritanical unbringing and its “manhood” baggage. Men don’t share feelings. They don’t talk things out. They don’t hug or touch in any way other than the occassional spirited punch in the arm or Top Gun-style high five.
3. If you’re married, you know that time is a precious gift from the gods. Chances are you already have at least one job, a house to clean, cars to repair, dogs to walk, kids to clean up after, a toilet to fix, the lawn to mow, a kitchen to remodel, a sidewalk to shovel, groceries to buy, and then if there is time left over you collapse and maybe think about sex.After that, whatever hour a day is left over can be divided amongst television, video games, or beer.The Internet is a novel solution to the time-crunch-vs.-friends problem. For instance, Andrew and I have been hanging out online, watching movies, bragging about sexual prowess, debating economic and political realities, arguing about which bands are good and which are shite. Watching Battlestar Galactica. Surprisingly, watching Andrew make his own cheese. Gaming.

Paul Rudd decided to take an unrealistic tack. He trying man-dating. He actively went out seeking a friend, and that hilariously backfired until by chance he stumbled onto a kindred soul in Jason Segel (of How I Met Your Mother), who is the least interesting part of the entire film.

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Let it be said at this point that I refuse to use or endorse the term “bro-mance.”

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Overall, I was pretty happy with the film, with its sympathetic portrayal of my plight, positive treatment of gay characters, the excellent and appropriate use of Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons as members of Rudd’s family, and the cute Rashida Jones as Rudd’s fiance (The Office), who thankfully plays against the ball-and-chain stereotype.

I was pleasantly surprised, really, with how well the script played out. I was wary of the suspiciously positive treatment Entertainment Weekly gave the film — the rare A for a comedy — and how various media have been overtly positioning Paul Rudd as the new everyman star.

That’s not to say there were no weaknesses in the flick: The constantly overplayed “guy slang” was annoying as hell, as was the blatant product placement and overbearing Rush worship.

Now, Judd Apatow wasn’t involved as far as I could tell, but the major players were from his crew and were making good use of his comedic style, falling in line with the likes of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. That means I Love You, Man was replete with the fart and sex humor I typically despise, but mostly with such heart that it avoided the shallowness of many of buddy films.

That could be attributed mainly to a dialogue that isn’t necessarily realistic so much as it is true, which I know is a fine distinction to make. But for all Rudd’s fumbling and polite clumsiness, he felt like a guy I could understand — a John Cusack more than a John Wayne.