The Goonies

It isn't quite the unheralded masterpiece the rose-colored memories of some would have you believe, but by kid-film standards, it's still a helluva lot of fun. Scripted by Chris Columbus, who's only now returning to the same form with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and directed by Richard Donner, who's never been much of a heavy sentimentalist, it's the tale of an adventure any kid would love to have. Looking to save their homes ("The Goondocks") from foreclosure, a group of youngsters discovers both a map to hidden pirate treasure and a hideout for escaped criminals. All this and a really big deformed guy, too. What's most fun about the film in retrospect is the casting: A young Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman and Martha Plimpton number among the heroes, while Anne Ramsey (Throw Momma From the Train), Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano are the crooks. At a time when Steven Spielberg is digitally deleting guns from his own E.T., it's quite a change to see these hoods play mean under his auspices as producer (they ultimately meet with slapstick punishment that Columbus would later recycle in his own Home Alone). Completing the picture is a Cyndi Lauper theme tune: If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me.