Educational Media Reviews Online

This 24-minute video about the making of the 1985 Richard Donner-directed film The Goonies comes across as the type of “making-of” featurette deeply hidden in the Special Features section of a DVD. It contains almost exclusively talking heads of the actors, some of whom come off nicely some twenty years after they appeared, others who definitely do not. The irony is that the Special Features section for this particular DVD contains almost double the amount of material of the “documentary” itself. These special features are essentially the rest of the interviews that were not used in the 24-minute film.

The whole DVD is obviously a labor of love from huge fans of this movie but this documentary is available on Amazon Prime for free, as well as on YouTube, where the director, Ron Fugelseth mentions the following: “This documentary was created for the official Goonies 25th Anniversary event in Astoria, OR in June 2010. This 24 minute video is part of a 90-minute DVD that includes extended interviews with the cast and more. We basically started learning how to do video with this project, so please forgive our many mistakes. The video definitely has heart.” Yes, it does have heart and will be purchased by Goonies fans who must own everything related to the film. The question is whether this DVD is worth purchasing for library collections or whether it has value for film studies. I would venture to say no but I do hope that it gets included as a special feature in a later anniversary edition of The Goonies. Enthusiastic fanboys can elicit interesting interviews.