Donner Party

[The Curious Sofa]

Spoiler

I unapologetically love The Goonies, which still serves as the optimal representation of not only a childlike sense of adventure but also the youthful fantasy to become liberated from and best adults. I don’t really like any other Donners, even if this is more Spielberg anyways. I liked Conspiracy Theory as a kid, but a recent revisit wasn’t kind to it

This is one of those generational things, to anybody who didn't catch this as a child when it came out, a bunch of annyoing children screaming their heads off for two hours was just about the most irritating thing possible. It anticipated the Spielberg of Hook (which also has an inexplicable fanbase among GenX) rather than coming close to ET (or even Gremlins).

I disagree. I didn’t like the movie in my youth and I hate Hook, and only came back around to appreciating this in adulthood. There’s no nostalgic value there

[domino harvey]

I’m surprised as well. My personal experience has been that people who didn’t grow up with it don’t like it at all if they’re watching it for the first time as an adult (but technically TWBB wouldn’t fit that since he did see it earlier and just didn’t like it)

[therewillbeblus]

When I was a kid, I wanted to just watch R-rated movies and was disinterested in having a childlike sense of adventure crystallized, as it limited the possibilities of my imagination - whereas in adulthood I've tapped more into that youthful sense of wonder again. I dunno, different strokes..

[MichaelB]

A friend of mine was genuinely astonished that I'd never seen The Goonies, until I pointed out that I was eighteen when it came out, it's a kids' film, and absolutely nothing about it had the slightest appeal to me, either in 1985 or forty years later. Particularly not the "bunch of annoying children screaming their heads off for two hours" aspect, about which I'd been tipped off well in advance.

[flyonthewall2983]

I would have been not even 2 when it came out, so never on my radar although I do remember watching schlock like Mac and Me at a very young age. I do remember watching Radio Flyer once or twice. Much as I admire Donner’s willingness to tackle unpopular subjects that was dire all around, so not the most fulfilling experience. I did see Free Willy in theatrical release, not at all since but I remember it being not terrible for 9-yo me.

I really liked Maverick when it started cycling on HBO, and enjoyed it upon later viewings too.

[GaryC]

A friend of mine was genuinely astonished that I'd never seen The Goonies, until I pointed out that I was eighteen when it came out, it's a kids' film, and absolutely nothing about it had the slightest appeal to me, either in 1985 or forty years later. Particularly not the "bunch of annoying children screaming their heads off for two hours" aspect, about which I'd been tipped off well in advance.

I only saw it about ten years ago, back when I was renting Blu-rays via Lovefilm. I was twenty-one and at University when it came out. We didn't show it at the University film society as we didn't think even pissed-up students would go for it - I hadn't been to the press showing that a few others in the society had.

Now that I have seen it, it's a case of sat through it once, very likely no need to do so again.

[beamish14]

Donner was a reliable journeyman director who would adapt his style to the script. I don't even know what to like or dislike about a director like him, there is no strong signature to his work. He managed to do justice to the character of Superman and capture the grandeur of that endeavour, The Omen is an atmospheric horror film that does justice to its set pieces and the Leathal Weapon films are efficiently directed action movies. He generally knew who to hire (let's ignore composer Andrew Powell) and has an eye for things like art direction. Lee Remick being knocked over a railing to the floor below by her son is an effect worthy of Hitchcock. If a film of his was bad, then usually the screenplay was to blame.

Peter Hyams is a comparable director who has his fans and whom I don't happen to like. If his films don't look ugly (2010, The Relic), they are too derivative of better films (Outland is like Alien without the alien). I remember liking Capricorn One, but on a re-watch I found it boring. I find most of his films rather dull, although A Sound of Thunder is so genuinely terrible that it qualifies as so-bad-it's-good.

Hyams’ works definitely have more of a unified aesthetic as a result of him being his own DP from the start of his career. His TV film Goodnight, My Love should be continually rediscovered a la Duel

[therewillbeblus]

The Goonies is also very much not just a kids' movie. The first ten minutes feature a trifecta of wildly inappropriate adult material that went over my head as a kid, but that I was able to appreciate as an adult. Not saying it's high brow or anything, tho

[beamish14]

The Goonies is also very much not just a kids' movie. The first ten minutes feature a trifecta of wildly inappropriate adult material that went over my head as a kid, but that I was able to appreciate as an adult. Not saying it's high brow or anything, tho

I’ve always loved Young Sherlock Holmes and Gremlins, but something about Columbus’ script just grated on me when I last tried to see it

[Mr Sausage]

I’ve never seen The Goonies, either. I was born the year it came out, but it was never in the rotation of kid’s films when I was growing up. I first heard about it as an adult, by which time I had little interest.

[knives]

Likewise to others seeing but only as an adult and finding nothing worthy of praise there.

[swo17]

The Goonies is also very much not just a kids' movie. The first ten minutes feature a trifecta of wildly inappropriate adult material that went over my head as a kid, but that I was able to appreciate as an adult. Not saying it's high brow or anything, tho

Which is when my parents promptly shut it off and banned me from watching it

[The Curious Sofa]

The Goonies is also very much not just a kids' movie. The first ten minutes feature a trifecta of wildly inappropriate adult material that went over my head as a kid, but that I was able to appreciate as an adult. Not saying it's high brow or anything, tho

Inappropriate adult material was a given in 80's kids movies.

[domino harvey]

I love the film and count it as my favorite revisit of a childhood fav as an adult, but I would never ever argue that there’s anything here for anyone who didn’t grow up with it. You have to be inoculated for it to hit right, I’m sorry

[therewillbeblus]

(perpetual feelings of alienation grow)

[Brian C]

I am the precise target age for The Goonies - I was 7 when it came out - and I remember liking it OK as a kid. Like Cloak & Dagger (the one with Dabney Colman), it was something that was popular at sleepover birthday parties, but I don't remember it ever being a real favorite of mine. Donner's Superman, was, though, and I still enjoy a lot of it today, especially Reeves and Kidder.

The Goonies is still somehow still in cable channels' rotations so I come across it now and again, but it doesn't seem very interesting to me now. From time to time, I'll watch a couple of minutes but I don't feel any nostalgic attachment to it, and after a few minutes I always feel like moving on.

Scrooged is an odd movie - I watched it this last Christmas season for the first time, and I had completely forgotten he directed it until I saw his name in the credits. "Huh," I thought, "he seems like the worst possible director for a Bill Murray comedy." And of course he was - it's one of the worst-directed movies I've ever seen, as if Donner had no idea he was making a comedy. Rare to see that kind of mismatch between director and the material, just a disaster.

Not mentioned yet in this thread, but I vaguely remember enjoying Donner's last movie, 16 Blocks, in a moderate, 7/10 sort of way. I only saw it once on its original release, almost 20 years ago now(!), so I won't vouch for it too hard, but I recall liking both Bruce Willis's and Mos Def's performances in the film despite a pretty standard-issue plot.

[therewillbeblus]

Scrooged is an odd movie - I watched it this last Christmas season for the first time, and I had completely forgotten he directed it until I saw his name in the credits. "Huh," I thought, "he seems like the worst possible director for a Bill Murray comedy." And of course he was - it's one of the worst-directed movies I've ever seen, as if Donner had no idea he was making a comedy. Rare to see that kind of mismatch between director and the material, just a disaster.

It's really frustrating. I watch it every Christmas because it's my partner's favorite holiday movie, but the comic timing and execution of gags are just so 'off', outside of the opening commercial scene and the closing moment which feels like Murray just ad-libbing everything and taking back the movie from Donner. Murray has been quite open about his irritation with how the film came out, and I do believe there was a great script, ad-libbed material, etc. with a lot of potential that just got left out from the final product.

[domino harvey]

Scrooged and the Toy were also in heavy rotation as a kid, but I never saw his Superman movie or the Omen. I enjoyed rewatching Maverick apart from the awful Danny Glover cameo joke, and speaking of I detest all of the Lethal Weapon movies and find them mean spirited (which I’d also use to describe Scrooged— just miserable and hollow negativity over and over). I really enjoyed Ladyhawke though, one of the better examples of the 80s fantasies. Conspiracy Theory wastes a good premise (what if a crazy conspiracy nut was right about something). Nothing else remaining unseen in his oeuvre seems likely to get watched by me (other than maybe the Omen)

[Beloved Aunt]

I don't know, I think Richard Donner doesn't even begin to compare to say Sydney Pollack or Herbert Ross, two journeyman directors who as far as as I can tell, also have no personality or signature--aside from their intelligence, maturity, and tastefulness, and their technical skill at putting a movie together (Sydney Pollack has a much better visual sense than Herbert Ross, I'll admit), qualities which they definitely don't share with Richard Donner. And lord knows both Pollack and Ross spent the majority of their careers wasting their intelligent craftsmanship on whatever totally uninteresting bland junk came down the pike (okay I haven't seen most of these more unpromising films, but at least in Ross's case, do I really even need to? Neil Simon is Neil Simon is Neil Simon, the vast majority of the time.) Herbert Ross, who as far as I can tell barely anyone talks or thinks about anymore, was actually very gifted at directing actors, and did very well at creating an atmospheric and lived-in milieu, and at evoking emotion, in a film like Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I think of these filmmakers, in my experience, as "good" directors, because every time I don't care for a film of theirs, it corresponds with some significant problem I have with the material, and because their bad films don't have anything really wrong or off-putting about them other than their material. Whenever either of these directors gets a piece of material that is even half-decent, they generally do a great job with it (maybe Pennies from Heaven isn't entirely wonderful in how its directed, although the dance numbers are all exquisite, but really the problem with that film is just that they had to collapse an entire mini-series into one feature film with a normal running time). In a way I think Donner does sort of have a signature--a negative, diminishing and trivializing signature, of a feeling of garbage-y general junkiness and rather junky, chewed-up visuals (leaving aside whatever people like Gilbert Taylor or Michael Chapman (oops) supplied to buff up his films a bit) and of ensuring, based on what I've read about the production of some of his films, that a project of his will end up taking the least ambitious, most mediocre path. The projects he consistently seeks out, or at least the films he ends up making, all are, or seem to be, infantile sub-Spielberg adventure stuff. Mean-spirited sounds right, although I haven't seen any of the Lethal Weapon films.

[therewillbeblus]

Ross' Play It Again, Sam is incredible, but I wouldn't give him any prime credit for it. Pollack's generally either bad or middle-of-the-road (Castle Keep, The Yakuza, and Three Days of the Condor are all solid if unexceptional thrillers), but They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a masterpiece.

[Brian C]

I think Donner's peers are more guys like Hyams (mentioned above) and John Badham, or on the next tier up, guys like Tony Scott and McTiernan - the '80s and '90s were boom times for studio action directors.

[beamish14]

Ross' Play It Again, Sam is incredible, but I wouldn't give him any prime credit for it. Pollack's generally either bad or middle-of-the-road (Castle Keep, The Yakuza, and Three Days of the Condor are all solid if unexceptional thrillers), but They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a masterpiece.

Ross deserves major kudos for Pennies From Heaven, too. I am with you on actively disliking Pollack, and there are so many elements of his films that I loathe, from David Rayfiel’s script work to Dave Grusin’s terrible scores

[beamish14]

I think Donner's peers are more guys like Hyams (mentioned above) and John Badham, or on the next tier up, guys like Tony Scott and McTiernan - the '80s and '90s were boom times for studio action directors.

George P. Cosmatos (who was arguably more faceless than any of them) and Renny Harlin, too

[Beloved Aunt]

Therewillbeblus, you should see Goodbye, Mr. Chips! It's pretty surprising how well-done and emotionally rewarding that film is, considering its not a completely optimal adaptation of the source novel, and considering that someone involved with this film made the dire decision to turn it into a..."musical", where the (pathetic excuse for) music (by Leslie Bricusse nuff said) is delivered via voice-over (lol). Peter O'Toole gives on of the best performances I've ever seen. And his equally tall, skinny, vampish, deracinated real-life wife Sian Phillips is in it too, and she's also wonderful! It may be a film that you have to get on a certain wavelength to fully appreciate, though. But for me, as a nice, cozy, sentimental, emotionally cathartic film, it certainly beats Driving Miss Daisy, which is sort of nakedly manipulative and a bit smarmy and emotionally unrewarding in comparison. I don't know, I do recommend it highly, although it may well not be for everyone.

[Beloved Aunt]

Dave Grusin’s terrible scores

haha there are actually three Dave Grusin scores that I really like, and one of them is his jazz piano stuff for The Firm (which otherwise totally sucks, I'm not denying that for a nanosecond).