Mad Atoms

The most hated, despised sentence I hear at least once a month, each word building in both rage and disbelief: “You’ve never seen The Goonies?!?” No. Believe it or not, I have never seen the pre-teen, Spielberg-produced adventure film that, turns out, is as much a cornerstone of an eighties childhood as learning to moonwalk or playing your first cassette tape in your brand new walkman. Somehow the topic keeps coming up in conversations, and for some insane reason I continue bringing up this little personal factoid about myself. NO. I HAVEN’T SEEN IT. SO BACK OFF.

People find it ridiculous that I have lived a pretty decent life without the inclusion of a highly-beloved movie like The Goonies in my film collection, as though I should be peddling on the street in search of Sloth and Chunk quotes. It’s not that I voluntarily avoided the film. I just never got around to watching it, and then I grew up and had better things to watch. “Better,” of course, meaning “R-rated.”

I’m going to save all of you some time. I’ve also never seen Top Gun, Gladiator, Friday the 13th or any of its sequels.

None of the Evil Dead movies. And not one James Bond movie, from Sean Connery up to and including Daniel Craig. And you know what? Instead of watching any of those films, I’ll probably watch The Big Lebowski at least five hundred more times before I die. And I’m okay with that. So stop incredulously chastising me for it, asshole.

I recently dated a guy and it came to that point in our relationship where we learned the important things about each other: I found out about his not-so-typical fetish, and he found out that I had never seen Labyrinth. We both were a little taken aback, but while I reacted with polite acceptance, he bought me a three-box set of Jim Henson sci-fi films and sat me down to watch an extremely young Jennifer Connolly look wide-eyed at David Bowie’s inappropriately displayed and tightly packaged, uh, package.

As I assumed would happen, I got nothing out of it (besides an eyeful of Bowie crotch).

Labyrinth is the type of movie, much like The Goonies, that is put on a pedestal mostly due to its nostalgia factor. I have no emotional attachment to the Star Wars trilogy or The Princess Bride, both which I first viewed in my late teens. In fact, why do I even need to waste my time watching three Star Wars movies when I can just rent Spaceballs? I’m not missing anything important in those films that I haven’t already picked up from references on The Simpsons.

My beau was disappointed that I couldn’t recognize the genius of Jim Henson. But I in turn was disappointed about his inability to commit, so I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be watching The Dark Crystal anytime soon, either.