Goonies 40th Anniversary Screening

Last night I made my way to Long Island for a 40th anniversary screening of The Goonies along with a Q&A with Corey Feldman and Kerri Green.  What I didn’t anticipate was that Patchogue was celebrating a belated St Patrick’s day and the area around the venue was jam packed with people.  Fortunately I was able to find a parking spot, make my way inside, pick up my M&G wristband and get to my seat JUST as the lights went out and the movie started.  This was my first time seeing the movie on a big screen (it was in theaters when I was only 1 year old) and my first time seeing it in its entirety since I had been to the filming locations in both Astoria, OR and on the WB Studios lot in Los Angeles.

After the movie, Corey and Kerri came out to talk about their time filming the movie, how they auditioned, what scenes were deleted.  There was apparently a LOT more to the movie that was cut – Corey said that the original movie was about 7 hours long.  I knew there was an octopus scene because when I first started watching the movie on TV (maybe Disney channel?) the octopus scene WAS included.  I did not know there was supposed to be gorillas.  Aside from the octopus, none of the other stories they told I had heard before, so it was a very informative Q&A!

Once the Q&A was over, it was time for the M&G, I was taken through an alternate pathway to take a lift to get to the backstage area as there were a lot of stairs.  Unfortunately it had started to rain and we had to go outside for a bit. I was the second to go through and meet them, it was pretty quick, hellos and thank yous, Corey seemed impressed with my ability to maneuver my walker backwards to get in place next to him.  The venue took the photo and then I was back in my car by 10:30 for my 2 hour drive back home to CT – and of course it poured rain the whole way back.

I have now met 4 of the 7 Goonies – I am still holding out hope that I’ll be able to meet the other 3 one of these days!