VHS

I have never had much luck with VCR repair. If you are stuck with a dead Betamax deck then I can't do anything for you but send you over to the Lancia forums. They have been keeping betas alive despite the odds for decades. Mostly coupes though. If you have a dead VHS that you wanted to revive for the sole purpose of screening 'The Goonies' then I may have a suggestion. Get Netflix for a month. Watch 'Super8'. Steven Spielberg, executive producer to both, probably gets paid more through Netflix than through your unheralded cassette march. Be kind to the man. Don't rewind.

I have small children. I don't get out much. I only saw 'Super8' two days ago. Worse, I didn't immediately recognize the 1979-era scene as vintage. J. J. Abrams may have been content to merely direct franchise reboots back in the (most recent) Star Trek era. He has since rebooted himself as a producer of that signature line of modern cinema. Sinofsky may now be deep into a stealth-mode startup. He should be comforted in his dotage by the now positive connotations of  'reboot'.

A reboot in a tricky thing. The 'omnishambles' (total sop to my UK readers) Star Trek approach to this is to alter the timeline and advance a new story. Pirate Willie was above all that and his Goonie followers are as well. Better to just rename the whole thing and backdate it by six years as well. In the present political climate, pirates are probably best described as (illegal) aliens anyway. Storyline transformation complete!

Actually, there is 5% more storyline unique to the modern retelling. The entire gimmick of Goonies The Younger is that our intrepid kids capture something on film they were never supposed to see. I must admit that I'm a sucker for that gimmick. I loved it in 'Blow Out'. It works less well when the footage is of an alien that is about to make his destructive presence known to the entire town, film or no film.

'Super8' sets the '79 vibe not just with a headstone for the slower viewers but also with subtle AM radio references to TMI. Apple plays along in their subtle way by autocorrecting 'or no' above into ORNL. Awesome.

Ditch the deck. Have one last Goonies weekend. Screen 'Super8'. It even has a fat kid.

UPDATE: I didn't mean to so completely reboot Mike Ryan's interview-style shtick so completely so soon. The entire extended Ryan clan has had a tough week. First Paul with last Tuesday's election, then Jack and his beloved CIA with the recent Petraeus flap. Now Mike with my failure to adequately google before blogging.