Picks and Pans Review: '80s Flashback: The Goonies Turns 25

Pirate treasure! Opera-singing mobsters! The Truffle Shuffle! We catch up with stars of the cult classic as it marks a milestone anniversary.

Break out the Baby Ruths! The Goonies’ band of treasure-hunting misfits who captivated ’80s kids still inspire devotion. “It’s apple pie-clean fun,” says director Richard Donner, “with these wonderfully offbeat kids.”

The brainchild of Steven Spielberg, the film (an anniversary collector’s edition DVD is due Nov. 2) featured young stars-to-be including Sean Astin, Josh Brolin and Corey Feldman. For Feldman, 38, who’s now touring with his band Truth Movement, “not a day passes that someone doesn’t bring up Goonies.”

The waterlogged shoot was “chaos” at times, says costar Kerri Green, 43, now a stay-at-home mom of two. “Seven precocious, attention-loving kids, one camera. It was madness.” The kids also grew up on-set: Donner gave gym equipment to Cohen, who played chubby Chunk, after noticing his discomfort with his weight; the director also helped Feldman during his later struggles with drug addiction. “I’ve never had kids, but at that moment they were mine,” Donner says. Most of all, the movie’s embrace-your-eccentricities message continues to resonate. Says Feldman: “I still feel like a big Goonie.”

WHERE’S CHUNK?

A successful (and svelte!) L.A. entertainment lawyer, Cohen, 35, says clients “get a kick out of” his Goonies past.

R.I.P., SLOTH

Ex-NFL star John Matuszak, who played a gentle giant, died in ’89 of heart failure at 38. “He loved those kids,” says Donner.

BEFORE JOSH WAS FAMOUS

“The boys wanted to be him; the girls loved him,” Green says of Brolin, who played Astin’s hunky big brother.

Updated by Oliver Jones,

Alexis Chiu,

and Mia McNiece