Before watching the movie:
I mainly know of this movie because it was apparently the biggest thing in Wil Wheaton’s child acting career besides Star Trek, and as I keep up with his internet presence, it comes up a lot. I only know the broadest strokes of the plot, that there’s a group of boys who have some kind of adventure that leaves them all changed, like The Goonies, though more mundane. Everything else I think I know comes from the Simpsons episode that I think is based on this.
I’m not normally drawn to coming of age films, as I’m neither young enough to appreciate them as a child nor old enough to absorb the nostalgia of childhood adventure. Indeed, I’m from after the era where children commonly wandered freely outside of school to make lasting friends and life-changing discoveries, so this kind of film is somewhat foreign to me. But I have the impression that it’s a classic from the mid-80s, even if it doesn’t have as strong or visible a cult following as many others.
Yesterday's Movies 