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Movies Filmed in Astoria
| The Goonies |
The Goonies is a 1985 adventure-comedy film directed by Richard Donner. The screenplay was written by Chris Columbus from a story by executive producer Steven Spielberg. A band of kids from the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon, hoping to save their homes from demolition, go on an adventure to find the buried treasure of One-Eyed Willy, a legendary 17th-century pirate. |
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| Short Circuit |
Number 5 is one of five prototype robots proposed for use by the U.S. military, although the scientists mainly responsible for creating them, Newton Graham Crosby, Ph.D. (Steve Guttenberg) and his partner Ben Jabituya (Fisher Stevens), are more interested in peaceful uses of their artificial intelligence, like playing musical instruments. A demonstration is under way in the grounds of the developer's company, Nova Laboratories, in Damon, Washington. After a lightning storm ends the presentation of the prototypes, a power surge hits Number 5 while it is recharging and alters its program, causing a malfunction. An associated accident causes it to be taken off company grounds and it wanders away, unable to communicate and not knowing where it is.
Number 5 finds itself at the home of animal-lover Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) in Astoria, Oregon, who initially thinks the robot is an extraterrestrial visitor, but then determines that the robot was built by Nova. After she helps it satisfy its cravings for "input" (due to its malfunction), and explains the nature of life and death to it, Stephanie and the robot realize the power surge has brought the robot to life; the robot subsequently gains a respect for life, rejecting the destructive nature of its military programming, as well as a fear of the disassembly that awaits it back at Nova, believing it to be akin to death. |
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| The Black Stallion |
 Alec Ramsey is aboard the steamer Drake off the coast of North Africa, where he sees a wild black stallion being forced into a makeshift stable and heavily restrained by ropes leading to his halter. Captivated by the horse, Alec later sneaks to the horse to feed him some sugar cubes, but he is caught by the horse's supposed owner, who tells him in Arabic to stay away from Shetan. Later that night, Alec is thrown out of his bunk; the ship has started to capsize. In the chaos, Alec grabs his knife and makes his way to the black stallion and manages to free him. The stallion then jumps into the sea. Alec himself is thrown overboard by the waves. In the water, he swims toward the stallion and managed to grab hold of the ropes of the stallion's restraints.
Alec wakes on the shore of a deserted island and starts to explore. He finds the stallion caught in his restraints with the ropes stuck between the rocks. With his knife, Alec manages to free the stallion once again and the stallion runs away. Alec discovers means to survive by catching fish and seaweed. As Alec suddenly faces a cobra eye to eye, the Black comes to the rescue and kills the snake, only to run off again. One day, a fishing ship arrives, rescuing both Alec and the stallion.
Back home, Alec is given a hero's welcome. The Black has a temporary home in Alec's back yard, but a garbage man not knowing that there is a wild horse in the back yard is chased by the Black, who races off down the street after being spooked by a passing car. Alec finds the stallion in the barn of Henry Dailey, a retired racehorse jockey, who apparently spent all night catching the Black. Alec arranges for the Black to stay at the barn.
When Alec wonders how fast the Black is, Alec and Henry decide to train the Black for the racetrack, while Henry teaches Alec how to be a jockey. The Black surprises Henry with his speed. Henry immediately starts plotting a plan to get the Black into the match race between the country's current two champions. |
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| Kindergarten Cop |
The taciturn, stubborn, autocratic, violent Police Detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has pursued drug dealer Cullen Crisp for years. He finally arrests Crisp for murder, but is unable to convict him due to the refusal of a witness named Cindy to identify the killer. After Kimble psychologically humbles Cindy, Crisp is identified in a police line-up. Kimble, accompanied by Detective Phoebe O'Hara, is then ordered to go undercover in Astoria, Oregon, to find Crisp's ex-wife Rachel and their son, who are hiding from him, and offer her a deal to testify against Cullen. Since their appearance is not known to them, O'Hara is to act as the substitute teacher of the son's kindergarten class at Astoria Elementary School while Kimble has to track down the identity of the mother, who is believed to have stolen money from Crisp.
Detective John Kimble and O'Hara in the classroom (after she has recovered)
Unfortunately, O'Hara, who is hypoglycemic, gets a terrible case of the stomach flu and falls ill at the last moment. Kimble therefore takes the teacher's job, much to the suspicion of the school principal, Miss Schlowski (Linda Hunt). Despite having no teaching experience — and thus initially collapsing beneath the stress—Kimble soon adapts progressively to his new status. |
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| Free Willy |
The film begins with a pod of Orcas swimming near the coastline of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, this family of Orca is tracked down by a large group of whalers, and a single orca (Keiko) gets caught in their net. Unable to save him, his family leaves him behind, and he is taken away to a local amusement park.
Sometime later Jesse (Jason James Richter), a young boy who has been on the run since he was abandoned by his mother six years before, gets caught by The Portland Police Department for vandalizing a theme park along with a gang of three other abandoned kids (who did not get caught). However, his social worker Dwight (Mykelti Williamson) helps him avoid legal consequences, provided he cleans up his mess at the park. While there, Jesse befriends the Orca with a collapsed dorsal fin, named Willy by the park owners, and teaches him behaviors, something the trainer, Rae Lindley (Lori Petty), had failed to do. Over time, Jesse and Willy become the best of friends, and Jesse earns a long-term job at the marina while learning to live with his new and supportive foster parents, Glen (Michael Madsen) and Annie Greenwood (Jayne Atkinson). |
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Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home
Jesse, the boy who freed Willy the orca two years ago, has been adopted by his foster parents. They have come to the San Juan Island Environmental Institute from which they will embark toward Willy's new habitat. Before they leave town, however, Jesse's counselor informs him that his birth mother, who abandoned him eight years before, has died in New York City. To add to his dismay, Jesse has to contend with the sudden presence of his overly talkative and mischievous younger half-brother, Elvis (Francis Capra), who is a virtual stranger to him. Elvis is prone to telling lies and easily gets on Jesse's nerves. He is invited on their long camping trip so that he and Jesse might get to know one another.
On this trip, Jesse reunites with his old Native American friend Randolph, a shaman, and quickly becomes smitten by Randolph's goddaughter, Nadine. As the youngsters grow closer, Jesse helps Nadine befriend Willy and his whale siblings, Luna and Little Spot.
As they continue to enjoy their camping trip, an oil tanker runs aground and spills oil into the ocean, trapping the three young whales in a small cove. When word gets out that the whales are trapped and Luna is dying from the oil in her lungs, the president of the oil company arrives with a great plan to move the whales into captivity where they can recover from their injuries. His real plan, however, is to sell the whales to marine mammal parks and have them perform in shows. |
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| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III |
Japan 1603, a masked man is seen fighting four samurai on horseback. The samurai eventually defeat the masked man by knocking his katana sword out of his hand and capture him. As the samurai ride off with the man he yells "Mitsu!" just as a mysterious woman emerges from the underbrush. As the samurai ride off with the man one of them takes his sword which had gotten jabbed in a tree.
Fast forward to present day Manhattan (1993). As the samurai on horse back takes the sword the scene switches to a speeding subway train. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are dancing the ZZ Top and each shows his fighting style, in the abandoned subway station which they have made their home. As the dance ends, Raphael throws a sai into the speaker, frustrated that no one appreciates the Turtles or sees what they do. In the twentieth century, April is looking at the scepter when it begins to emit light and a small device inside its lamp-like crown begins to spin. She is then sent to Kenshin's time and place, and he to hers, exchanging clothes. Upon arrival, April is captured by the Daimyo's soldiers. Lord Norinaga, blaming her for Kenshin's disappearance, imprisons her.
The Turtles become friends with Kenshin and decide to travel back in time to retrieve April. |
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| Benji the Hunted |
Benji has become stranded on a remote island after a boating accident. He finds himself struggling to survive in the wilderness, avoiding close encounters with a wolf, a bear, and a territorial female cougar with her cub.
After becoming stranded, Benji observes a female cougar gunned down by a hunter. Benji attempts to comfort the dying animal, but he is chased away by the hunter, who then retrieves the dead cat and marches off with it draped over his shoulders. Benji eventually encounters four orphaned cougar cubs, presumably belonging to the killed cougar, and he attempts to shield them from predation. A black timber wolf, pursuing the cubs, is one of the main highlights of the film. In one of the film's more tragic scenes, one of the cubs is carried off by an eagle.
Benji later tries to catch up with the female cougar he encountered earlier with the intention of leaving the three remaining cubs in her care. Having accomplished this, he is then seen by his master, who flies overhead in a helicopter while searching for Benji. |
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The Ring
The film focuses on a mysterious cursed videotape which contains a seemingly random series of disturbing, grainy, black and white images. After watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call in which a voice condemns the viewer to death in exactly seven days.
As the film opens, two teenage girls Katie Embry (Amber Tamblyn) and Rebecca 'Becca' Kotler (Rachael Bella) discuss the supposedly cursed tape. Katie reveals that, seven days before, she went to a cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn with friends, where she viewed the video tape. After a series of strange occurrences, involving a television in the house turning itself on, Katie is mysteriously killed while Becca watches, causing her to be institutionalized in a mental hospital.
Katie's aunt, Rachel (Naomi Watts), is a journalist living in Seattle. At Katie's funeral, Rachel's sister discusses the death of her daughter with Rachel and says, "I saw her face", then an extremely disturbing image of the girl in a closet is flashed for a few seconds. Rachel's sister also asks her to investigate her daughter's death. Her investigation leads her to the cabin where Katie watched the tape. She finds and watches the tape; the phone rings, and she hears a child's voice say "Seven days." |
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The Ring Two
The sequel takes place approximately six months after the events of the first movie. Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son Aidan (David Dorfman) have moved from Seattle to the quiet coastal community of Astoria, Oregon. Rachel begins a new job at the Daily Astorian, a local newspaper, working for Max Rourke (Simon Baker). Before long, there is news of a teenage homicide in town. Rachel investigates, finding the dead boy's face shows a deformed expression of horror just like the previous victims of Samara Morgan's cursed tape. Upon finding the boy's corpse, she also has a vision of Samara grabbing her and declaring "I found you." After that she goes to the police station in order to talk to the girl who witnessed the boy's death and after persuading the girl to tell her she finds out where the tape is. She takes the tape deep into the woods and burns it.
Back at home, Aidan starts to develop hypothermia, and his body is suddenly covered with bruises. His behavior grows increasingly odd and distant, and while driving one day, the car carrying Aidan and Rachel is repeatedly attacked by deer, nearly killing them. Strange occurrences within their house (including visions of Samara, a burn mark in the wall which resembles the tree from the cursed video, and seeming poltergeist activity) frighten Rachel, leading her and Aidan to flee.
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Into the Wild
Into the Wild recounts the life of Christopher McCandless, a real-life National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS)|student-athlete at Emory University, as told by his sympathetic sister. In response to his parents, whom McCandless perceives as materialistic, manipulative, and domineering, McCandless destroys all of his credit cards and identification documents, donates $24,000 (nearly his entire savings) to Oxfam, and sets out on a off-road|cross-country drive in his well-used but reliable Datsun towards his ultimate goal: to travel alone to Alaska and experience its nature firsthand. Along the way, he abandons his automobile in the course of a flash flood, to hitchhike after burning the remainder of his dwindling cash supply. He acquires a Perception Sundance 12 open-water kayak and goes down the Colorado River, into Mexico, and later returns to America via freight train to Los Angeles. Taking a circuitous route, he encounters many unconventional individuals along the way, such as a group of hippies, a farm owner (Vince Vaughn), and a lonely leather worker (Hal Holbrook) who offers to adopt and be a grandfather to McCandless. McCandless purposefully trudges onward to his final destination, arriving in the wilds of Alaska nearly two years after his initial departure. He starts living in a "Magic Bus", used as a shelter for moose hunters. McCandless finds joy in living off the land and begins to write a book of his adventures. As the spring thaw arrives and he seeks to return from the wild, McCandless is cut off from civilization by the torrents of a swelled river (one of his few admitted fears is of water). As his food supply of small game dwindles, he resorts to eating indigenous plants. Although he consults a book that he brought along in order to identify edible plants in the wild, he confuses an edible and a poisonous variety, which shuts down his digestive system and causes him to starve to death. In his final hours, he continues to document his demise in a painful and dramatic denouement. |
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