The Goonies (1985) is, hands down, one of my favorite movies of all time. I love it because of the sentimental factor — growing up in the ’80s, it played a huge part in my life — but also because it’s just a damn good movie. I’ve seen it hundreds of times now and it’s never tiresome, never a chore to finish watching. And unlike me, it never gets old.

As I’ve said before, I keep a mental list of movies I want to write about for this column but haven’t for one reason or another. Most of the time it’s because I haven’t yet been able to find all the songs on an out-of-print soundtrack album.

I decided to write about The Goonies this week not because its soundtrack is a rarity — at least not anymore, since Sony rereleased it last year (the score, on the other hand, is more difficult to find) — but because it’s a fun movie that I know a lot of you dig. It’s not an obscure ’80s film that only the most die-hard film geek — or kids whose parents stole cable, allowing them to watch all kinds of random movies on HBO and Skinemax when they should’ve been outside playing — would’ve seen back then. It’s a well-loved, iconic film that I’m pretty sure more people from my generation have seen than haven’t.

I swear I’m not being lazy. But self-indulgent? Okay, maybe a little.

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I first heard about The Matchmaker (1997) during an HBO comedy special Janeane Garofalo did not long after she’d finished filming it. She was talking about her time in Ireland during production, and I was so entertained by her stories that I made a mental note to seek out the movie when it was released. I never managed to spot it in theaters — it might not have even been released in my city — but I did find it at my local Blockbuster after it came out on video. I rented it, and I was pleasantly surprised, because it’s a pretty damn good movie.

I’ve always been a fan of Garofalo, but sometimes she misses the mark in her film roles. If you watch her stand-up, she’ll be the first to make fun of her performances in films like The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996), but I think The Matchmaker is one she can be proud of. The role is perfect for her, and the chemistry between her and the rest of the cast, which includes Denis Leary, Milo O’Shea, Jay O. Sanders, David O’Hara, and Saffron Burrows, is fantastic. As the tagline says, it’s “a comedy for the incurably unromantic,” which is something I definitely identify with.

Garofalo plays Marcy, an assistant to an American senator from Boston (Sanders) who’s having major problems with his reelection campaign. He sends her to Ireland to seek out his kin, hoping he can rope in the Irish-American vote and save the campaign.

When Marcy arrives in the small village of Ballinagra, she finds herself in the middle of a matchmaking festival, much to her chagrin. Of course, since she’s a cute, young, single American, she immediately attracts the attention of not only a slew of local bachelors but also two local matchmakers, who make a bet as to who can fix her up with Sean (O’Hara), a journalist-turned-bartender at a popular local inn. As Marcy struggles to track down just one of the senator’s relatives, she finds herself becoming charmed by the Irish town and its residents — and falling in love with Sean.

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