Hey guys! Hope your Thursday has treated you well. I don't have a lot to say today or any announcements, so let's just get into the review!
Stand By Me is another movie I'm not going to go into detail with the plot because the reward for this movie is the journey the characters take. The story is simple. Watching these characters grow is interesting. The movie is set in 1959 and involves four friends (played by Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell) who go on a journey through the woods to see a dead body. Wheaton has recently lost his older brother (played wonderfully in flashbacks by the incredible John Cusack). He wants to be a writer, but his parents barely acknowledged him before his brother died, and now not at all afterward. Phoenix comes from a family of delinquents. Feldman is obsessed with the military, since his dad was a WWII vet, even though he's locked in a mental hospital. O'Connell's older brother is part of a gang, led by Kiefer Sutherland.
On their journey, they confront their own personal traumas and grow from boys to young men. Especially Wheaton's character, the story essentially focuses on him. Again, as much as I want to talk about individual scenes with you guys, this is a movie you need to see for yourselves. If you have seen it, message me so we can talk about it.
The movie is bookended by Richard Dreyfuss, playing an older version of Wheaton's character, reflecting on his childhood. Now he's an adult, a successful author, and has a son of his own. And he relates to his son through his own past experiences.
Stand By Me was given a limited release on August 8, 1986, and a wide release on August 22. It was a big hit, making over $52 million on a budget of $8 million. The movie is based on a Stephen King novella "The Body." King said, at the time, that it was the best film adaptation of his work that had been done. There was even a story change near the end that King loved. In the novella, Phoenix's character picks up the gun, but it's Wheaton's character in the movie. From a storytelling standpoint, that makes perfect sense, since this is ultimately Wheaton's story. King loved the change, he said it made much more sense than what he wrote. He was so enamored with Reiner and Stand By Me that, a few years later, he made it clear when it came time to sell the film rights to Misery, that Reiner had to produce or direct it, which he did both. But that's another movie for another time. Personally, I enjoy adaptations of King's supernatural horror work, but with a couple of exceptions (1976's Carrie and 1980's The Shining), I think the best adaptations are the ones where the story is grounded in reality. Stand By Me, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile are all cinema classics. You can hear Reiner talking about the Stephen King stuff, as well as talking about how the movie reflected his relationship with his own father, in an interview with EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG here.
Child actors usually aren't that impressive, but honestly, in the mid-80s you couldn't get much better than Wheaton, Phoenix, Feldman, and O'Connell in a movie starring four pre-teen boys. Honestly, I was kinda blown away by Wheaton in this. I've only seen him in Star Trek: The Next Generation and, to be blunt, he's not very good in that. And that's not his fault, he's a kid, and they weren't pulling compelling performances out of him. And to be even more honest, except for maybe Patrick Stewart, most of the acting on Star Trek TNG (especially the early seasons) isn't anything to write home about. But it's good to see Wheaton in something that old where he gives an amazing performance. The chemistry the four boys have, especially Wheaton and Phoenix, feels real. Reiner had the four boys play theater improv games together for two weeks to create a bond between themselves. And it shows. You can get a sense of this in a 1986 Entertainment Tonight interview with three of the boys. I also recommend this interview with O'Connell in 2019, it's pretty entertaining. In particular, he mentions being called "hyper-active" when he was a child, which is the same thing I was called by adults when I was a kid. I hadn't thought of that phrase in thirty years.
I don't care what the official "behind-the-scene" story is, I'm convinced that Feldman only smoke real ciggies.
Image by Columbia Pictures via Gunaxin
Filming of Stand By Me took place in Oregon and parts of Northern California. The movie itself is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, which threw me off at first. Castle Rock is a town used in many Stephen King stories and adaptations, but it's generally set in Maine. Much of the filming took place in Brownsville, Oregon, and the town has adopted July 23rd as Stand By Me Day. They have held an annual celebration since 2007.
The soundtrack for the movie is filled with period-appropriate rock and roll, centered by the title track, "Stand By Me" recorded by Ben E. King. The song was a #4 hit in 1961 and, due to the success of the movie, reentered and hit #9 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986.
The movie's scriptwriters, Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It remains one of the most beloved movies to come out of the 80s, with 1991's Boyz n the Hood and 1995's Now and Then paying homage to it.
Final Thoughts
Just in case you couldn't tell from me gushing about this movie through the review, I really loved it. I can't find much to nitpick. It's a great adaptation of Stephen King's novella and a great coming-of-age film itself. The acting is great, the production is fantastic, the music is catchy, and the dialogue is memorable. It's funny, it's powerful, it's meaningful. I honestly can't even think of anything to nitpick. Watch this movie. You won't regret it.
That's what I thought, anyway. Go to JustWatch and see where it's streaming. And tell me what you think, if you do watch it or have seen it, I'd love to hear your opinion.
"What if you could travel to parallel worlds? The same year, the same Earth, only different dimensions.... My friends and I found the gateway. Now the problem is... finding a way back home."
Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB
Next time, I finally complete my destiny and finish the Troll Quadrilogy. We're gonna talk about the OTHER Troll 3 (aka The Crawlers aka Creepers aka Contamination .7). Four Troll movies down. Do we finally get a legit good movie? Or is this another stinker? Come back next time to find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment