Stand by Me
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Stand By Me
Stand by Me was based off the novella, “The Body,” by Stephen King. Screenplay was by, Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans. And directed by Rob Reiner. It was made in 1986 by Columbia Pictures.
It’s a coming of age movie, about an adult male who is reminiscing about a time in his childhood around the age of 11, 12 years old, in the year 1959 where him and his three friends go off and try and find a dead body of a missing boy, to try and make a name of themselves and become the town’s heroes. The adult who is over narrating is Gordie. Gordie as a young boy is played by Wil Wheaton. Who four months previously to him and his friends going on this adventure, his older brother dies in a car accident. His father is always comparing him to his older brother wishing that he was more like him. His brother played football, and Gordie just wants to be a writer. His best friend back then was Chris played by River Phoenix. He comes from a bad family and everyone knows that he is going to turn out bad even he agrees with them. He is also the leader of the group. They hang out with a boy named Teddy played by Corey Feldman. Who in there eyes is one of the weirdest guys they’ve ever come across. His father went nuts all of a sudden and one time held Teddy’s ear to a stove and almost burned it off. The last boy in there groups was a boy named Vern played by Jerry O’Connell. He was the chicken, the most scared out of the group, always questioning if what they we’re doing was right. Along the two day trek to find the dead boy there cussing, smoking, and putting down each other’s mothers whenever they get the chance. Trying to make the best out of the situation there getting themselves into. They run into the town hoodlums, and that’s when there friendships gets put to the test.
The movie runs in chronological order, there are however a few flashbacks in the film. The first one was when Vern is telling them that he overheard his brother and friend talking about the dead boy they found, and how they made a pack not to tell anyone. All the other flashbacks were when Gordie was remembering some of the times of his brother before he died.
The acting part was portrayed very well by all four boys. I know that they were all around the age that they were suppose to be in the movie. And trying to get young boys to cry when needed to on cue must not have been that easy, but they pulled it off. And back then having that young of boys cussing wasn’t as normal as it is today. Jerry O’ Connell (who played Vern) was talking about all the cussing in the movie to an interviewer said, “That he couldn’t believe that he was even allowed to cuss that much in the movie.”
Since this film was made in the 80’s all boy’s costumes along with everyone else who played in the film seemed to fit around that time period. The boys’ all wore t-shirts with jeans and or khakis, where they all had them rolled up right above there ankles. They also all looked a little dirty looking, for in that time with all the dirt roads they had, and them being young playful boys, were suppose to look. There were times when Gordie was very clean and fresh looking, those happened to be the times when he was in his flashbacks, with his brother and or family indoors, which would be expected of his parents.
The boys start off in their hometown which had around 1,200 people. It looked like a small little town should be back then. With the dirt roads, all of the buildings put side by side all connected by a sidewalk. They end up along some train tracks where at first it’s open land with rolling hills of grass, then the further they go there in the woods, with tress surrounding them. All the sets and settings seem to be accurate with the time period.
There were however some minor things that were inaccurate that was shown in the film. There was a baseball card in Gordie’s brother’s room that was not available until after the film was set. There were some 1980’s cars that were shown in the junkyard scene. In the scene where Gordie goes to get food for everybody, there is some little things that weren’t available back then, the wax paper that the store owner pulls out to wrap the meat in has a 1980’s logo on it, and a bottle of Soft Soap that wasn’t available as well back then. A couple of other little stuff