A classic film, a tale of friendship, loss, growing up, and it answers the question, just how far can you get with that Connie Palermo chick? For some, it's the last real taste of innocence and the first real taste of life, but for everyone, it's the time that memories are made of. This week on King Me, stand by me. King Me!
Maybe, that was a little lackluster, my intro, huh? You know why? Because that's a terrible tagline. It's not a great tagline.
It threw me off my game. Yeah, the tagline is, it's too long. It feels user submitted, in my opinion. Anyway, welcome to King Me, I'm Dan Geg, we already.
I'm Rob Avon. And this week we're doing, stand by me, 1986, directed by Rob Reiner. I'm starring Quill Huiten, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland. What a stacked cast this is.
Yeah. I mean, I think it goes without, oh, Richard Dreyfus isn't it too, I guess, worth mentioning. And John Kusek. Yeah, wow, it goes on and on.
Oh man, and Popeye the dog. Popeye the dog. I was gonna wait to bring up Popeye, but how can you? He's such a sweet, sweet little boy.
Anyway, yeah, if you haven't guessed by now, Popeye the dog plays. Chopper. Jerry O'Connell's brother. No, I'm not.
Is that his name? No, Jerry O'Connell's brother is, not Charlie, I don't know. It's one of those goons. It's Billy.
Billy. He plays Billy. Good enough. And then you got eyeball chambers.
That's right, that's right. Fantastic. Yeah, Popeye plays the junk yard dog Chopper. And does he ever?
Yeah, Chopper. It's like, please, Chopper, Chopper? I feel like unconsciously, the way I did that intro was like a bad Richard Dreyfus voiceover impression. Yeah, you were, you were honing, not honing.
What am I, what's the word? You were channeling Dreyfus as the narrator. Man, if we took even 30 seconds to prepare before we started recording this, we really could have knocked that intro out of the park. But here we are, well within the confines of the park.
So, how do we start talking about a movie we both love? How do we do it with the shining? So, right, that's the shining. They're on the same calendar.
Yeah, this is the same calendar. Rob Reiner, yeah. Who are my guys, Kubrick Reiner? Yeah.
Yeah, this week's gonna be a little bit tougher because we really like this movie. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, there have been a few love fests.
The problem is that unlike the other ones, this one's not really goofy. Yeah, that's what I mean. I get strong element of goofiness. There's some weaker scenes, but I don't think anything is out and out silly.
Yeah, like my, I think we both really likes Carrie, but we could have done with that. There's some fire hose in Jesus Christ. That fucking fire hose in that improvised tuxedo scene. Trash, under trash, contemptible trash.
Yeah, like my pick for, oh, that hurts my parts this week. Yeah. Didn't even really hurt my parts. Yeah, I was really struggling.
I was hard pressed to have my parts are watching this movie. Yeah. That's all very suggestive. Speaking of suggestive, there's a thing that happens in the pie eating contest scene that I had never noticed before.
We, before I watched it for this. Oh. A very upsetting visual thing. It's subtle.
Okay. So you might not have caught it with your undisterning eye. Yeah. But I'm a careful viewer of film, a student of film, even.
Right. The films of Kubrick and Reiner. Well, wait a sec, let's talk about Rob Reiner for just a second here, because in the 80s, Rob Reiner was just like, he was turning him out. He only ate.
Oh my God. What happened? I don't know. You look on his IMDB page and it's like, 1984, he has spinal tap.
Then 85, he puts out the sure thing, which isn't good. It's not like a good movie, but it's like teenage, like, whatever. And then it's like, 86, stand by me. 87, Princess Bride.
Like classic film. Holy shit, man. I mean, and really the Princess Bride is like, one of my favorites. It's one of my favorites.
It makes Billy Crystal redeemable. What, people like? If Billy Crystal, if, this is a big if Billy Crystal gets into heaven. It's totally on the strength of the Princess Bride, which I feel like they probably had to edit around him, frankly, if I'm being real.
Yeah, I will quote that movie to the dad. It is the best. Yeah, for me, the only line I really quote is life is pain, Princess, before I snuff out my enemies. Who were incidentally all women?
No, Jesus. Yeah, I know. This is very dark, right? Yeah, but you know this movie about four kids with abusive parents who get so dark.
Yeah, man. The only one who isn't is fucking Vern. You can tell he's just too pure. Yeah, he's just a good boy.
Also, I'm very unsatisfied with the adult life that they give Vern at the end of this movie. Let's set the movie on kids people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I promise the movie, it's a buildings roman, a coming of age tale about four friends in Oregon, the main of the West Coast.
It's Castle Rock, Oregon. It's such bullshit. I don't, I bet you that has to be Robert Reiner being like, we're not fucking doing it in a name. Is that the difference?
Like, is that what makes something good? You just take it out of Maine? Is Maine just a suck? Yeah, I think that's probably it, right?
It must be. The story of four friends in Oregon. This is set in the 50s. 1959.
1959, yes. The summer of love. Between 12-year-old boys. They love each other so much.
They really do. Will and River, they love each other so fucking much. Yeah, man. That's a weird thing I don't think about with Will Wheaton, because I just think of him as like, you know in episode six of Star Wars, as if there's another, where job is that little bird guy that laughs.
That's the relationship I feel like Chris Hardwick and Will Wheaton have respectively. Wow, it's delicious from it. Yeah, that's his name. Will Wheaton is a salacious cropping.
He's Chris Hardwick. Yeah. Or maybe he's a Leia. All right, a bikini Leia.
Anyway, point being, I don't think of Will Wheaton as like this guy who knew River Phoenix. Yeah. It's a weird lens to view him through. Well, especially now, because we listen to so many podcasts, we know Will Wheaton, if you weren't watching like, maybe like Attack of the Show or listening to like Nerdist or something, you wouldn't know that Chris Hardwick connection.
Right, right. And like, he's been in Next Generation. Yeah. He's been in movies, he was on Next Gen.
But like, I never... Next Gen. Well, excuse me. But I never watch, like, I didn't watch Star Trek, all I wanted to watch.
And yet you talk about it like your best friends. Yeah. All right. Yeah.
All right. All right. But yeah. But my point is, you didn't know what he was up to.
You would just be like, oh, he was in that movie that one time. Yeah. Because he looks completely different. He really does.
Like facial reconstructive surgery different. Oh, you didn't know that actually, Will Wheaton had his face blown off by an IED, but in like Iowa? Yeah, one of those American IEDs. We'll cut it.
No, we won't. You're right, I'm gonna forget. Yeah. So it's the story of these boys.
The summer before going into junior high. And it's very... In real life, they're all between the ages of 12 and 16, but I guess they're all playing 12. Yeah.
So it's very much like a... Like you said, in the intro there, it's the loss of innocence kind of a thing. Yeah. They're like...
All the conversations they're having throughout this movie are very like... They're just... Boy, kid. Boy conversation.
Boy conversation. Right. And then... These are four very warm boys I'm realizing.
This is the story of four warm boys. And one. That was great. That happened totally organically.
Yeah. Oh man. I'm very unprofessional right now. But yeah, the thrust of the story is that these four warm boys are...
They heard that this kid who had gone missing his body was like the next town over or whatever. Right. By the railroad tracks he'd gotten hit by a train and was now laying dead. Right.
So they wanted to go find the body and fuck it. Oh, jeez. Put their pigs in that corpse. Nope.
We'll cut it. They wanted to get in the paper. Because in 1950, that was the best thing that... Like what happened?
It's still pretty cool. It resonates to this day every time you put on the local news and see some smart aleck doing a little dance in the background of a live broadcaster. We're saying a swear word. That's what they do now.
I don't want to get political. There was a guy that was just running in front of the new anchors or new casters out on the field. And just saying like, I don't know, like soy bomb? Was it soy bomb?
He was saying like, Teddy fucker or something. That's really hilarious. But he might have a guy to a party or something. Just like a hangout.
Yeah. That's all he says all night. Oh, oh, oh. Did he say Teddy fucker?
No, he did. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Piece of shit. Although the way we're characterizing him, only saying Teddy fucker, sounds like he might have suffered a brain trauma.
Maybe we should ease up. This guy might have a problem. Oh, man. So what was the first time you saw this movie?
Probably when I was 12. I was like, prawn time ripe for the picking for Rob Reiner. Dad says collection of voice he affected. Rob Reiner, if you think about it, he's got a vast trophy case of voice he's affected.
Oh, man. Because of this movie. Yeah. Jesus.
What about you? I think I saw it. I was probably a little bit younger. I think I saw it when I was somewhere between 8 and 10.
You were like, I can't wait to grow up. Kind of. Yeah. I don't know.
This movie has that thing where the main characters, the kids, they're doing adult shit. Like they're smoking cigarettes and shooting guns. After a meal. Yeah.
That's the best time to smoke a cigarette. Cherish those moments. It's heavy as fantastic. They're cursing.
They are creatively. Yeah. And as a young boy myself, I was like, this looks great. This life.
Yeah. Watching this movie, I got nostalgic for a time that did not exist in my life. Which, good job. Rob Reiner.
I got to see them. That's what he was going for. That's what happened to Brian Sesser too though. You got nostalgic for the same time.
Yeah. Yeah. Brian Sesser. Oh, that guy.
I want to go off on a Brian Sesser rant again. That'd be my first one of the podcasts, Miraculously. You guys don't know this, but all I talk about when we're off, Mike. You won't shut up.
Brian is a stupid order. How would that cat might be on a hot tin roof, but Sesser, you're on thin ice body. Oh my God. Yeah.
What kind of boy? How often would you say that I mentioned Brian Sesser? Because I feel like it's semi-often. Yeah.
It's definitely comes up. Oh man. Oh, I'm glad we got to the bottom of the bed. Anyway, where are we at?
Still setting up the movie. Well, yeah. I mean, it's four boys, which seems like a great number of boys to have in a configuration. There's a self-park dynamic to it.
Yeah. I guess that is kind of like the perfect number of like, perfect number of boys. Yeah. It's like two boys who are very good friends with each other.
And then two exaggerated boys who aren't really close with each other or the other two boys. Right. They're just like clown boys. Yeah.
They're sort of clown boys. Yeah. You want to get into? Well, what about the intro with Richard Reifus?
Yeah. What about it? All right. So I've seen this movie.
I don't know how many times. A lot. Yeah. Tens of maybe a hundred times I've seen in my lifetime.
And only in like a year or so ago I saw the newspaper in the beginning. Yeah. It took me a few times. Yeah.
It's just not like something that I don't know. I just didn't notice or just didn't connect or whatever. I don't know. But in the very beginning, Richard Reifus is sitting out in his car in like the middle of nowhere and there's a paper and it said attorney, Chris Chambers, Fadely stabbed in the throat.
Which is a weird detail to include in the headline. Yeah. It's not tipping your hand. But you know, if it bleeds, it leads.
Is that I've never heard that before, but it sounds like he didn't just make it up. You never really ever? No. Oh, that's like a that's a big news thing.
You can see. You know what? I'm remembering. I was on a I did my school newspaper when I was in high school and that was like the first thing in our code of ethics.
Yeah. Our slug line. Yeah. So yeah, I didn't catch that for a long time either.
Yeah. And honestly, I must have missed it watching it this time because I got to the end of the movie when he was like, Chris Chambers got stabbed in the throat and I'm like, oh, right. I kind of forgot what it said. It's the saddest thing.
Yeah. He turned his life around. Yeah. Honestly, like when he like, I don't know, just in that opening like voiceover, the Richard Reifus does, I was almost like, oh, well, I'm going to start crying now.
No, you got to hang out. You got to be strong for the pie eating contest. Yeah. So this is all told from it's all like in the past.
It's a retelling from Richard Reifus's point of view. Yes. As old will we will we will the wild we wild. Oh, man.
This is I tell you every time before we start doing this, you need to do your vocal warm ups before we start. Oh, all right. We'll we. There we go.
There it is. And then we meet the kids all in there in the tree house like their clubhouse or whatever plant there. I don't know what game they're playing that they're going. I knock.
I don't know. I forever I was trying to figure out what the game was. It was like they were trying to get to 30. They're playing cards and smoking.
It's like big, big blackjack. I don't know. It probably has like a racist name so people can't play it anymore. But it was a better time.
Yeah. But we eat will ween as Gordy right. River Phoenix as Chris Chambers. Corey Feldman as Teddy do chance wouldn't it be so eerie if Chris Chambers in the movie died outside the Viper room.
Oh my God. That's stupid. Jesus. He took those college classes with me.
It's tough but he sweated it out. Like he always did. He's been dead for 23 years. He died when he was like younger than that, right?
He was. Hold on. Yeah. Well, he was about 23.
How sad is it that he died at a Johnny Depp concert? No, it wasn't a Johnny Depp concert. It was. He was going to play with Johnny Depp that night.
I looked it up on Wikipedia today because I don't know anything except that it was outside the Viper room. You know, Flea was in the ambulance. Flea was in the band with him. Yeah.
Well, when they were taking it. They were very good friends. I learned that on pop up video in the 90s. Breaking pop up news.
Yeah. And Jerry O'Connell. Oh man. That's fun.
Another crazy. Ed, him and fucking Anthony Michael Hall had probably the best turnaround of any two people. Insane. Yeah.
I got to say, Jerry O'Connell as a kid actor, very good. Yeah, he was pretty good. Everyone in this is pretty good. Yeah.
There's one sour kid acting moment. Which is. It's my first my first game. Okay.
No, no, save it. No, yeah, we'll save it. Okay. So we meet the boys and right.
We find out. Vern is the one with the news. He's like, you know, he hears his older brother talking to one of his friends and he comes in and he's like, all the way here. Yeah, yeah.
That's the best. When they start singing. They interrupt him twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's like screw you guys. That's the best. There's some like real ass shit in this movie. Yeah.
That is some real ass shit. Yeah. I think, I mean, one of the things about this movie is how like the dynamic between those kids, right? It's just like, they do seem like they're all friends.
Yeah. It's really good. It's real good. Like, oh my God.
And just the scene. And I know you pulled a clip of it. Do you want to play the PES clip? Oh, yeah.
There's a scene. It's just like a montage of them having like totally stupid like kid conversations. This is my favorite line from it. If I can only have one food for the rest of my life, that's easy.
Pass. Shurifly, you're pissed. No question about it. Verne died of type 2 diabetes.
Yeah. I love that scene because like it's real the shit they're saying they're talking about goofy. That's like the through line of the montage. Yeah.
It's like what is good as a dog, but what is goofy then? Yeah. And it's great. Yeah.
And like for like try as he might Quentin Tarantino could not do what is accomplished like three times in this movie. It's like that the Mickey Mouse Club thing about a net in her tits. Yeah. How they're like curving around the letters and lodging out the air.
Yeah. Oh man. Look at us laughing like we had that conversation. I feel like I know these boys though.
They're great boys. They are. They're just good boys. Like you felt like you were hanging out with them.
Yeah. If you saw this movie growing up like you knew two things for sure. Conny Palermo will only let you feel her tits. Oh man.
Spoilers. I was trying to save that for the end. Oh. All right.
You'll never have a friend like Chris Chambers. Yeah. You'll never have that level of friendship with anyone. Yeah.
Because the sad truth is that little boys are too shut off from their feelings at a very young age. I think that's the appeal of this movie. Yeah. Is that they're allowed to feel things.
Yeah. Yeah. Like borderline romantically. Yeah.
They were there's a lot of hugging and stuff. There's and there's a that last scene before the before they come back to present day. Yeah. Modern day.
Life is meaning stride. He it's like it's pretty homo erotic River Phoenix like I feel weird talking about a kid like this but there's like I can't wait. The look you're giving me makes me really not want to say the thing I know I shouldn't say. What is it?
He looks like he's gonna kiss. Well we it's very flirty. I was gonna say fuck me. I'm glad I didn't glad I didn't say it.
But there is like it's the way he says I wish I would have pulled this. Give me some skin. Yes. Yeah.
I was like whoa. Yeah. You better give him. Yeah.
Yeah. She was about to pop off. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. These kids man. Yeah. They have like the deepest bond.
There's like a lot of male bonding in this movie. Yeah. Like a lot. Yes.
It fails the back to L test. Well yeah. But yes it's also like the only positive movie for boys I think. It might be.
It might be. Yeah. They really demonize like the cool masculine guys. They do.
They really fucking do. So speaking of okay the relationships right. Let's talk about Wil Wheaton and his older brother John Keisack. Sounds like you're having a stroke.
Wil Wheaton's old bro. Oh yeah. It's John Keis. Oh yeah.
That four months ago. Yeah. Fresh. Yeah.
Yeah. So pretty fresh that Wil Wheaton's older brother. Gordy's older brother played by John Keisack. Denny had died in a car wreck.
Yeah. That's not the same one Verne's talking about right. With the. No.
The teachers. Oh man. The goochier boys. No different guys.
But they show them like interacting and stuff. It's the sweetest thing. It really is. Like John Keisack he's probably like 17.
Yeah. Like some early. He's got to be 17 because his dad says they're going to be scouts at the game. Right.
So that means he's probably a senior. He's like star quarterback. Yeah. He's got a hell of an arm.
Right. He's got a girl that his mom is talking about and his dad's like shut up about girls. You're distracting me. Yeah.
I'll beat you later probably. Right. He's no he's not a hitter. He's just a withholder.
I don't know. I don't like it. He does shoot the mama look at one point like keep your hands off of her. Yeah.
But we got a great scene of them like a junkie's that gives Gordy his hat the Yankee hat. No. And it's just real sweet. And then we meet Ace.
That and eyeball chambers when eyeball takes that fucking hat. I. Yeah. Like that kid.
My stomach is not just talking about it. Right. Anyway, we got a scene of Ace and eyeball. They run into will or well, I'm a Gordy and Chris Chambers, whatever.
And and he steals the Yankee hat from Gordy. The one that his dead brother fucking gave. Yeah. And it's not like they don't know who his brother is.
They make it clear later on that they know. Yeah. And he's like, Hey, my brother gave me that. And like, even if you're a shithead, how can you not be like, Oh, dude, I am so sorry.
I did not know that. That's this is the first time we see key for solo and and automatically we're like, Oh, well, this guy's a huge shit. Yeah. He's very terrible.
And I looked at this up because I was like, wait, he doesn't get that hat back. Yeah, there's no like no resolution with that at all. And I looked it up in the trivia. They were like, they had talked about it.
Like Rob Riner was like, you know, he was like, I was ready, like put the hat on and the where for the rest of the movie. And Rob Riner is like, no, it's gone. Yeah. Yeah.
No, you threw that hat out as soon as you got around the corner. Fuck. You wouldn't you don't want to mess up your hair. You should like that.
That's brilliant. It's really good. That's like, Oh my God. Never see that hat again.
I bet you in the story that this is based on. Yeah, he gets that hat back in the body. By Stephen King. Stephen.
No, no, we can't say it the same time. Otherwise it's over. Okay. And we're only already halfway through.
Are we really? We're 26 minutes. Okay. Seven minutes.
Yeah. But then the kids go off on their little like their journey. Yeah, they they lie to their parents. They say they're all sleeping at each other's houses or something.
Yeah, they're camping out and then they're just following the trail track trail tracks train tracks the treasure trail tracks. They have a map with a big X and then then it's the goonies. Well, yeah, they this is like the best goonies. Yeah, I actually can't watch the goonies.
Like a lot of people who watch it as a kid. They're like, oh, no, this is like one of my favorite movies. I can't watch it. It's to me.
It's just like, it's not good. I love it. I love it as a kid. And now it's just like this doesn't hold up for me.
Yeah, this is like this is a better goonies. Yeah, this is the goonies we deserve. Yeah. Or the one we need.
I forget how it goes. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.
It doesn't matter. Yeah, we can do that. We can talk about that on our Batman podcast. Batman on Batman.
I coast. So we get a so when I went out they go to the the junkyard. With Milo fucking what's his? Milo Pressman.
Milo Pressman and his beautiful dog, Popeye. Towney profile. Towney profile. Milo Pressman.
I think the only towney that we really get, right? There's the guy working at like that convenience store when it goes to buy, I guess, cold cuts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Which I always wanted those cold cuts. I don't know why. The ones that guy, they were probably great. They must have been.
1959. Like, high quality. High quality. Anyway, towney profile.
Yeah. Milo Pressman owns the junkyard. And he's known throughout the town. More so than he's known, his dog chopper is known.
Right. Because he answers to the command. Wait, it's. Oh, did I pull the sound down again?
Yeah, man. I'm trash. I'll leave it up. Chopper.
Sick balls. Thank you. That was me doing my Richard drive his impression. And then I did this also.
Sick balls. Bro, you've got some balls. Hey, man, did you just shave? Because you got a couple of sick balls.
It's almost like, it sounds like that would be the, if sick balls weren't entry in the dictionary, that'd be like the visually impaired audio accompaniment. Right. English pronunciation. Sick balls.
Yeah. So I like that you spelled it sick like bro. Sick balls. Bro, bro, you got two sick balls.
But yeah, so they're having a good time. They're racing. That's another extremely gay moment in this movie. When they race.
When they finish racing and they're a heaving breath and they lock eyes. Yeah. I'm not getting any like, I understand what you're saying, but I was when I watched this yesterday, I just enjoyed it for what it was. Two boys racing.
I was not. I think you get out what you put in. All right. Anyway.
I'm putting any sexual overtone into this movie about 12 year olds. That's right. No, come on. They're going in a middle school.
That's okay. That's when the shit hits the fan, you know, hormones wise. Right. So that's when they all get sick balls.
I knew it was coming and I loved it all the same. We can't release this episode. No, no, we must. I want to disguise my voice.
I want to do that one. I don't want to have a dome here. That's all I'm able to know. It's me.
It's not like full full of filth. Oh, I'm making it worse. She's great big fat person. Two balls.
Lord out. Shut down. He would want more to shut down. Anyway, yeah.
So we get to seeing the junk yard where they're just sort of like hanging out and they're bonding and they're going around. They're just like cracking jokes and shit. That's the I don't shut up. I grow up.
And when I look at you, I throw up and then your mother goes around the corner and licks it off. This is weak. It was weak. Yeah, it was really weak.
He's all about that's a consistency with Gordy Gordy Gordy Gordy Gordy Gordy Gordy. We do not have enough time. Okay. For a full length.
Should we just start releasing mini so it's there like 15 minutes long of what? Chaper. Sick balls. Sick balls, bro.
Was that all right? Let's we'll do like a side by side. Okay. One will be me and one will be the recording and it's up to the listener to guess which is which.
All right. All right. Ready? You go first.
Oh, wait. There goes the whole game. Go. Ready?
All right. Chopper. Sick balls. You didn't do it.
Chopper. Sick balls. Chopper. Sick balls.
Chopper. Sick balls. Chopper. Sick balls.
Chopper. Sick balls. Slow tonight, innit? You let it happen three times.
I know. It's on you. I know. Anyway, so okay.
We got it. Yeah, we got to breeze through this. Yeah. Yeah.