Episode 33 - Stand by Me

In 1986, Rob Reiner ("Meathead" from "All in the Family") attempted to adapt a Stephen King novella called "The Body" into a Rated R kids movie. The resulting film, "Stand by Me," is an 88-minute cry-fest about four adolescent buddies who walk about 30 miles to find the body of a kid who got hit by a train in hopes of getting their names in the local newspaper. Wil Wheaton plays young Gordie Lachance, a scrawny aspiring fiction writer (a surrogate for Stephen King) who finds himself unable to process the death of his posthumously glorified older brother, Denny, played by John Cusack. In the span of two days, Gordie narrowly outruns a junkyard dog, barely dodges an oncoming train and shoots a gun multiple times. River Phoenix plays Chris Chambers, a too cool for school James Dean emulator who comes from a dysfunctional family and finds himself unable to get out from under their shadow. Chris is a walking, talking advertisement for smoking cigarettes throughout the movie. Corey Feldman plays Teddy Duchamp, a mentally unstable semi-suicidal maniac with deformed ear. Allegedly, the character Feldman plays is not far off from his real life persona. Jerry O'Connell Romijn-Stamos plays Vern Tessio, a simple-minded heavyset caricature whose personality resembles "Chunk" from "The Goonies." Join us as we dismember this saccharine film as well as Jim's derivative childhood. Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at [email protected]. This episode is sponsored by Ephemeral. Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.