Latest / Citizen Frame / Stand By Me

Transcript

Stand By Me · Citizen Frame

• 0:00
  You're not taking him. Nobody's taking him. Come on, kid. Just give me the gun
• 0:05
  before you take your foot off.
• 0:06
  You ain't got the sack to shoot a woodchuck.
• 0:10
  Kill you, I swear to God. Come on, Lashance. Give me the gun.
• 0:14
  You must have at least some of your brother's good sense.
• 0:18
  Suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood. What are you gonna do? Shoot us all?
• 0:25
  No ways. Just you. we're gonna get you for this maybe you will and maybe you won't oh we will.
• 0:39
  Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode
• 0:42
  well not really exciting laid back episode of citizen frame more emotional that's
• 0:48
  right we talk a lot of horror i know i'll i'll pause and let that sink in and
• 0:54
  a lot of horror is gonna be our boy stephen king But a lot of people didn't
• 0:58
  realize that Stephen King,
• 1:00
  quite frankly, probably still
• 1:02
  don't realize that he actually is the brains behind Shawshank Redemption,
• 1:07
  which is a lot different kind of film or story you would get from what we think
• 1:15
  would be a Stephen King book.
• 1:18
  And but a lot of these more grounded
• 1:22
  drama period dramas i guess you'd call them of
• 1:26
  stephen king came within within short stories without huge
• 1:30
  novels particularly the film we're talking about today the body we know it as
• 1:34
  stand by me now the body is from a book of short stories called different seasons
• 1:40
  and in that book you have the shawshank redemption at pupil and another of one
• 1:45
  that was never made into a film called Breathing Method.
• 1:50
  And Rob Reiner, who was a fan of King, quickly wanted to make this film.
• 1:56
  Now, Rob Reiner has got a lot of great street cred. He's more of an actor, believe it or not.
• 2:00
  Famously played a character called Meatloaf in the TV show All in the Family back in the 70s.
• 2:07
  He's Carl Reiner's kid. So there's talent there for sure.
• 2:11
  Now, Rob Reiner is known for directing This Is Spinal Tap, one of the funniest
• 2:16
  mockumentaries you will ever see. You need to watch it.
• 2:19
  It's about an aging rock band. They're actually doing a sequel with the same members. Can't wait.
• 2:23
  Yes, I heard they're doing a sequel. Yeah. We did Princess Bride,
• 2:27
  Misery, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally all in a row. That's pretty impressive.
• 2:33
  No, that's a very good TV in terms of directing. Yeah.
• 2:37
  And in fact, it was this film that he started his own production company called
• 2:42
  Castle Rock, which we all know, being King fans, is a fictional town that's
• 2:48
  set in Maine that King uses quite a bit in his novels.
• 2:51
  And that's why Carl Reiner's production company, sorry, Rob Reiner's production
• 2:55
  company is called Castle Rock.
• 2:57
  Kind of interesting. And also with a story set as well, the turn of Castle Rock.
• 3:02
  This one, yeah. Now, keep in mind, Castle Rock doesn't have to necessarily be
• 3:05
  in Maine. This is Castle Rock, Oregon. Yes.
• 3:09
  Well, let's piggyback on that. But King, no matter what he's telling,
• 3:13
  I don't know King that well. I mean, I know King more from his movies.
• 3:16
  He's a little long-winded in his storytelling when it comes to his novels.
• 3:19
  Nothing against King. That's not an insult. He just goes a little too descriptive.
• 3:24
  Well, he used to, that ain't so much descriptive. I mean, there was books like
• 3:29
  The Stand and The Tommyknockers and stuff, and they're basically 800-page epics.
• 3:35
  I don't think he's doing it as much these days as he's got older,
• 3:38
  But yes, he is extremely prolific. So, let's just say.
• 3:44
  And, but no matter what, everything's linked. We talked about that with Salem's lot.
• 3:49
  We talked about that with most of the King stuff we have dived into.
• 3:54
  There's always somebody, another character would be based in this or was from this movie.
• 4:00
  Randall Flagg from The Stand and stuff. Yeah.
• 4:02
  So, Stanley B does that, which I think is interesting. The body.
• 4:06
  It actually, my favorite character is, believe it or not, is Ace, the bad guy.
• 4:11
  Not just because he's- Yes, Ace Merrill? He's not because he's Kiefer Sutherland,
• 4:15
  which is why everyone knows I like Kiefer Sutherland.
• 4:18
  But Ace Merrill is actually in the book Needful Things, the character.
• 4:24
  You have the dog Chopper in this. In the book, it's described like Cujo.
• 4:30
  They mention in the movie and in the book Shawshank Redemption Prison.
• 4:34
  They talk about Teddy At the end of the movie he went to work for a gas station
• 4:39
  That gas station gets blown up And he's mentioned, Teddy's mentioned In the book of Carrie,
• 4:44
  Yeah, I mean, there is a lot. It's basically the Stephen King universe,
• 4:48
  and there's characters pop up all the time.
• 4:52
  As we talked before about, you know, the priest character and Salem's Lot and stuff.
• 4:57
  Yeah, stuff like that. There's connections throughout King's work,
• 5:02
  you know, to it and stuff, you know, and Pennywise and all the rest. Yeah.
• 5:06
  This movie cost $8 million to make. It made $53 million. So it was a big hit for the time.
• 5:12
  Wonderful soundtrack. Wonderful soundtrack. Yes. They changed the name to Stand
• 5:15
  By Me because it's a particular favorite song of a lot of the people in the
• 5:19
  production, but also because the studio felt the body almost sounds like horror,
• 5:25
  almost sounds like horror, like an adult film.
• 5:28
  They wanted to change it to something a little more subtle, and so that's why
• 5:32
  they changed it to Stand By Me, and I'm cool with that.
• 5:35
  I get that 100%. It certainly works for this film version, and an absolutely
• 5:41
  timeless, wonderful song by Benny Keane as well.
• 5:44
  You know from that era so it does
• 5:47
  make sense well let's talk about let's talk about you mentioned
• 5:50
  the era stand by me has got
• 5:53
  i mean i could be i'm i'm just thinking out
• 5:55
  loud here but i guarantee this is
• 5:59
  a big part of stephen king's life this whole
• 6:02
  story from the music to the
• 6:05
  the friendships to the bullies he
• 6:08
  always has bullies in his films because you know he was probably bullied as
• 6:11
  a kid I love him and so there's
• 6:14
  a lot of King in this film I would
• 6:18
  imagine so and King is also well known
• 6:21
  for having not all of his works with a lot of his works the main characters
• 6:26
  being a writer like obviously Stephen King himself is so yeah I mean obviously
• 6:31
  there's a lot of embellishing going on but I would say there are a lot of aspects
• 6:36
  that are at least semi autobiographical with this.
• 6:40
  Now Now, when watching this again, this is, I'm on the, I'm on the edge here.
• 6:47
  Now we all have, we all have different tastes.
• 6:50
  All right. Trevor's taste in movies is terrible. Mine's is good. Whoa.
• 6:55
  And, but we all have different, what is a masterpiece. All right. And.
• 7:02
  My own personal, I have very few masterpieces.
• 7:06
  Some are batshit crazy ones, but some are kind of standard American cinema.
• 7:13
  American cinema would be like, It's Wonderful Life is a masterpiece.
• 7:16
  Godfather is a masterpiece.
• 7:18
  Shawshank Redemption is a masterpiece.
• 7:21
  The Jaws is a masterpiece.
• 7:24
  So is this a masterpiece?
• 7:28
  And here's the problem I have with it. it's too simple. But isn't that the best thing about it?
• 7:35
  Because I wanted... That works in its favor. Exactly. That's my point.
• 7:39
  I wanted more, but it does not make it a great film.
• 7:44
  Because if you want more... It gives us just enough. I watched this.
• 7:48
  I actually owned this. You know, whenever, you know, eventually home videos
• 7:52
  were affordable for people to buy.
• 7:57
  You know, at first videos were very expensive and only video shops had them.
• 8:00
  But then eventually there were these clubs where you could buy your own videotapes.
• 8:04
  But one of the many videotapes I had as a kid was this. And I loved it back then.
• 8:10
  And I watched it multiple times over and over. But I think this is actually
• 8:14
  the first time I've re-watched it as an adult.
• 8:16
  So obviously I sort of have a different impression of it as an adult than it did when I was a kid.
• 8:24
  And this really hit me on an emotional level. So it did.
• 8:27
  And that's saying something for me, you know.
• 8:30
  Just found it really powerful emotionally obviously
• 8:34
  we'll get into the plot details and all the rest and the reasons
• 8:37
  why i feel this way but i think this is
• 8:40
  very close to being an american
• 8:43
  cinematic great a lot of people have
• 8:46
  it in their top 10 uh yeah rob reiner's favorite deservedly
• 8:49
  film was this film and but well
• 8:52
  let's jump into it dissect it a bit and see where
• 8:56
  we stand i love the film we just got
• 8:58
  to see on what level alright we got a
• 9:01
  very young cast of actors who are still around today and
• 9:04
  doing incredibly well good on everyone I want to mention besides
• 9:08
  God love him River Phoenix fucking drugs man fucking drugs
• 9:11
  well this is one of the things one of the tragedies I
• 9:15
  find and the real poignancy of re-watching this film as
• 9:17
  an adult I mean there's several reasons but also
• 9:20
  you know there's a real sadness a real
• 9:23
  sad undertone to this film in terms
• 9:26
  of what happened to River Phoenix but also all the shit that cory fieldman
• 9:29
  went through and stuff you know we got uh will wheaton plays gordy river phoenix
• 9:35
  is chris cory feldman is teddy cory feldman in the 80s had the best agent every
• 9:39
  movie cory feldman touched was gold i mean yeah everything well until he got
• 9:44
  him and cory oh yeah license drive late 80s kind of that's where things went downhill.
• 9:50
  In the early 80s, in the mid-80s, he was the go-to. Good on him.
• 9:55
  Jerry O'Connell, a little chubby Jerry O'Connell. Gotta love him.
• 9:58
  He's brilliant in this. He's very, he still is. Vern is so lovable.
• 10:01
  The great, great, great, awesome, great Kiefer Sutherland as Ace.
• 10:06
  This is the movie that he would catapult and do a little gem called Lost Boys
• 10:10
  right after this. Back-to-back classics.
• 10:13
  Yeah. Great supporting cast. Yeah. Casey Smasko as Billy.
• 10:18
  Yep. And then they got Charlie, Eyeball, and Vince, the rest of the gang.
• 10:20
  And, of course, Richard Dreyfuss, he plays the writer, which we all know is
• 10:24
  the old... A young John Cusack, briefly.
• 10:27
  Yeah, John Cusack plays Denny, his brother. And also... I want to say Marshall Bell, plays the father.
• 10:34
  I know you're going to want to say Marshall Bell. Don't recall. Quanto.
• 10:38
  Quanto's in this. He has Quanto on his stomach.
• 10:41
  Wee. Wee, quain. That little thing sticking out of his chest. Quain. Yeah.
• 10:49
  Quain. So wise and so, yeah, I mean, quite who's a man. Fucking freaky.
• 10:57
  Yeah. We got Gordy, who's the nerd. We got Teddy, who is crazy,
• 11:03
  but he really sticks up for his father despite the abuse he gives him.
• 11:08
  River Phoenix. Yeah, Parker's here. River Phoenix. Chris, he is the tough guy,
• 11:13
  but also the peacemaker at the same time.
• 11:15
  And then he got- Sensible one almost. You got Vern, who's the lovable doof. Doof.
• 11:20
  I know, Vern.
• 11:22
  Now, the opening is kind of hit or miss with me. We introduce,
• 11:25
  obviously, the writer, which is Dreyfus. He narrates the film.
• 11:28
  And he's in his car. And he sees a newspaper headline, Chris was killed, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:32
  I wish they didn't show that. I wish I could understand them seeing a newspaper.
• 11:38
  At the same time, they had to have a reason why he starts writing the story.
• 11:41
  Because he ends up writing what he narrates here. And because we see that Chris
• 11:45
  was killed Trying to stop a robbery And in a restaurant,
• 11:50
  And so we knew right off what Chris's fate is Kind of wish they didn't do that
• 11:54
  right away But I can understand they had to Because this is why Richard Dreyfuss
• 11:59
  Goes on this journey of reflect To write his new book,
• 12:03
  Well, I think it would have worked better if we'd just seen him like essentially
• 12:06
  looking at the newspaper sadly, but we didn't see the headline,
• 12:10
  you know, and then at the end we'll find out why he's looking at the newspaper sadly.
• 12:16
  Yeah, you can still saw the paper and then he can start reflecting.
• 12:18
  So the audience will automatically know, oh, there's something in that paper
• 12:21
  that he's reflecting this on.
• 12:23
  Why he's thinking back to these two days in his life.
• 12:27
  Yes, that would be, I think that would have been a little better,
• 12:29
  but you know, that's just me.
• 12:32
  No, no, I think I would agree with that. So I do like the opening.
• 12:36
  We meet the gang in the tree fort.
• 12:40
  And I had a tree fort. Well, we moved to Needham, Massachusetts.
• 12:45
  And I was like six years old, five or something like that. I was still very,
• 12:50
  you know, very wise, even at that age.
• 12:54
  But it was a tree fort that came with the house.
• 12:58
  And all it was was just the flooring of the fort.
• 13:02
  So my brother Brian got me up there and I cried for a while because I couldn't get down.
• 13:08
  And my brother's like, just jump. It was like six feet off the ground.
• 13:14
  But I was so scared so my dad had to come get me and I had to jump in my dad's
• 13:17
  arms to get off, get out of there.
• 13:20
  My point, the reason I bring that up, I do have a point here.
• 13:24
  I think this is why this film really resonates with me.
• 13:29
  And because when you're a child or when you're younger, your best friends are there.
• 13:35
  Those now you just have friends. And don't get me wrong, I have some good friends
• 13:39
  out there that I can call and blah, blah, blah.
• 13:42
  It's not the same. Life gets in the way. Adult life gets in the way.
• 13:46
  Yeah, it's not the same. And that's what a lot of this film is about. Yeah.
• 13:50
  Obviously, it's a common-of-age tale, but it's about, I mean,
• 13:54
  even at the end, the final line that he types into his word processor is,
• 13:58
  I never had any mates like I did when I was 12. Jesus does anyone.
• 14:04
  I remember going out and playing guns, hide and seek, kick the can,
• 14:08
  all this crap, walking to a local video store, renting a movie,
• 14:11
  sleepovers, all this crap. We all did that. No video games.
• 14:15
  Yeah. We all went to the cinema. We were outdoors 90% of the time until we heard our mom calling for us.
• 14:26
  We lived... Getting into all sorts of mischief and, you know,
• 14:28
  we had all sorts of huts and getting into crazy adventures, loads of trouble. Yeah.
• 14:33
  That's what being a kid should be all about, essentially.
• 14:37
  And this film really does nail it and it also nails very well hard kids talk
• 14:42
  to each other, especially kids that were young boys at that age.
• 14:44
  Also, what it does get right, when you had that clique, we had that clique of
• 14:48
  neighborhood kids in each town we lived in, whether it was Rosemount or in Anita,
• 14:52
  Massachusetts, we had that clique and there was always one little doofy one.
• 14:56
  There was always one, the main man, the you know, the bad ass.
• 15:00
  And there was always the birdie. There was always the bullies.
• 15:02
  We lived near a train track.
• 15:05
  I remember going, we had to cross the train track to get to the main center of town,
• 15:09
  which, you know, the grocery store and all was there and it
• 15:13
  just just takes you back so we just we
• 15:16
  used to go for adventures up cave hill and all sorts
• 15:19
  yeah I mean we had there was all these fields beside us and
• 15:22
  stuff was great just feel that the new this movie will be lost on the new generation
• 15:26
  they won't get it well I was thinking about this the new generation these days
• 15:31
  have stranger things which is nowhere I mean obviously one's a TV series and
• 15:36
  one's a film but there are elements to both that are similar. Yeah, that's true.
• 15:40
  But at the same time, you can't compare the two.
• 15:44
  It's just there's such a real, and it's not even nostalgia, it's just a real
• 15:48
  emotional sort of core to this, especially watching it, for me anyway, now you're aged 48.
• 15:55
  It's just really poignant and quite sad, actually. Yeah.
• 16:00
  Totally. There's a great line in one of the best shows ever,
• 16:04
  ever produced, and it's the American version of The Office.
• 16:07
  Yeah. One of the last lines, the last episode, was where Andy,
• 16:12
  he says, I wish there was a way,
• 16:16
  to know you're in the good old days before you leave them.
• 16:21
  Exactly. And we don't appreciate it at the time. Our childhoods,
• 16:24
  they were the best days of our lives and we didn't realize it at the time.
• 16:29
  And that in itself was actually very sad and tragic.
• 16:33
  So it is, we didn't appreciate it. It's like, well, I remember when I was at
• 16:35
  school, you know, back in those days, my dad used to say things to me like,
• 16:39
  you know, these will be the best days of your lives.
• 16:43
  And I would have like sort of just went, what's he talking about?
• 16:46
  You know, as I usually would have done with adults because I thought I knew
• 16:49
  it all, but yes, it really is true, you know, and this film nails it.
• 16:53
  Yeah, and I think that's why people in our age group, the Gen,
• 16:59
  what do we do, Gen X? Gen X. Gen X's?
• 17:01
  We get it. I think the Gen X, we had the best childhood. The Gen X's had it better.
• 17:08
  100%. Yeah, I mean, you know, and that's why I think this hit me so hard,
• 17:13
  watching it as an adult, because it just,
• 17:17
  really poignant so it was and you know you would give anything to go back and
• 17:23
  relive those days but obviously you can't coupled with the tragedy of.
• 17:28
  It's so well sort of done throughout
• 17:32
  in basically every department but also in the
• 17:35
  background you now know watching this back as
• 17:38
  an adult the sort of tragedy that befell River
• 17:41
  Phoenix and as I was saying Corey Fieldman as
• 17:44
  well and you know his mate cory hame who's obviously isn't in
• 17:47
  this and stuff so there's just so much poignancy there
• 17:50
  that makes me appreciate it so much more i love
• 17:53
  that as a kid but for different reasons yeah i
• 17:56
  think we're on the same page really i think anyone who watches this will
• 17:59
  be on the same page in our in our group well yeah
• 18:02
  back to the film here it's not much to talk about to be honest with the movie
• 18:06
  is more about the conversation we're having now than it is and it's about the
• 18:11
  character sort of moments and conversations that the kids have between them
• 18:16
  here you know the more emotional parts but there's funny stuff too there's some great stuff i mean.
• 18:21
  I i do think the scene stealer is is going to be key for here for ace and i
• 18:27
  think that's one thing i think the film is missing is i know being selfish maybe
• 18:31
  but i wanted more of him i wanted more of why he's a dick because we're kind
• 18:36
  of given these back stories with the four main kids, right?
• 18:40
  And which I understand they're the heart of the soul of the movie,
• 18:43
  but Ace should, there's a reason why he's Ace and I wish we had that.
• 18:48
  A couple of lines could have fixed that. Yeah. You know, something like,
• 18:52
  his dad beat him or something like that.
• 18:54
  You know, but I think he's in it just about enough because it's not really about us.
• 18:59
  But yes, maybe like one or two lines would have sort of give us much more depth
• 19:05
  to the character, realizing why he's such an asshole, essentially, and a bully.
• 19:12
  So when they decide to go searching for this body, they want to go there and
• 19:16
  take the credit for finding the body. It's pretty much what they're doing. Yes.
• 19:19
  And so they're sneaking away for a couple of days. They want to be heroes. They want to be heroes.
• 19:23
  They're tired of being ghosts.
• 19:26
  So they kind of want to, you know, get a one-up. You got Chris,
• 19:30
  he's dealing with the whole stealing of the milk money.
• 19:33
  The whole town thinks he did it. And then you've got Per Teddy,
• 19:37
  who is terribly abused by the father, especially when he is.
• 19:41
  But again, that's quite, again, it's very sort of, It's quite subtle,
• 19:46
  that Teddy thing, because obviously his father was a World War II veteran starting
• 19:51
  to be at Normandy, and obviously the guy came back, like so many,
• 19:56
  if not all, men who went to war, or certainly that war, and came back a completely changed man.
• 20:00
  And it appears, although it's not explicitly stated, his dad,
• 20:04
  it sent his dad off the age, and he had some form of post-traumatic stress.
• 20:08
  Yeah, of course he is. Subtle writing. Of course he is. He's having flashbacks
• 20:11
  and all that kind of stuff, and he's taking on the kid. And Corey Feldman's
• 20:16
  performance is wonderful in this. Quite frankly, Oscar would be.
• 20:19
  And I think what he does is he almost, because he, I think he sees what's happening
• 20:26
  with his father rather than what people are seeing outside of it.
• 20:29
  They see an abusive father, but what he's seeing, he's seeing the whole picture.
• 20:33
  And at a young age, he's seeing what the war has done to his father.
• 20:36
  So that's one of the reasons why- But he hasn't got the, yeah,
• 20:39
  he can't express it in terms of words. When the junkyard guy starts making fun
• 20:44
  of his father, he goes apeshit because he knows in his heart what his father's
• 20:49
  really going through and nobody else does.
• 20:51
  But he hasn't, at such a young age, he hasn't got the proper vocabulary to express
• 20:56
  it. And, you know, I'm matured.
• 20:57
  He's also in an area where no one's going to believe him anyway.
• 21:01
  Yeah. And back then. And he's just treated like a head case himself.
• 21:04
  Frankly, back then, Jesus Christ, when they were still going through it,
• 21:08
  soldiers still aren't taking, you know, I think this whole PTSD is still not
• 21:12
  taken seriously enough.
• 21:13
  So. No, it's not taken seriously enough, I would say. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 21:18
  But that's how great the film is. We just had a three-minute discussion about
• 21:22
  one character and how the film is written.
• 21:28
  I hate doing dumbed down, but it is. It's dumbed down because it has to come out of a child's mouth.
• 21:36
  Yes, but I wouldn't say it's dumbed down. Well, I'm not saying.
• 21:39
  You got to let me finish. Yeah.
• 21:41
  So what I mean by dumbed down is they have to because it's coming out of a kid's mouth.
• 21:48
  So they have they're not going to have an extensive vocabulary
• 21:51
  so they've got it so they
• 21:55
  do they got to dumb it down a bit simplify it to for us to understand what exactly
• 22:02
  is coming out of his mouth even though he's not really saying it but also watching
• 22:06
  it as an adult you get the subtext you know there and that's what makes it work
• 22:11
  so even more powerfully i love,
• 22:15
  One of the funny moments is He goes Hey guys I bought a comb I brought a comb
• 22:21
  And they're like what the fuck you bring a comb for Well just in case we get
• 22:25
  on TV And they're all like oh that's a good point And then like a minute later Who brought the food,
• 22:30
  I didn't bring any food. I didn't bring any food. He goes, I brought the comb.
• 22:36
  You know what is the saddest moment in this entire film? And I mean,
• 22:39
  it's heart-wrenchingly sad when Vern loses the fucking comb.
• 22:45
  It falls out of his top pocket. We almost thought sorry for him.
• 22:48
  When they're crossing the bridge. Because he was so impressed with his comb.
• 22:52
  And it's just so, so... And the banter between these... I mean,
• 22:56
  there's just great chemistry between the four of them.
• 22:58
  So there is... I mean, I remember even, you know, whatever, because,
• 23:01
  you know, all the kids that I sort of grew up with, we watched this film,
• 23:04
  usually because I forced them to, but we used to even do the whole sort of each
• 23:08
  other growing up, you know, the two for flinching type thing.
• 23:11
  And, you know, we used to quote this and copy it. I still do it. All sorts. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:17
  But I don't know, Vern. The whole sequence of Gordy throughout the film,
• 23:22
  he has these flashbacks and how his father treats him and how the mother is
• 23:26
  just dismissed and not dismissable, but just is in the zone.
• 23:29
  And she's gone because Denny's gone.
• 23:32
  She's grieving? Yeah, so she's not a bad mother because in the flashbacks— In
• 23:35
  fact, the father's grieving as well. The father's grieving too, but what a dick.
• 23:39
  I know, but it's just the way he's expressing his grief. And,
• 23:43
  you know, it worked out okay for him in the end.
• 23:46
  He ended up getting Quato on his stomach, so, you know, no biggie. Whee!
• 23:51
  Whee!
• 23:56
  Yeah, and Gordy, again, is the writer. Again, I see a lot of King in Gordy's character.
• 24:01
  Yeah. But each one of these have these little side stories. I think the only
• 24:05
  one who really doesn't is Vern. God love him.
• 24:07
  And he's more of technically the comic relief because these three boys are the
• 24:13
  ones going through these personal dramas.
• 24:15
  One's accused of being a thief.
• 24:18
  And one is obviously his father. Both fathers, Gordy and Teddy's,
• 24:23
  are both, one's physically abusive, one's mentally abusive.
• 24:27
  The the the the three kids
• 24:30
  apart from you know three of the kids apart from
• 24:33
  verne they're all going through emotional trauma essentially you
• 24:37
  know gordy teddy and chris but where verne
• 24:40
  like you say he's a comic relief and he's
• 24:43
  really dude jerry a young jerry o'connell is great
• 24:46
  here oh he is they're all great all very good and so there's a great scene where
• 24:52
  again the film is not about the body is about the journey and exactly the subtle
• 25:00
  quiet moments with chris and gordy are probably the best written,
• 25:04
  Because it's really where Chris is digging into Gordy. There's a line where
• 25:08
  he's walking on the tracks and he says, you're taking the college courses.
• 25:13
  Well, I don't know. And he goes, no, you are taking those college courses.
• 25:16
  You're not going to go to fucking shop classes like me and these three guys
• 25:19
  are. You're going to go and you're going to be a great writer.
• 25:23
  And there's a point in the film where after that scene, Gordy,
• 25:29
  well, before the scene, Gordy makes that comment.
• 25:30
  I don't know if I want to be a writer anymore. it's stupid because his father
• 25:34
  has kind of put that in his brain right he's not going to get you anywhere it
• 25:38
  was always about Denny Denny his bigger brother and so it took him away from
• 25:42
  Wanda Wright and that next scene is wonderful because you see Gordy and they're
• 25:48
  all around the fire the campfire or whatever,
• 25:51
  and Gordy and Chris goes to Gordy why don't you tell us one of your famous stories
• 25:56
  tell us one of those stories to get him amped up about his story he's telling
• 25:59
  again he did that deliberately to bring back the creative side of Gordy.
• 26:06
  Don't let that side flow. And that's why he made him tell the story,
• 26:10
  which is a wonderful story, of the pie eating contest.
• 26:13
  Oh, I love the Lord Asp Pite and Contest and the Barfarama.
• 26:18
  But there's little touches that I appreciated even more watching it.
• 26:22
  It's like Teddy's reaction to where he goes, I don't like the ending.
• 26:26
  Why don't you change the ending to have him shoot his father and then join the Texas Rangers?
• 26:32
  But that's such a sort of that's like something I would say as a kid yeah I
• 26:36
  know I was about to say that,
• 26:39
  it's Trevor so it's all those little touches that sort of I certainly appreciated
• 26:46
  more re-watching it and I do love the Barfarama sort of story.
• 26:51
  There's another great moment after he tells the story they're all going to go
• 26:56
  to sleep but they hear these strange sounds and stuff so they decide one person
• 27:00
  is going to take a detail and stay up while the other sleep.
• 27:03
  Yep. And what a great study of who each one of these are without saying a word.
• 27:10
  You've got Teddy, who's holding the gun because he bought the gun, and he's a military boy.
• 27:15
  He's playing, pretending he's playing the bugle. Men, are we all signed up? Yada, yada, yada.
• 27:21
  He's talking to himself in like a military fashion. Then he cut to Vern,
• 27:25
  who's scared shitless for every little sound. and he's walking around ready
• 27:28
  to shoot anything that moves.
• 27:30
  And then he got pressed and he was just sitting there quietly reflecting and alert.
• 27:34
  So I just, those three little moments really showed you what each character is.
• 27:39
  Yeah. That was the time where Gordy wakes up and he sits next to Chris.
• 27:45
  And Chris finally confesses that he did take the milk money.
• 27:48
  But it wasn't about that. He says, what hurt the most, and everyone thinks I'm a thief.
• 27:53
  And then Gordy goes, did you take it? And he goes, oh, yeah,
• 27:55
  I took it. But I gave it back.
• 27:58
  And I thought I could trust this teacher.
• 28:01
  And the teacher, like a week later, had this brand new whatever they bought.
• 28:06
  Scarp. It was a scarp. Yeah. Yeah. It was the teacher who took the money and
• 28:10
  he starts breaking down. How am I supposed to trust anybody if I can't trust my teacher?
• 28:14
  Yeah. And it's a great moment. And that's where Chris finally breaks because
• 28:18
  he's the, he's a peacemaker. He's the tough one.
• 28:21
  Yeah. But he finally lets his guard down by opening up the Gordy.
• 28:26
  Again, this is like the sort of, to me, it's almost the perfect coming of age story,
• 28:32
  you know, especially by the end you know where the
• 28:35
  they go on a all of
• 28:38
  the characters here maybe not as much with verne but
• 28:41
  they go on a proper emotional journey throughout
• 28:44
  this film it's not a physical well there is a physical journey obviously but
• 28:48
  it's it's a big emotion they become
• 28:51
  me and essentially they change completely by the end of the film
• 28:54
  so even verne oh yeah
• 28:57
  yeah and then you have when they
• 28:59
  finally get to the when they finally get to the the body gordy's
• 29:03
  fully understands he starts
• 29:07
  he finally he finally with the flashbacks he stops and he tells chris and after
• 29:12
  he's seen the dead body it's a creepy little scene even if it's just a shot
• 29:15
  of an actor being dead it's still pretty powerful gordy tells chris i didn't
• 29:22
  cry at my brother's funeral and yeah,
• 29:25
  Why did he die? And you kind of think he's talking about the body,
• 29:30
  but he's not. He's talking about his brother.
• 29:32
  Now he's starting to question, why couldn't it have been me?
• 29:35
  My brother was going somewhere. I'm not. That kind of thing. My dad hits right. Yeah.
• 29:40
  And he finally has his moment. Chris had his moment when he talked about the
• 29:43
  milk, money, and the teacher. This is Gordy's moment.
• 29:47
  And this is where he breaks down and finally he's had enough.
• 29:50
  And as he's having this moment, our boy Ace comes back into the picture.
• 29:55
  And he's going to cut Chris because Chris goes, you're not taking this body.
• 30:00
  And all of a sudden, this quiet, reserved writer, Gordy comes full circle,
• 30:07
  points the gun right at Ace.
• 30:10
  And he has some- He stands up. Stands up to him and he goes.
• 30:13
  And Ace goes, you pull that trigger, I'm going to fucking kill you, whatever.
• 30:17
  He goes, suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood. Great fucking line.
• 30:24
  Yeah there's also another one just before he says that where
• 30:27
  ace tries to call his bluff and he goes what are you gonna do shoot us all he
• 30:32
  goes no ace just you yeah and even though it's solo keeper's really good in
• 30:38
  this they're all the actors all in there are very fucking good and they're all
• 30:41
  very yeah and he's only 17 when he did this i think he was something like that when he did last boys,
• 30:47
  But anyways, the way he sells it is you can see in his face that he's just a kid too.
• 30:55
  And he's just trying to play the bully with just subtle threats.
• 30:59
  But when he's actually pushed to actually stab Chris, he's hesitant.
• 31:04
  He doesn't really because nobody sticks up for themselves to this guy.
• 31:09
  And that's what he's not used to.
• 31:11
  Most bullies, if not all bullies, are full of fear themselves.
• 31:16
  Elves you know it's all bravado and it's obviously the case here with the ace
• 31:20
  and it's just brilliantly played out you know all around including by keether
• 31:25
  yeah i mean it's nailed right across the board here with things like this when
• 31:31
  it comes to the end they go their separate ways it's written.
• 31:35
  It's written off we don't see it off screen we just hear the narration we find
• 31:39
  out that they kind of lost their ways.
• 31:42
  What happens? They just, next, the next school year, no one really saw each
• 31:46
  other, which does happen. I've, I've lived it. I know.
• 31:49
  I always wonder whatever happened to Craig, whatever happened to. Absolutely.
• 31:52
  But anyways, he, he, he says that we all go our own ways, we find out Chris
• 31:56
  was killed, hence the reason why he's writing the story.
• 31:59
  But what they don't mention is what happened to Teddy and Vern,
• 32:02
  which is mentioned in the book.
• 32:04
  And I'm glad I thought about it. Why didn't they mention what happened to them?
• 32:07
  I think it would be too much of a downer because- They do mention it here. No, they don't.
• 32:12
  All they say is one goes off to run construction.
• 32:17
  But what happened to them, Teddy is killed in a car crash and Vern dies in a house fire.
• 32:23
  And that's revealed in the book. And I think you can't really give us that sad,
• 32:27
  depressing, all these kids die. because we're about to find out Chris was killed.
• 32:32
  Yeah, it would have taken away from the power of Chris's tragedy, essentially.
• 32:40
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's also too much. We don't want to find all these kids
• 32:44
  are dead. I mean- It'd be super bleak. Yeah, a little too bleak.
• 32:49
  But there you have it. It's short.
• 32:51
  It's short. It's an hour and 28 minutes without credits, with credits.
• 32:56
  Yeah. So, it's an absolutely wonderful film. It is.
• 33:03
  Yeah, no, I mean. I said in the beginning. It's great to me.
• 33:06
  I said in the beginning of the podcast, is it a masterpiece?
• 33:09
  Is it part of that collection of films and others that I forgot to mention?
• 33:14
  But because it doesn't give you that two-hour character study like Shawshank
• 33:20
  would do. You don't need it here.
• 33:21
  You really don't need it because we just discussed it, even though it's written
• 33:25
  through the child's mouth, you know, through the child's eyes,
• 33:28
  as we're having these conversations, we get the subtitle, we can see what they're actually saying.
• 33:33
  And that's brilliant writing with the screenwriter and with King.
• 33:38
  And to be able to tell their story and get so involved with them in such a short
• 33:42
  time, I don't think you need any more time with these kids. You told the story.
• 33:47
  Matter of fact, you'd probably overdo it if you told too much.
• 33:51
  Yeah, I totally agree. I think in terms of editing and the writing and the performances
• 33:56
  right across the board, we get just the right amount of story here.
• 34:01
  And it works fantastically well. so I think this is there's a couple of little
• 34:07
  things you could nitpick you know maybe Wil Wheaton's performance is at times
• 34:11
  a wee bit not 100% convincing but he was a child actor you know so you're going
• 34:16
  to get that but generally,
• 34:18
  right across the board I think this is very close to being an American great
• 34:23
  film I've decided so now people don't have to go by what I say of course but
• 34:29
  to be stupid if they don't,
• 34:32
  wow that marks a big character growth for you Kieran you know so I would put
• 34:39
  this as an American masterpiece it's one of the best American.
• 34:44
  American cinema probably put this in there,
• 34:49
  and I have I appreciate it so much more watching it this time as an adult and
• 34:55
  it filled me with sadness and emotion but I would say in a very positive way.
• 35:01
  You know, great stuff. Yeah, it is from the soundtrack, the cinematography,
• 35:07
  the writing, the execution in itself, the direction.
• 35:11
  I guess that would go... It's a beautiful film. And the acting for children actors is just...
• 35:18
  I mean, it goes to say what all these actors have gone on. There's still household names today.
• 35:23
  And it's tinged with that sadness as well because of what happened to them in the real world. Yeah.
• 35:32
  Yep. Well, there you go. There you go. Jinx, you owe me a Coke.
• 35:37
  See, that was just something we said when we were younger. Sick balls.
• 35:41
  Sick balls. I don't know. Two for flinching.
• 35:48
  Suck my fat one, you piece of shit. Wow.
• 35:52
  You know, I try to keep it pretty much ground on the podcast here today,
• 35:55
  and I try to be professional. I was quoting the film. I try to be professional.
• 35:59
  But, you know, obviously Trevor couldn't. I apologize.
• 36:03
  That's a levity there, you know what I mean? I planned the sort of comic relief.
• 36:08
  How the tables have turned.
• 36:13
  All right, guys, we're going to wrap this one up. Next up will be The Life of
• 36:16
  Chuck, a movie that did not do well in the box office, but is really getting a lot of praise.
• 36:20
  And I watched it and I need Trevor to see it because I'm missing something.
• 36:24
  I almost think it's up there with Shawshank and it was Stand By Me.
• 36:28
  So that's why I peppered that one in.
• 36:30
  So next up will be Thanks for giving us a shout out here, guys.
• 36:34
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 36:36
  You can reach us out. See us at frame underscore podcast on Instagram.
• 36:39
  And of course, Facebook. We're going to wrap this one up.
• 36:44
  That's all we got. Anything you want to add? All good. No, I mean, yeah, all good.
• 36:52
  That's it then. It's all good. Later.
• 37:01
  I love you.