Midweek Mention... Stand By Me

Stand By Me

Dan: This wasn't my midweek movie

Sidey: I think, I think this is Pete. Yeah.

Pete Inflicted this on us.

Dan: Well, he just shouted it out. Didn't he give an, a, give us

Sidey: I put it on the spot. Yeah. And this is a film that's cropped up quite a few times and I've always pointed out I've never seen it. So I think he wanted to make sure So this has me popping my cherry of standby me.

Dan: Okay. Okay.

Well we should quickly just go through the the plot, I guess, for those that haven't seen it without well, no, it doesn't matter if we split it. in 19 eight made in 1986.

Sidey: can't spoil the movie.

Howie: just one of those significant set of cost actors that have gone on to bigger and brighter things, but this was their main sort of punch out film for a few of them. And obviously

Sidey: I think this is the only film I've seen with river Phoenix. in,

Howie: No, you have Indiana Jones and last

Sidey: Cruces. I

Howie: That's the only other one I've seen him in as

Sidey: haven't seen Is it my own private, Idaho? haven't seen that. What's eating Gilbert grape,

Howie: not seeing that,

Sidey: seen that, And then of course he died.

Dan: And then, yeah, he didn't have many, many films.

Howie: that's a conspiracy theorist dream is death. Isn't it. In the Viper room with

Dan: with Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp's Viper room, his tragedy tragedy. I mean, it's a kind of lived again through Heath ledger, a similar. Age actor, maybe Heathrow is even a bit older, but just the potential of those

Sidey: in

Dan: such a, such a tragedy. But standby me is basically the story of it's a coming of age story.

Isn't it? It's after a stranger has been accidentally killed near their home. Four boys decided to go and see the body and they encounter, you know loader leaches. They there's.

You know, different trials and tracks to get lost on. I think it was a mad dog and it's just a bit of an adventure on the way as they go and do this.

And it starts out as a, as a laugh, but it, it kind of almost defines their young

Howie: age. It's set in Americana. So like 50 sixties,

Sidey: I really love that era. Yeah. it's great.

Howie: There's a lot of innocence in that era and a lot of opportunities. And experiences that I would say I've kind of lost on our generation onwards mainly. Well, for us, we don't live in that sort of a location where you can just go off and go and abandon yourself, you know, and just have

Sidey: anyway, like as a parent.

I'm like risk assessing it.

I'm like, you know, this is, And

I think about to my childhood and even like, you know, Just young adulthood going cliff jumping. And they're just like, they go off camping on their own with a gun

you know, and everyone comes back. All right. Pretty much by and large. But Now,

nowadays. Everyone's so fucking, risk adverse, you

Howie: oh, well, people are what's the most, our kids are probably done as camp in the garden and you you've kept there with them with the light on outside. If you need the toilet, you can just zoom in inside and it's like, it's gone the wilderness. Yeah. And the protectionist kind of helicopter parenting that we condemn you, aren't doing.

And it's a shame, it's a real shame, but this film kind of enables that experience to be shown. And it is, it's a real, it's a beauty about it, the magic that you can do that

Dan: I think so. And just kind of getting onto the parrot inside. I remember being in Thailand years ago and one of the tourists had seen a young Tyler who had a machete.

He wasn't more than four or five on just that was, and the guy go, God, get that off him, you know? The kid started crying. His parents come and go, would you take his knife for, for him? Like, you know, he's like that, that's what he uses. That's why he's working, you

Howie: So are you saying we should enable our children to be armed? It's this, this,

Dan: yeah, I guess that's what the message is.

Howie: that too. You know,

Dan: read between,

Howie: between the lines stand by me is a film about arming your children.

Dan: and it's also a film, which Richard Dreyfus, no rights which is lovely. I mean, one of the the, the neurite it lines is, although I hadn't seen him more than 10 years, I'll know, I'll miss him forever. And it's, it's, he's recounting this story because one of those four recently died and he's, he's just thinking back to the, to that Selma in that time.

So then the stouter is like full right from the beginning and it's

Sidey: he reads it in a newspaper article, doesn't AUV, and then he starts recounting this story of of this adventure that they went on, which is essentially, it's the two friends who are really the core of the group and then another two.

Commonwealth says, we'll wait, in and river. Phoenix.

will be in his best work was obviously star Trek next generation But this

Dan: Jordy.

Sidey: Yeah. And. The other kiddo whose name escapes me now, played by Jerry O'Connell, he has buried some money in a jar and he's trying to find it. And he overhears it. Is it his older brother? it's all about because there's a, a boy

Assume to be dead and based these, The two older lads say that they've seen the body, But they don't want to alert the authorities because they stole a car.

Howie: It would incriminate

Sidey: Yeah. They didn't, they'd be, they'd have to plead the, whatever it

Dan: is

Sidey: And he's over here in this while he's under the house, this jar of money, that he's, he's hidden.

So he runs off to tell his friends about this, that they need to go on this, walk this adventure, to find the body a vacant, be like the local heroes of finding the body.

letting the authorities and doing all that good stuff.

Howie: this is a surprising amount. There's a, this is a rabbit hole to go down. There is a surprising amount of deaths in us, national parks, like crazy amount of deaths.

And if you are missing, they will search for you for seven days. And that's it,

Sidey: that,

you know, costing them mind back to last week when we watched, when I said, I'd watched 14.

peaks

And I was thinking that those mountains really fucking littered with dead bodies of people, and, and even, the the first mountain that they go up and they have to go back up.

to, I'm just thinking all this climbing, And is it worth it like, cause the amount of resources.

you use,

You know, you should just be fucking left up there.

Dan: they do. I mean, I think it gets the once you're into the depth sewn, which is basically over

Sidey: right You're on your own

Dan: you're on your own, you know, nobody nobody's expecting you to save them and it's almost.

Yeah. If they do, they've gone Wyatt, they're risking their own lives to do it. So nobody really expects that.

Sidey: So yeah, national, parks, I mean, there's all sorts of fucking things. If

Howie: oh, conspiracy theories off the scale about

Sidey: it's just dangerous places. A lot of the time, you know, and if

Howie: Wild animals.

Dan: Big places, no people, wild animals. Do you know that this film came from the same collection of stories as the Shawshank Yeah.

This is a a Stephen King

Sidey: King He regards it as. the, Or certainly at the time the best adaptation of his work.

Dan: Yeah,

Howie: that's interesting. Cause he's really picky. I think I had the misfortune of watching the dark tower.

Is it a dark

Sidey: Why is that interesting? I

Howie: Elba, Matthew, Matthew mahogany. Oh yeah. Don't so, yeah, that was one of his

Sidey: but he was a fan of this. He famously, obviously hated the cubic version of the shining and had it remade, but yeah, he really liked this version so that's good. So they, they go off on this adventure and it turns out that Chris has stolen gun

As you do, when you're 10 years old, how old are

Dan: no, th they're probably sort of 13,

14,

I guess.

Howie: I think younger, maybe some way

Sidey: we'll wait and look younger than that. But anyway, they, they, they go off. Yeah, they've got their academy staff. They've got a gun and they they're going to go off. they're walking down They're following the path of the railroad

Seems like a sensible.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: Until one of them becomes the world's fucking worst runner on earth.

Dan: You've got all these kind of little moments of them. You know, my boy lollipop, you know, and the chairs they're dancing and having a great day. It just, the. And the, the storyline just brings you along with these guys, the freedom that they've got, you know, anything can happen. And they just kind of bouncing off each other really and laughing and joking and day out.

They know they're going to get in various states of trouble with their

Howie: yeah well it's the innocence of youth, isn't it?

It's the pure innocence of youth. And invariably you know, that there's going to be a complete. There's going to be a situation that's going to occur. That's gonna either scar them or change them in a way that's going to affect them for the rest of their lives, which obviously does. But

Sidey: well, first of all, they get sort of caught trespassing

Dan: and the junk yard,

Sidey: He and his dog. So they, they hightailed it over a fence then they nearly get mowed down by the train.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Well, they, they feel the track don't they, you know, and and they've got a big bridge to pass and once they're halfway across course, that's when the train starts rumbling along and they, they need to Hightail it

Howie: quick, suspicious. I'm sure these trains have, could have stopped.

Dan: No that's inconvenience. No,

Sidey: I've been

Howie: seemed like he was really powering on

Sidey: stuff.

he beeped asleep to this thing is where solver you know, the Stopping distance on a train. It's gotta be pre. Pretty

long.

I'd imagine they didn't just come to a halt and

Dan: Yeah, no, it's a

Howie: but he looked like there wasn't any form of brain,

Dan: He wasn't even trying to speed it up more cold on the fire. Let's go. Go.

Howie: kids. This will be a

Sidey: another couple ain't going to make any difference.

Howie: as we said, these bodies never get retrieved.

Sidey: They.

The local hoodlums,

Dan: Kiefer

Sidey: Kiefer Sutherland Yeah.

Dan: and,

Sidey: and his laughable peroxide, blonde hair.

Dan: and you've also got a friend of his is John Cusack. I think isn't it. A young John qu SAC, the brother of Chris. Yeah, he's in it. He's in it. Yeah.

Howie: Yeah. Well, we got to fact check.

Sidey: He's the dead one. he's he's

No, he's we'll wait. And his older brother who's done. and he gets, His dad says it should have been you, which is like, the worst,

but yeah, he has a nightmare. He has a nightmare I know the night was with the funeral where his dad says that to him and he wakes up.

And and then

Chris has to comfort him. But,

guy going around with ACE is it's called eyeball or something?

Howie: Great nicknames.

Sidey: is He's Chris, his older brother, He's got the kind of slipped, like greaser hair. And he's going around. He's. the, like the sort of second in command to ACE and I, I dunno, I thought they were fucking pathetic to

Dan: Well okay. We'll get you. We'll get you your feelings on it later, but it, it was, it was one of those that moment there actually, where he's having to, to account about how worthless he, he feels in everything. Apparently in the, in the movie itself, We have a Phoenix couldn't turn off his own emotions after listening to it.

And it was just a really affected him, you know, and these other young actors, these were so Rob Briner, who's directing this movie to get this out of him, but then you look back and as you mentioned, you know, the careers then. These guys have gone on to forge or, or the potential that they had anyway.

Totally amazing. And yeah, he was, he needed to hug, hug him and everything just to bring him back down and say, you know, this is, this is great stuff. We've got it. But yeah, it's an emotional film. And as it that they tell the stories, one of the best moments in it, it says

Yeah, it's telling the story of Lada.

Howie: Oh

Dan: yeah. The blueberry pie eating and he's made up this story. He wants to be a writer. And. Is his mate, the only people that are really encouraging him to do that and saying, look, tell us your story. This is, and he tells this fantastic story of this fat guy who got bullied. This is whole time and his whole life and everything in his town.

And then one day they have a blueberry pie in contest and he so much blueberry pie. He just

Sidey: Well he next a next a bottle of oil

before the

Dan: right. There's

Sidey: to get things

going. Yeah.

Howie: fuck.

Sidey: And yeah. Then he does, he does about five or six pies and and then they they just hear the noise.

Don't they? And then.

You say, this is the best fit for me.

Dan: Oh wow. It's, it's a, it's a bit that over, I remember a lot. I mean, I'm sensing that you didn't enjoy this movie quite as much as.

Sidey: Well, well, we're going through it at the end because we've got,

we've got the, I think that I'd heard about this one before, is when they decided to veer off from the railroad. And I said I can't remember if it was a man Corey Feldman, who says, if we go through those words, that's a shortcut and we can get to where we need to go a lot quicker. And that's all right, fuck. It We'll go that way. But they ended up having to cross swamp kind of Lakey thing Which they like and about and trying to dunk each other onto the war first

He's like, no, I need to get out of there. And as they're rested on the eighth, he notices that there's leeches knocking about they're frantically trying to get the leaches off, but then we'll wait and realizes there's one where he really wouldn't like we wouldn't want to have a.

leech.

Yeah. And he has to

close his hand out from

her shorts and he's got like blood all over his and from his Dick.

Dan: Have you ever had.

Sidey: is certainly not on my Dick.

Dan: no, I, well, they've come

Sidey: I thought they were lot. Cause they just brush them off. I thought they were a lot more difficult. I think you had to like flame them off and stuff.

Dan: They, you can pull them off, but they, they will make you bleed then night, you know?

Sidey: The wine king thing

Dan: I know.

Sidey: rate.

Dan: Yeah. You can rip them off. Yeah. I've had them when I've been out tracking and things and it's,

Howie: then

Dan: you you, you can get a tobacco like Snuffer something that will put them on salt. A thing also helps him, or you burn them off or you see them, you freak the fuck out because you're in their shower and it's on your thigh and you rip them off and take the bit of blood that never seems to stop bleeding, but eventually it does wear out.

Time in India I was with Swayze and I don't know how the fuck this leach has gotten. Cause you they're amazing how far they can stretch on the, you know, the muscles in them and they, they just reach out and this one's gone onto Swayze and he's just got queasy when he seen it and know it applies.

Yeah. I have got a photo of it somewhere. But, yeah, they're not nice. They're not nice. And, and certainly in this, these this situation where they're, they're fucking everywhere and you're just kids and it's,

Sidey: he does extract said sadly, but he passes out from the from the trauma which I think I probably would've done the same.

Howie: too.

Sidey: Yeah. Chris opens up as well about his life. He's from the sort of boy from the wrong side of the tracks and he wishes he could start again go, just go somewhere where no one knows him, knows about his past and his upbringing because.

he's just, He's written off everywhere. He goes, because

he's like, you know, the, the down. and out or

Dan: Yeah, that's it, it's got a bad reputation is people have already made up their mind what their what they're going to think of him before they've met him.

And he knows that and he's, he's straight away, got his backup and it's put a chip on his shoulder.

But it's one of those where there's so many of those kids aren't there that you just know that there's a great kid in there. There's a great kid coming out, but they're, they're misunderstood. They've had a bad day and, and they just kind of react to now they're fighting that's right.

Yeah. And it seemed this way. We, with Chris that he seemed, you know, his, his friends knew what a great guy he was. And unfortunately the adult world just didn't sit right.

Sidey: but It's very shortly after the leeches escapade that they do find the body re Brower's body.

It's quite startling. I didn't know if they were going to just show,

you know,

there

Howie: well, what rating is it again? Is it, is it an eighties, 12 ways

Sidey: no there wasn't. I had 19 knives

Howie: So 15.

Dan: it's a 15. And the idea was to get the most authentic reactions so they didn't show the kids. the

Sidey: They really killed someone

Howie: killed the

Dan: possible moment. And I really dropped out of court. So but they didn't see it until you know, their character did. That was the, that was the moment.

So they really had that reaction.

Sidey: Yeah They get all excited to the first one sees him. He's like, that's the point of this? the problem they run over and he's kind of in a Bush covered up and they pull a branch back and there is like stark in your face to the dead guy, you know and the reaction, then it will be.

Is Gordy. thinks back to his brother and he gets it gets very emotional about why his brother had to die. You know, I started thinking about all this morbid stuff and why his dad doesn't love him. So

Dan: yeah, it is, it's not the the high moment they thought

Sidey: if

Dan: be. It's

Howie: yeah, they expect it to be a triumphant us explorers.

We've found it. And instead it's like the morbid reality is struck, which is that's the bit, that is the coming of age part.

Dan: It's a real growing up moment. Isn't it? Where they just kind of all hits them and they

realize

Sidey: Well they also have to stand their ground because I aced rocks up with his crew, Well, first of all, it's just ACE and

Dan: Eyeball

Sidey: eyeball.

And they're like, like you're not fuck off. This is our, This is our discovery. You don't do one, but now they go stand their ground

Well, I say they stand their ground and two of them stand there, grass.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: And that doesn't bring out the guns straight

away.

Cause it's just, it's just Chris and he says, no, I'm not fucking going.

ACE gets out his switchblade thing that he's got trying to look all tough files. But we'll wait and then just fires. You just hear the gunshot first and then he points the gun at them and Says you can suck my fat one.

Dan: And then we, they all go there often then. Who said you had a fat one. I go fat it's in four counties and they've yeah. They've kind of protected their find.

Sidey: Yeah. And we go back to the numerator and Richard Dreyfuss says we didn't think it was appropriate to make a big thing about it. So we just did an anonymous phone call to the authorities to let them know.

And then you get it fills in the rest of the back, the backstory of what happened to Chris.

So he'd been in encouraging Chris goes to college and, you know, try and make something of himself. And he did, he went to, he went to the same college they sort of grew apart, but he became a lawyer. And then it explains what happened in his article. Has that been an altercation with two people.

He tried to step in to calm things down and somehow been stabbed in the neck and he died.

Dan: Yeah, it was

showing me,

Sidey: And

that's when he says, although I hadn't seen him for 10, 12 years whatever it, was, I knew I'd missed him for the rest of my life.

So

Dan: an absolute Stonewall coming of age classic that everyone should see. I watched it with my boy and we absolutely loved it. And it was one of those first adult films that I'd actually watched with him. I say, I don't films, you know, you,

Howie: you

Dan: other than that, exactly. You know, other than the smart um

Sidey: there's probably a sweet spot age that you need to have seen this in my opinion, to get the most

out of

it because me watching it now, I didn't get a lot out of It, I thought Yeah, it was dated some of the, I don't like.

charter. You know, they should be shot, at, but a lot of them, these were, were pretty good actually. And you can tell that because they, these guys went on to have dates and Chris so that that was actually okay.

I thought Keith, some of them was just like, fucking like absolute pantomime.

Howie: Do you think he was just phoning in his lost boys? The parents?

Sidey: I haven't seen lost voice. I can comment. And so just like, it just like wasn't intimidating. at all. It was just like complete mockery.

Howie: If you think he's pantomime of this, you need to see lost boys.

Sidey: the the, the Lord has bit. Yeah. It was just like I don't deliberately amateur. Cause he was telling a story, but you could almost see like the hose pipe

behind him, where they were puking stuff that

Dan: it was, it was a, it was a CA you're being way too harsh on this absolute Stonewall.

Classic.

Sidey: I would probably agree with you if I'd seen it, When I was

1458. I was watching. again Now but coming to it as a 43 year old. Pete, Pete's going to think I'm deliberately hating on it. I'm not hating on it It's fine. I'm loads. people love it just not me. I probably would love it if I'd seen it earlier.

It's didn't get a lot out of it this time. You know,

Dan: No. Well, I, I watched it as I say with my boy and he's 15, you know, so this is the kind of age where you'd expect and we've watched it before, you know, watch it when he was probably about 13 and a half. Loved it really, really enjoyed it. I, it wouldn't be for every kid around the age. Maybe it'd be a bit too, too old for a younger kid, but cause it is adult themes and, and things, but

Sidey: Shocked reaction when you see the dead body,

and a lot of

Dan: yeah, there's a, there's a few kind of moments in it, but overall kids who are a lot more, you know, doing it and they're bringing out guns and funking off schooled in this, you know, in this era,

Howie: as you think about the dead bodies in films of the eighties like that, the morning, the one that still gets my kids, like I was shocked by the fact that they weren't completely devastated by it is I watched the uncut.

You know, when the body falls from the freezer that's hanger. So there's that element that was just seen in.

Sidey: this one was, was more striking because it was

you know, a body, It was a decomposing, like dead body. It wasn't like a horror film, dead by John mean, it was just more like, this is what happens when someone dies. You know what I mean? It

was quite like,

Dan: a reality there.

Howie: Yeah, it's interesting to see what your dad thinks of, how he linked and identified with what is quite a foreign childhood to him.

You know, that ability, like we just said at the start to be able to just bang on the back, see that mom, dad on Sunday, by seeing if a day or two, you know,

Dan: but the world feels bigger when you're young, doesn't it even, even in a relatively small place in Ireland where we live, you know, you, you feel like if you're in St ones, you're in the other side of the world sometimes. So it's yeah, it was a film that he really loved, I would highly recommend. And I will definitely watch again at some point some time

Sidey: I watched it with my daughter when I'm, when she's a bit older, and see it, see what

Dan: She's

Sidey: thinks.

And I probably get more out of it watching it with her, I think.

Howie: Yeah. Rainy Sunday afternoon on the sofa.

Dan: Yeah,

Howie: Okay. I'll I'll click in on that one.

Sidey: Cool Sorry, Pete.

Howie: I know.

Sidey: No, no.