Another reason to love TCM

I live for the 31 Day of Oscar. The best movies every made in one month. Sadly, I've missed the first two weeks but that is all being made up for tonight. I had every intention of turning is early after chasing a 4 year old and running a good solid five miles in 55 minutes. Stand By Me is on.

Shannon McGee was one of my best friends growing up. I could ride my bike to her house and did so every chance I got. We went to grade school, junior high, high school and junior college together. We lived for this movie. I had intentions for years of showing it to my nephew as it is THE rite of passage movie. He needed to see it. I still don't know if he has.

This movie is perfection. I love the fact that is has never, ever been marketed, or promoted as a Stephen King movie. Fact of the matter is that is comes from the same book of novellas as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. In both movies, the thank him in the credits and that's it.

There is an amazing innocence about this movie. Perhaps it is my memory of watching this religiously when I was 12. It might be my never ending love of River Phoenix and the end feeling of loss of innocence surrounding my feelings about his death. That man was beautiful. Chris Chambers is how I will always remember him. Not dying on the sidewalk on Sunset Strip.

Moreover, it is just funny. There are still lines I recite on a regular basis without even thinging about it. "Oh, piss up a rope!" "Finding new and preferably disgusting ways to insult one's mother was always held in high regard." And, or course, "One food for the rest of my life? Easy. Pez. Cherry flavored Pez." It is the most real and honest dialogue and I can say that having never been a 12 year old boy.

On top of that, the cast is just interesting. New blood no one knew. John Cusack and Keifer Sutherland. It took me years to believe that Jerry O'Connell played Vern. And it kind of makes you sad that the only thing Wil Wheaton went on to do was Star Trek...

So, I'll be sitting here drinking more of the bottle of wine I opened than I had planned. I'll be Googling Shannon McGee shortly.

Comments

[Sheila]

This is what makes February not so bleak. Right now it's Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in her satin bias cut dress in the perfection that is "It Happened One Night". The DVR is set to tape "The Awful Truth" later. That is about one of my favorite movies.

[Becky]

Yeah. Excellent flick. I should watch it again.

[Brenda Friedrich]

NICE opening line! I like the movie Stand By Me -- and it certainly is a right-of-passage flick -- but I don't get into as much as you do. I'd like to see something similar but featuring girls; perhaps I could relate to that more.

[aejr]

The last time I watched "Stand by Me," I got kinda depressed, and I think that you hit on part of the depression with the point about ol' Wil Wheaton. Why didn't he go on to do more? He wasn't bad. I think I remember him on "Where are they now?" on VH1, saying something like he just didn't want to act anymore. That's better than going the pilly path of most childstars.