PICK OF THE WEEK
Stand By Me
M-Net Movies Showcase, Channel 108, Saturday, 09:15 For those of you who were children of or during the ’80s, you’ll probably remember this Oscar-nominated adventure drama based on the short novel by Stephen King.
It’s one of those must-see generational movies you can make your kids watch as evidence that your childhood was better than the one they’re experiencing.
Stand By Me is one of King’s less fantastic, more real, stories. It’s about four young friends who, in 1959 Castlerock, Oregon, decide they can become local heroes if they find and retrieve the body of a missing boy, whom they believe was hit by a train in a remote area outside their town.
They launch into the adventure with the naive bravado of the young, but before long they’re forced to confront the reality of the situation and deal with their largely un-thought through feelings and beliefs about life and death — and the school bullies are racing them to the prize.
The four kid actors — Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell — deliver surprisingly deep and multifaceted performances, coming across as young boys trying to make sense of the situation and life in general.