CRITIQUE

I once had a conversation with an acquaintance of mine about Stephen King.  From my point of view, he is completely over-exposed with his books to films.  I mean, you don’t see too many of Brain Lumley books made into a film.  In fact, you don’t see any of Lumley books made into films (if you are a fan of Stephen King in any capacity, check out Lumley.)  I still respect the hell out of King.  His movies are really poor examples of an overview of King as a writer.  You have to look at his writing pieces.  The man is still a great columnist for Entertainment Weekly, great horror writer, satirist, and most important of all a great storyteller. 

The conversation was basically on how King’s writing isn’t real. He writes macabre stories, as this person stated.  I disagreed then and I disagree now.  While Stephen King is best known for writing horror, he has a versatile wide range of craft to write other genres.  Dolores Claiborne, for example, is a great realistic Hitchcock-ish suspense story.  Both the book and the movie are vividly deep in its own subject matter. 

But it’s the four-short storied novel Different Seasons that really goes in depth of the human condition.  All four stories explore characters going through a journey of re-discovering of them selves.  And three of those four stories have become strong, hard-hitting important motion pictures.  One of those stories happens to be “THE BODY”, which than got turned into “STAND BY ME.”

Stand By Me is a symbolism of friends standing together while innocence may be lost.  In this story and film it is the Stephen King’s version of a coming-of-age story.  All great writers at one time examine their own experiences as a kid and write a compelling story about it.  Of course, with Stephen King, a dead body is the motivation for the kids to go along for the journey.

Pieces of dialogue are somewhat vulgar in taste, making it even more realistic to the extent of watching a group of young boys bullshitting around with each other.  I know I was like this when younger. 

As a film I always kept in my heart growing up I noticed a few tidbits I didn’t notice before.  Keeping in mind that I recently reviewed Bambi not too long ago, I saw a few similarities between the movie and Stand By Me.  Both dealt with the subject matter of death in a respected matter.  Both dealt with loss of innocence and friends sticking by each other in a mature way.  But I also notice, both are very quiet and atmospheric.  There were nice establishing shots of Stand By Me of just the settings and surroundings.  I also noticed the theme/score of Stand By Me is actually “Stand By Me” itself, where you’ll hear a string instrumental version of that Ben E. King classic song of the same title.

With a dozen of coming of age stories (and coming of age stories doesn’t always have to reflect child’s innocence, adults can also lose their innocence in a compelling story (example, The Green Mile or Saving Private Ryan)), there is also a similar formula that is followed.  Usually, an adult dwells on something, tells a story, narrates the story through voice over (or sometimes, flash-forwards occurs once in a while to show the adult at hand, taking a pause and then continuing on (example, Titanic), and then – relicts on the story after the story is told.  Stand By Me is the utmost best with this formula – because it does it in such an original way (almost like it was the first to create this formula of storytelling), and it is also compelling from a writers point-of-view.  Not all coming of age stories follows this (example, ET), but just about the majority does.  In fact – it has become another movie-making cliché. 

Stand By Me takes place in Castle Rock. Castle Rock also happens to be a movie production company, that either produced or financed a handful of Stephen King stories to screen (including “The Shawshank Redemption”, from the same book as “The Body”). It’s similar to when Spielberg formed Amblin Entertainment that he used the ET logo for the production company logo.

THE VIDEO

Sony presents Stand By Me in 1:85 widescreen format.  For being a film that is 19 years old, picture quality is “picture perfect.”  No grain from what I can tell.  Darken just right, but not too dark.  It is almost like the film was made yesterday; that’s how perfect the picture quality is. 

THE AUDIO

Sony presents Stand By Me in English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.1), Portuguese (Dolby Digital 2.1).  Real crisp and clear from the dialogue to music.

THE EXTRAS

The Good:

The commentary by director Rob Reiner is informative and somewhat insightful. It’s always a pleasure to hear from him. 

Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand By Me is a great featurette that includes just about everyone involved with the film, including Stephen King (which is a rare for a documentary, to include the author of the story that inspired the film.) There is even a short tribute to the late, great River Phoenix included in the featurette.

Fillers include Stand By Me music video, an isolated music score, talent files, and some trailers that don’t quite reflect the film.

There is a very elegant, nifty and exclusive 32-page collector's book that comes with the DVD, as well as an exclusive CD soundtrack sampler. 

The Bad:

While hearing from Reiner is never boring, hearing one person talking is. There should’ve been a commentary with Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cusack, Rob Reiner, and Stephen King. I mean, the DVD producer(s) gathered the majority of these people for the documentary, why not for a commentary track?

The Ugly:

As the “DVD features” section on Amazon for this title states, there really should be a “BUYER’S BEWARE” sticker on this DVD. To be perfectly honest, besides the book and CD sampler, this is basically no different then the “special edition” title, which is a better buy anyway. This set is labeled the “DELUXE” edition for including a nice little book and a nice little CD. While the thought is good, it also unnecessary. This is what pisses me off about DVDs nowadays. While there may not be a sequel (thank god) attached to this for the re-release, there really was “no need” for this re-release whatsoever.

FINAL THOUGHTS