The Movie: Stand by Me (1986)
What Is It?: One
of the very best Stephen King adaptations doesn’t have a single vampire, axe-wielding
dad, or telekinetic teen. It does, however, have four of the finest child actor
performances on film as Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O’Connell, and Corey
Feldman play very dissimilar buddies who journey into the
woods to see a dead schoolmate before Labor Day arrives and the new school year
splits them apart. Funny without really being a comedy, moving without ever
getting sappy, and sporting as many quotable lines as its classic fifties pop
tunes, Stand By Me still stands up beautifully today... and the pie-eating
contest that morphs into a barfing contest is still a shockingly wild little
digression.
Why Today?: Today
is Labor Day.
