Stand By Me

Last night I re-watched a personal favorite from my childhood, and in my opinion, one of Rob Reiner's best films; Stand By Me.

What a great adventure flick. It truly captures what being on any kind of quest is like. Drawing on personal experience, I only remember my adventures as a kid AND as an adult bringing out emotions in my that I try to keep hidden away, and all four of the kids in this flick manage to really bring out those emotions in us.

Gordie Lachance breaks your heart in the scene where they find Ray Brower's body! Talk about a child performance, this one is one of the best, the one all other child actors should look to for guidance, the Citizen Kane of child performances.

Teddy Duchamp will scare you and make you laugh simultaneously, all whilst harboring a secret hidden anguish caused by the abuse of his war-addled Pop. Corey Feldman's performance in Stand is second only to his own performance in The Goonies. Don't tell me his "dream" monologue in the wishing well during Goonies didn't make you want to rip Troy Perkins balls out from where they hung for supporting his dad's quest to destroy The Goonies' neighbourhood.

Vern Tessio is the kid we all secretly relate to, the kid none of us want to be, but all of us truly are. Jerry O'Connell (before he bedded and wedded Mystique), truly brings the comic relief we all find ourselves needing in those scenes that are emotionally draining. Not to say he doesn't bring his own emotions to the flick. Hell, I think I had a heart-attack after seeing the terror in Vern's eyes while he was being chased by the train.

And saving the best for last, River Pheonix as Chris Chambers. I'm an Indiana Jones whore, so Young Indy can do no wrong in a flick, and his performance in Stand is no exception. Let's keep it simple and say that River makes Chris the kid we all wanted to be, shit, want to be. He's the kid who goes home to an abusive family, and still manages to keep his best friends going. The scenes where he breaks down will catch you by surprise, even if you've already seen it.

Sutherland and Cusack are of course great, but name me a time when they aren't. Great cinematography, courtesy of Thomas Del Ruth, the same D.O.P. who did great flicks like The Breakfast Club and a ton of TV shows, The X-Files included. Best of all though, is the classic (real classic, not Led Zeppelin classic) rock'n'roll soundtrack, which adds its own voice to the flick by keeping us the audience aware of when the story takes place. The aura the music creates reminds me especially of my own childhood and adolescence, this scene in particular,



Stand By Me is a touching little movie that belongs in any true film collectors... collection... It makes us all want to go off and have our own adventures, to be true heroes, like Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern. So when you watch this film, and start packing for your own adventure, allow me to leave you with a question from Christopher Chambers himself:
"You wanna be the Lone Ranger or the Cisco Kid?"

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

I just watched this documentary today about how films in Hollywood are rated called This Film Is Not Yet Rated by Kirby Dick. Truly a captivating picture.

Reason #1 - It's funny. Hilarious animations and sarcasm, along with jaw-droppingly shocking yet endlessly amusing conversations between Kirby, the filmmaker, and the board members/film raters of the M.P.A.A. Possibly the funniest bit was when the film counts out how many 'humps' there are in various sexually exploitive films, aka, the most evil films on the planet. I mean that only in the sarcastic sense; the fact that sex is viewed as something so much more harmful to our psyches than violence or rape (NOT sex, thank you very much) is something I've always found revolting. But ya, the flick is funny.

Reason #2 - It's shocking. Even though said conversations are funny, they are first and foremost fucking unbelievably secretive and at times, flat out ridiculous. Sometimes you feel like you're watching a flick dealing with something actually important like Bowling For Columbine or something like that (think the Charlton Heston scene in Bowling only have the conversation focused in on whether or not Kirby can use precedent in his own ratings appeal, meaning 'can he reference other films?'). Not to down Not Yet Rated in anyway, it's just that Bowling dealt with school shootings and revealed many horrible truths about gun control, while Not Yet Rated is only dealing with how a flick is fucking rated. The fact that it does feel like a CIA thriller is what makes the flick shocking, and really shines some serious light onto the M.P.A.A.'s rating system and how it's run. To summarize, you'll probably start comparing Jack Valenti to Sergeant Major Dickerson from Good Morning Vietnam by the time the flick's 97 minutes wind up.

Reason #3 - He brings in real filmmakers to tell of their adventures with the M.P.A.A. I know only a handful of us even saw Jersey Girl, but if you have, than you'll be just as floored as I was when Kevin Smith reveals that they tried to smack that flick with an R rating! That movie fuckin' played out as a father/daughter picture the entire way through, and they were gonna rate it R all because of a little sex talk, that basically innuendos its way through the whole scene anyways? And meanwhile a motion picture classic like Die Another Day or even a REAL collection of masterpieces like the The Lord of the Rings can come out with PG-13, just becasue they don't show blood when someone is shot or stabbed? Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked that kids were able to be introduced to the brilliant mind of Tolkien, but if those battle scenes aren't too violent, than a little talk about touching ourselves shouldn't be too sexual.

To say the least, this flick'll get any self-proclaimed film aficionado such as myself passionate and in an uproar about how they know more about film than the people at the M.P.A.A. and how if they could rate movies, they'd do it the right way, leaving out any true kind of censorship and only give those harsh ratings such as an R (18A in Canada) or a dreaded NC-17 (of course, to confuse us all, R in Canada) to the films that actually merit them, i.e. any graphic rape scene in a flick gets an NC-17 in my mind, as it is quite literally the combination of violence and sex (if you want to call it that) whilst victimizing in an extremely horrific way the weaker member of the rape. Especially women, which is all kinds of overused bullshit.

And so I started this blog, This Blog Has Not Yet Been Rated, so that I can discuss the flick's I want to discuss passionately and get into an uproar every once in a while about how I know more about film than the people at the M.P.A.A. and that if I could rate movies, I'd do it the right way, and leave out any true kind of censorship and only give those harsh ratings to the films that actually merit them. I hope you enjoy!