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A&E

Favorite Film Friday: Stand by Me

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By: Isaac Mathewson
Starring: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell
Rob Reiner, the man behind mainstream classics such as This is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and A Few Good Men, is one of the most fascinating directors in Hollywood today. Many of his movies have balanced comedy and drama to tell a sometimes funny, other times sad story. One of the movies to achieve this best was a coming-of-age film based off of Stephen King’s novella The Body.
 
Stand by Me tells the story of four twelve/thirteen year old boys; quiet Gordie Lachance(Wheaton), tough kid Chris Chambers(Phoenix), anger prone Teddy Duchamp(Feldman), and funnyman Vern Tessio(O’Connell), who one late summer’s day in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, decide to go find the body of the missing boy Ray Brower, after Vern overhears his brother Billy, talking about it. Along the way, they dodge trains, swim in a leech infested pond, and stand up to knife –wielding bullies, led by Ace Merrill, played by Kiefer Sutherland. All the while, they debate how they are going to escape their boring lives and what the future holds in store for them.
 
Contrary to the title of the book, the whole film is an adventure film, but it is also a character study. It shows the boys who they are and where they came from, through the eyes of the Gordie as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Gordie is shy and sensitive but at the same time he is very intelligent and is a talented writer. Chris is very mature for his age, but comes from a bad family and that gives others the idea that he turned out bad also. Teddy has been abused by his father, but he still idolizes him and gets angry if someone insults him, such as the scene in the junkyard. Vern is a funny kid, but he is also cowardly, but at the same time he braves danger even when things seem grim. Some of these traits were from people Stephen King knew as a child.
 
The film is gorgeous to look at. It has beautiful cinematography, showing us the Oregon countryside, and capturing the mood for the film. It also has a good soundtrack composed of classic songs from the 1950’s.
 
What makes the film stand out, however, are the performances. All of the actors are very real and show great wisdom and talent beyond their years, partially because their teacher was Rob Reiner himself, who is an accomplished actor.
 
The best of the four, and the most tragic, is River Phoenix. He showed great depth and emotion in his performance and he seemed the most believable out of the four. The famous scene when he tells Gordie around the campfire about how he stole milk money is incredibly powerful and he often seems like a father figure to the others over the course of the film. This film made him a star and the end unintentionally foreshadows his ultimate fate.
 
Although it is a film with kids, this is not intended for younger viewers. It is rated R for language and thematic elements. However, people who are at least in junior high can take it, and the movie is appropriate besides that. Even so, this film is incredibly powerful and many, including myself, consider it to be one of the greatest coming-of-age films of all time. I have seen it many times, and I hope to see it many times more.          
A&E, Columns

New book release prompts columnist remember actor River Phoenix

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By Isaac Mathewson
On Oct. 31, 1993 , Hollywood actor River Phoenix died of a massive drug overdose in Los Angeles. Since then, there have been many memoirs as well as songs and websites dedicated to his short but promising life. To me, he was a fantastic actor and a major role model in my life due to his achievements and his beliefs.
Now 20 years later, with the upcoming book Last Night at the Viper Room by journalist Gavin Edwards who witnessed his death, I have decided to tell the story of his life and explain why he was such an inspiration to me as well as many others.
River Jude Phoenix was born on Aug. 23, 1970 in Madras , Oregon. He was the oldest of five children, and his siblings’ names were brother Joaquin, who is also an acclaimed actor, and sisters Rain, Liberty , and Summer. During his early years, his family belonged to a cult called the ‘Children of God’ and they were missionaries in Venezuela. When he was eight, his family moved to the United States because they were encouraged by their cult to engage their children in sexual activity. His family were vegans and in his later years, he would become an animal rights activism. He was also an accomplished guitarist, as he and his siblings used to perform on the streets for money.
At his suggestion, the family took up professional acting to meet their needs. After acting in a number of T.V. shows and movies, he had his first major film role in the 1985 family film Explorers. However, it wasn’t until the 1986 film, Stand by Me, when his career really started to kick off. He starred in several minor hits such as The Mosquito Coast, and he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Running on Empty. He also played young Indiana Jones in the first 15 minutes of The Last Crusade, and in 1991, he gave his best performance in the independent hit My Own Private Idaho.
Despite his acclaim, Phoenix was unhappy. He did not like being the center of attention all the time and believed that the media should be focused more on serious issues. He also was an animal rights activist, as I said before, and he believed that the food industry should limit the amount of meat they produced.  He even bought 800 acres of rainforest in Costa Rica to be saved from deforestation.
Phoenix also had a major dark side to him. Ever since he was on the set of My Own Private Idaho, he had been struggling with a major drug problem as he had taken many to better his performance. He fought it for two years, and thanks to his reputation of healthy living, he appeared clean and normal. Even so, they still took a major hold over him.
On Oct. 30, 1993 , he had returned home from shooting the film Dark Blood, which to this day is unfinished. He went with Joaquin, Rain, and his girlfriend Samantha Mathis to Johnny Depp’s club ‘The Viper Room.’ He had planned on playing his guitar with Depp and his friends the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but he was told that there were too many people, much to his disappointment. While in the bathroom, he ran into his friend who gave him a ‘speedball,’ which is a mixture of heroine and cocaine. Half an hour after taking it, he felt sick and asked his friends to take him home. However, once outside, he collapsed on the sidewalk and began to have seizures. Although paramedics tried to resuscitate him, little could be done for the young actor. He was pronounced dead in the early hours of Halloween, 1993. He was 23.
What River Phoenix left behind was a great legacy. Apart from his films, he had also showed us a darker side to a fame few at that time knew about. He also became a symbol of what can happen to even the finest of artists.
Although he died three years before I was born, he continues to be an inspiration to me. Now that it has been 20 years since that tragic night, I think we should all take the time to recognize his talents as well as his story.