ON THE ROAD: Stand By Me (1986)

FREE COMMUNITY SCREENING AT STARKEY RANCH THEATRE LIBRARY CULTURAL CENTER
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Join Tampa Theatre at Starkey Ranch Theatre Library Cultural Center for this very special free presentation as part of our Big Picture film series, on the road and out in the community.
Tampa Theatre On The Road screenings are FREE and open to the public. Ticket not required for this event, but seating is limited.
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1h 29m / R / Drama, Adventure, Comedy
Shocked by the surprise news of the death of a dear friend, writer Gordie Lachance reminisces about a strange experience he and some friends had in the summer of 1959. After learning that a stranger has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four Oregon boys decide to go see the body (and hopefully become heroes to the town). On the way, Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Vern Tessio (Jerry O’Connell), Chris Chambers (River Phoenix) and Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) encounter a mean junkyard owner, a marsh full of leeches, and their own nested-flashback nightmares as they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives.
It’s easier to make memories as a kid. Everything is new. There are fewer days behind you, crowding the frame. Stand by Me, based on the short story The Body by Stephen King and directed by a young Rob Reiner, grapples with the psychic weight that the past takes on, and how it impacts the future. And the movie itself can’t avoid carrying that weight — the four young stars, like the characters they play, found themselves in the same place at this moment but ended up on very different paths. Jerry O’Connell had a film career he transitioned to voice over and TV; Wil Wheaton got stuck in the Star Trek system and had to reinvent his own showbiz persona to break out of it; Corey Feldman became a genuine superstar, but burned out into a tragic life of exploitation and abuse; and, most saddest of all, River Phoenix died of a drug overdose just a few years after Stand by Me’s release.