Stand By Be is a 1986 drama, directed by Rob Reiner. It was based on the story The Body by Stephen King and was nominated for an Academy Award for the screen play. I doubt theres anyone who disagrees that this is a superb story, but I believe that the dramatic aspects of this film, such as the acting, sets, makeup and costumes, deserved some recognition as well!
Like The Goonies, the cast of this movie is made up, primarily, of child stars and they were quite talented ones. The difference though, is that while comic relief is sprinkled into the script, the rolls of the children were a lot more serious. This allowed the actors to showcase their abilities to perform extremely emotional scenes. Not all child stars are able to believably act out serious, deep or sad scenes, but the film had been phenomenally casted and this was not an issue. Wil Wheaton claims that the children's real personalities matched those of their characters which helped them successfully portray their roles. The main characters Gordie, Chris, Vern and Teddy are played by Wil Wheaton, River Pheonix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell.
Most of this movie was shot on location, therefore the sets are extremely realistic. The boys supposedly live in the town of "Castle Rock", but this town is fictional so the town scenes were shot in Brownsville, Oregon. Most of the other scenes were also shot in Oregon, including the junk yard which is still in operation today. The scene where the boys outrun a train was shot in California on the McCloud River railroad. Having the movie shot on location as opposed to on sets made the movie that much more realistic.
The costumes and makeup in this film were intentionally extremely simple. Anything other than minimal makeup and slightly worn out clothes would have looked out of place. Even though the wardrobe was not extravagant or complex by any means, each character still had a subtly unique style. Gordie's simple t-shirt showed off his scrawny arms and his torn up jeans showed his rugged side and a hint of neglect. Chris' attire was similar. The jeans were almost the same but Chris wore a white shirt which, symbolically, could have showed how he wanted to be distinguished from his family of alcoholics and criminals. Vern's collared shirt tucked into beige pants with a belt around his waste reflected his timid and not-quite-considered-cool personality. Teddy stood out with his big black glasses and the darkest outfit of the group. He also had the makeup necessary to make his ear look like it had been held to a stove.
This movie is crazy strong when it comes to the Dramatic Aspects! These aspects were all covered very solidly and they all strongly contributed to making this movie such an impressive project.
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