In the third unit of the course Ollywood, we studied post-production and different ways to approach a film critique. Post-production includes music, sound effects, editing, and special effects. For our action project we had to make a podcast of a movie review, I chose the to critique the movie "Stand By Me" because I like the song and because I like journey movies. Through out this project I had difficulty choosing an approach and finding extra information. I learned different approaches to critique a film and how to use one.
Hello everyone! Thank you for tuning into my review of Stand By Me, its a Drama/ Adventure film inspired by a Stephen King novella. The director of this film is Rob Reiner and it was released on August 8,1986, The film stars River Phoenix who plays Chris Chambers, Will Wheaton who plays Gordie Lachance, Corey Feldman who plays Teddy Duchamp, and Jerry O’Connell who plays Vern Tessio.
I will critique the movie through a genetic approach. This approach follows the film through all stages of its creation and release which means I will be reviewing the film for elements of pre-production, production, and post-production.
The film is based on a short story called “The Body” by Stephen King. Stand By Me is narrated by Gordie Lachance who is writing a book about an adventure that he had with his three closest friends when he was 12 years old. Gordie along with Teddy, Chris and Vern embarked on a journey to find a dead body. The journey is emotional for all of the boys, especially for Gordie who learned that his best friend, Chris was capable of looking after him like his older brother Dennis,who passed away in an accident.
I will start by critiquing the use of set design, location, and cinematography. The movie is set in Castle Rock, a fictional town in Oregon created by Rob Reiner. Many of Stephen King’s novels that became movies used the set of Castle Rock because King liked how Reiner created the set. Many of the scenes were shot in different locations throughout Oregon and many of them had little value. The set designers and Rob Reiner created mostly everything that we saw on screen including the train tracks that the boys guide themselves through.
An example of this would be the tracks, they were actually just a dirt path to which the set-design crew added train tracks. One of my favorite scenes happens sometime in the middle of their journey and the boys find themselves on an elevated train track as a train is approaching. Chris and Teddy get to the other side, while the speeding train appears to be inches from Gordie and Vern who are running as fast as they can. This scene was very realistic and very suspenseful, even though the train was actually very far away from the two actors. Through the use of a 60omm long-focus lens, the cinematographers made the train appear much closer than it actually was.
There was a recurring prop and action from the actors that really stood out to me. Throughout the film, the 12-year-old boys are often seen smoking. Even though, the smoking was something that appeared in the background, it was important in telling the story of what young boys do when unsupervised. When watching the film, I was surprised that the young actors were directed to smoke. But, Rob Reiner, the director is actually an anti-smoker. The cigarettes were made from cabbage leaves. I thought the actors did a good job in the scenes they smoke because I believed they were actually smoking. I believed it because their faces expressed that if the adults can smoke then they can too.
I am going to critique the use of film-cuts used in the film. At the start of their journey, Gordie goes to the store to buy food for his friends before starting their journey. After picking up the snacks, we see Gordie run back to the junkyard to find his friends jumping the fence of the junkyard. The scene starts with us looking at Gordie standing in the junkyard and through the use of the look-off film cut, the scene cuts to three friends climbing the fence. We see the scene through Gordie’s eyes, as if we’ve become Gordie in that moment and we can feel his disappointment with his friends for leaving him behind.
I really liked the scene where the young group of friends are on the train tracks walking, they put on the radio and the song Lollipop comes on. Vern and Teddy are ahead of Gordie and Chris. Vern has the radio so as soon as the song starts playing they make a choreography. Two steps to the right advancing and two steps left and when the pop sound happens they do it too, then continue doing the same thing. I thought that in this scene the actors did a good job in portraying their youth because they are not only going to see a dead body but they are spending time together as friends and discovering more who they are. Also this shows that kids can be fun, joke around, and express a little of themselves in acting.
Another prime example of the quality of acting and directing was in a scene when the group of boys are about halfway through their journey. In the campfire scene the boys are taking turns keeping watch for coyotes while the others sleep. When it was Chris turn to keep watch Gordie was having a nightmare so he woke up and kept watch with Chris.
Chris started telling Gordie how everyone think he is a thief and that when things go missing they blame him because of his family’s reputation. But he is not like that and he starts crying and saying that he want to go to a place where nobody knows him so he can start fresh. When filming this scene Chris faked cry but Reiner knew he could do better so he asked him to think of a time in his own life when an adult has let him down and use it.
Chris did but his emotions were too strong that the director had to comfort him after the scene was done. This shows that the actor put lots of his own emotions to the movie and also it shows that he actually relates to the character he is playing.
Also in this scene an effective film cut was when Gordie was telling a story he created to his friends about people bullied an overweight kid and how he got revenge. This scene used dialogue referent cut, the scene starts with Gordie starting to tell the storie then it cuts to the main character planning his revenge. I felt like that was a good cut because it made me see what the main character was doing and how his revenge ended up with everyone vomiting on each other.
Mostly all the music the director put in the movie was coming from the radio that Vern brought for their journey and they were just popular songs from that time like the songs Lollipop, Come go with me, Let the good times roll, and more. The only songs that didn't come from the radio was the song Stand by me and some instrumentals. The song Stand By Me would play when mostly every time they continue their journey. I also notice that when they played the song it would be different like it still has the same beat but something is added. The instrumentals would only play when dramatic things happened.
I give this movie 4.5 stars because it took me on a journey and it kept things real like the older guys bullied the younger ones and the way the actors acted. I liked it a lot and I recommend watching this movie especially if you like seeing calm adventure movies. Well thank you for listening my film review! Bye!
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