I just watched a great movie with Carly and Alex that is years old, first released in 1986 when Keiffer Southerland looked about 20 years old. Stand By Me is based on one of Stephen King's first stories called The Body (from the book Different Seasons) that I read about 25 years ago. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches, and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes, and the comradeship of best friends.
I love it when the kids discover something old that I really enjoyed all those years ago too. It was an great movie: true to the book which is not so common with some of Stephen King's books turned movie. I remember being really angry when the movie ending of Cujo was the opposite of the book. It had a "happy family" ending, unlike in the book when the little boy died from dehydration.
We've had something of a movie-filled weekend. Earlier today I watched Apocolypso, a new release directed by Mel Gibson about the Mayan indians. It had subtitles which I didn't mind at all, and it was a powerful and thought-provoking. Last night we watched another two new releases: Smokin' Aces (action packed with lots of gunfights and blood flying); and Blood Diamond, a movie that depicts the fact that in some parts of Africa, diamond mining fuels civil warfare, killing thousands of innocents and drafting preteen children as vicious soldiers. A very graphic and heart-wrenching movie.
I have less than a year now to give up smoking, I promised the kids I'd give up before I turn 50. The count-down has begun.