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It was 25 years ago today when audiences first went on the fateful journey with Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Teddy (Corey Feldman), Chris (River Phoenix), and Vern (Jerry O'Connell) into the Oregonian woods to find a dead body. The movie was a sleeper hit when it was released on Aug. 8, 1986, opening in only 16 theaters but then going on to earn more than $50 million at the box office.
Since its release, Stand By Me has become a coming-of-age classic, required viewing for everyone who was young once (yes, that means everyone). To celebrate the movie's 25th anniversary, ReelzChannel is airing the Stand By Me tonight at 8 PM ET/ 5 PM PT. ReelzChannel is on DirecTV channel 238, Dish Network channel 299, and available on your cable or satellite system.
What's your favorite scene from Stand By Me (the infamous pie scene is unforgettable)? Who's your favorite character?
RELATED: 25 Things You Might Not Know About Stand By Me >>
Posted 08.08.11 by reelz -
"I never had any friends later like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?" That memorable line is just one of the many reasons this coming-of-age movie holds up so well. Earlier this year, the Stand By Me cast reunited for the 25th anniversary Blu-ray release.
But we can go one better. We're airing the movie 25 years to the date it first hit theaters — August 8th at 8 PM ET/ 5 PM PT. ReelzChannel is DirecTV channel 238, Dish Network channel 299, and available on your cable or satellite system.
To celebrate the anniversary, we dug up 25 great pieces of trivia >>
Posted 08.03.11 by reelz -
Children of the '80s, prepare to feel a little older. Remember that ragtag team of teens from Stand By Me? In celebration for the 25th anniversary of the release of the 1986 movie and the Blu-ray release, the cast reunited.
Jerry O'Connell (Vern), Corey Feldman (Teddy), Wil Wheaton (Gordie), along with director Rob Reiner and Richard Dreyfuss, who served as the movie's narrator, posed for a group shot at Falcon Theater in Toluca Lake, Calif. Sadly, River Phoenix, who played Chris, died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23.
One thing to say about this coming-of-age classic is that it was not a one-hit wonder for most of the principal cast. Of course, Feldman went on to star in The Lost Boys and License to Drive, among other movies and is still performing in the occasional flick nowadays. Wheaton became part of the Star Trek galaxy with his role as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. O'Connell has probably had the most successful career post-Stand By Me. He's been busy with rememberable rolls in Jerry Maguire, Scream 2 and is currently on TV on the show The Defenders and is married to Rebecca Romjin.
Who would have thought the pudgy kid would have grown up and married the supermodel?
Posted 03.18.11 by reelz -
Director Kevin Smith's new movie, Cop Out, opens this week, but Smith is already talking about his next project, Hit Somebody, a hockey movie that takes its name from a classic Warren Zevon song. But, before you start thinking that Smith + hockey = comedy, think again. When he first announced the movie back in October, Smith said that everyone assumed he would be applying his Clerks sensibilities to hockey in a send-up of the '70s classic Slap Shot, but he countered that presumption by saying, "It's not like my normal sh*t."
Unlike Cop Out, which is the first movie that Smith directed that he didn't also write, Smith will write and direct Hit Somebody. In a recent interview with NHL.com, he said that the script isn't ready yet, but that he "could probably write it in less than a month." Smith said that, beyond his Cop Out duties, the only thing that was holding him back was finding the right "voice" for the main character, Buddy, a hockey player better at physically injuring his opponents than scoring goals. Smith revealed that after working with Seann William Scott on Cop Out, he realized that Scott was perfect for the role and signed him up for the job.
Seann, for me, was the key into the character. I had all the elements in place, and the one thing I was missing was the personality. Generally, I like to write to a voice, but I didn't know who that voice was or what that voice could be. And then after spending all the time with Seann on this movie, he's pitch perfect. He is that guy.
This dude has something in him that you can just see hangs so well on Buddy. He's got some pain that's going to work out well. More importantly he has so much love in his heart. Seann Scott is such an ebullient, happy person who's just happy to be there. And on [Cop Out] you could see it. On our set, the guy is just so delighted to be working, to be making people laugh. But he's always dismissed as [his American Pie character] Stifler.... This is his chance to shine.
Not only is Smith not shooting for the kind of lowbrow humor that has typified his View Askew productions, but he says that Hit Somebody could be the movie that helps both him and Scott take their careers to the next level.
I look at this as Seann's opportunity to go to the [Tom] Hanks level. Hanks for years and years did this [lesser] role and then he became that [blockbuster movie] guy. This is Seann's chance to do that as well, not just be Stifler. And it's my chance to not just be the Clerks guy. It's my chance to do something big, epic in scale. Stories I tell span one day.... This spans 30 years. You're talking a period. You're trying to bring people to a time in your life that hasn't existed in 30 years. The look of it, the feel of it, the sound of it — everything I have is going to be in that movie.
The only other piece of information known about the movie at this time is that Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: Nemesis) will have an unspecified role in the movie.
Posted 02.23.10 by BrentJS -
Considering Kevin Smith's dearth of stoner comedies, it may surprise you that he recently admitted to the Huffington Post that pot smoking wasn't a past time he regularly enjoyed. He decided to change his pot smoking ways after Zack and Miri Make a Porno bombed at the box office, though. Smith says he took the movie's failure hard.
I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better. I'm sitting there thinking "That's it, that's it, I'm gone, I'm out. The movie didn't do well and I killed Seth Rogen's career! This dude was on a roll until he got in with the likes of me. I'm a career killer! Judd [Apatow]'s going to be pissed, the whole Internet's going to be pissed because they all like Seth, and the only reason they like me anymore is because I was involved with Seth! And now I f**kin' ruined that."
It was Rogen that Smith claims introduced him to his new herbal lifestyle, a development that Smith told the New York Post has been a positive choice for a career he felt was slumping. His next project, A Couple of Dicks, is a buddy cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracey Morgan. It marks the first movie Smith has directed but didn't write.
I was like "If I write a movie right now it's going to be about a filmmaker who made a movie that enough people didn't go see and it's really sad." You know, I'm not gonna write that. So this Couple Of Dicks script fell on my desk and I was like "Wow, if I had written a buddy cop movie this is exactly what it would be like."
Think Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop. It's totally fun and very warm but let's be honest, it's not a movie that has a searing message at its center. It's pretty much the movie you imagine in your head but like 40% funnier.
After Dicks, Smith will move onto a movie about another love in his life, hockey. Hit Somebody, inspired by the Warren Zevon song of the same name, will follow a man who wants to play hockey but is only good at beating people up. It sounds a lot like Happy Gilmore, but Smith says the movie will not be a comedy.
It's not like my normal s**t. Some people heard of it and were like "Oh, you're gonna do a Slapshot" and I'm like "No." I mean it's set in that era [The 70's] but I'm going for something a little else, a little different on this one.
A Couple of Dicks opens February 26, 2010. Hit Somebody has no release date currently scheduled, though Smith recently Tweeted that Wil Wheaton will be joining the cast.
Posted 10.07.09 by Ryan