80s Youth Movies: Stand By Me

Yesterday I was watching Stand By Me, one of the best youth movies from the 80s, for about the nth time and I remembered how kind of brilliant (if immature- the film does centre around a bunch of twelve year olds after all) the cusses and retorts in this movie were.

• "Suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood."
• "Piss up a rope!"
• "Did your mother ever have any kids that lived?"
• Teddy: You morphadite!
  Gordy: Don't call me any of your mother's pet names.
   
• Gordy: Shut up.
  ALL: I don't shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up!
  Gordy: And then your mother comes around and she licks it up.
   
• "I'm gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck."
   
• "Let him do his own fighting!"
  "Sure, you only outweigh him by five hundred pounds, fat ass!"
• Vince: I bet you $1000 they find him before that.
  Other Guy: I bet you $2000 they don't!
  Ace: Would you two just shut the fuck up? If either of you assholes had $2000, I'd kill you both.
   
• "I'll only be young once."
  "Yeah, but you'll be stupid for the rest of your life."

Then of course there are the poignant lines, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?".

And River Phoenix, in general.

I love River Phoenix's character in this movie (Chris Chambers), for saying things like, "It's like God gave you somethings man, all those stories that you can make up...And He said, "This is what we got for you kid, try not to lose it." Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it then maybe I should."

And that beautiful song by Ben E. King, in the video of which, River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton are so cute:

In short. Watch this movie, okay. Just go and watch it, even if you've watched it some time before.