We watched Stand By Me last night as a family. It's not quite age appropriate for the boys, but I wanted to watch something decent. I get so tired of watching The Secret Lives of Lego Emoji 4 or whatever, and I almost never get to pick the movie, so this time I had them watch three trailers (the other two were The Nutty Professor and Bend It Like Beckham) and they kinda surprisingly picked Stand By Me. I forgot how much fucking cussing is in that movie. Every other scene those goddamn boys are dropping f-bombs and calling each other pussies, and there are multiple references to tits. It doesn't really bother me if the kids hear that type of language, but it bothers S, and I can just feel her silent condemnation of my movie choice boring through me with every swear Gordie LaChance and Chris Chambers utter.
The film still totally holds up though. I think everybody liked it (even S). It doesn't feel dated in a way a lot of those '80s movies do. Maybe it's because it was already set in the past or maybe it's just a really well-made film (or both). The scenes with John Cusack really got me -- like, legit choked up. All the performances are so good. It's really sad to think about what happened to each of the actors who played the main kids. River Phoenix, who stole the show at, like, 14, died of an overdose before he turned 24; Corey Feldman has had his own substance-abuse problems and his career has been a punchline for decades; and Wil Wheaton has talked openly about how being a child star frayed his relationship with his parents and adversely affected his emotional development and mental health. At least Jerry O'Connell seems to be doing okay. He's got a hot wife, two kids, and loves fantasy football -- sounds a lot like somebody else I know.
You know who else is amazing in that film? Kiefer Sutherland. He plays the sneering villain absolutely perfectly. (This is the best scene in the movie by far.) I was watching him wondering why he didn't become a bigger star. I mean, he's had a very good career, but if you were to name the defining actors of the last 40 years, you'd probably go though a couple dozen names before his. My theory is that he has a condition some male celebrities get called Malady of Advanced Test of Time (MATT). It's basically a reverse late bloomer syndrome. They go from having an ultra-magnetic, je ne said quoi sex appeal when they are young to looking like a normal dude you'd see in line at Starbucks when they are only slightly older. You can compare the two pictures below of Kiefer Sutherland to see what I mean. Don't get me wrong, he's still a good-looking man, but he's a good-looking man like that one dad at the PTA meeting is a good-looking man -- somewhere along the way, he lost "it".
Some other celebrities who suffer from MATT: Matthew Perry (the namesake), Prince William, Vince Vaughn, and Bobby Brown. Now, you might be thinking: C'mon, man, that's just called getting old. But that's not it because a lot of celebrities get old but don't suffer from MATT -- Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Mick Jagger, and Denzel Washington, to name a few. And notice that they are still all A-listers. I think I'm on to something here: Celebrities who stay super hot have more successful careers. I gotta publish this in an academic journal somewhere.
Anyway, since I'm talking about actors anyway, let's end with five actor connections. These are people I recognize in movies or TV shows from other movies or TV shows, but the connection doesn't always dawn on me right away. Whenever this happens, I make it a point to not look them up my phone because I want that satisfying aha moment when it finally comes to me.
5. Arturo Castro: Broad City, Yes Day
This seemed like a deeper-cut connection when I actually made it a few years ago. Now, he's more famous and pops up in things all the time. He's also in Weird: The Al Yankovich Story (which is pretty funny) and even has his own show on Comedy Central.
4. Odeya Rush: Goosebumps, Lady Bird
S and the boys watched Goosebumps recently, and I poked my head in for a few minutes and was like I know that dark-haired girl. It took me a few minutes, but it dawned on me that she was the snobby teen from Lady Bird. She's very striking, which is okay for me to say because she's now 25-years-old.
3. Jeremy Davies: Rescue Dawn, Lost
I was particularly proud of this one because I made the connection almost completely from his voice. He has this raspy mumble that he does in Rescue Dawn, and it reminded me of his character in Lost.* He was also in a famous (infamous?) Subaru commercial, and he later gained some renown for his work in the TV show Justified.
*Coincidentally, I think the first episode he was in of Lost was the last one I watched. Given how poorly the final episodes of that show went over with fans, I feel totally justified in not watching the full series. In fact, it's now a general philosophy of TV watching. Once I feel a show starting to go south, no matter how beloved, I bail. I highly recommend it. You might miss out on the occasional renaissance, but that is far outweighed by time saved and consternation avoided from not having to watch bad TV. Lost, Homeland, The Office, Silicon Valley, Sex & the City -- all shows I happily walked away from. I'm very close to getting there now with Ted Lasso.
2. Josh Brener: Silicon Valley, The Last of Us
I admit, I cheated on this one. I used my phone. I heard the The Last of Us is intense (it is) and requires the viewer be in a certain headspace. I recognized an actor in the opening scene of the series and knew I wouldn't be able to get into that headspace unless I figured out who it was. When I finally learned the actor's name (it took a bit of googling) and saw he was also in Silicon Valley, it was like, Ah, yes, Big Head! Of course. I should've known that!
1. Maria Dizzia: Louie, Orange is the New Black
Louie CK might be a creep (he did at least one very creepy thing), but he is funny, and I really liked his show back in the day. I somewhat recently came across a scene, completely randomly, from an episode in which he's dating somebody, and although I had seen it before, I watched the entire thing solely because I wanted to place the actress in it. By the end of the scene it came to me: Piper's best friend in the first season of Orange is the New Black. This happens a lot, where I'll look back on a clip I've seen before, and recognize somebody in it from something I saw later. I didn't know who they were the first time I saw them, so I didn't recognize them then, and I didn't recognize them in the later thing because they had such a small part in the first thing that I didn't remember them from it. I could probably put together a decent sized list of people who fit this bill just from old Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes. But I'm not going to do this now because I'm done with this post.
Until next time...
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