Gordie Lachance

The reason why I've gone to the audio book is that the new release of The Body is narrated by Will Wheaton.

who famously played gordy in the film and it lends it some extra weight because the book as the film is narrated as the grown-up gordy telling the story of that time in their lives when they went to look for the body so having will wheaton voicing that character telling his story it's a no-brainer it's so perfect will wheaton himself is early 50s i think he's the same age as me So he's the right age to be playing the older Gordie looking back on his life.

And Will Wheaton's such a great storyteller anyway.

I love listening to audio books that he's narrated because he's just got a presence to every character and he knows how to tell a story.

It's good enough.

But the Goonies weren't the only ones going on dangerous adventures, and Gordie and his friends in "Stand by Me" weren't the only ones coming of age.

There also happened to be a movie in 1987 that had both of those elements and monsters, like actual, actual monsters.

Now normally, when you think of '80s horror cinema, you think of the slashers like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or B movie excellence like "Night of the Comet." But today's movie deserves to be in the conversation when it comes to '80s horror excellence.

What a film as well, by the way.

Every lyric feels as though it was written for Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern, despite being composed decades before the film ever existed.

Consider the evidence, "When the night has come and the land is dark," those opening words perfectly mirror the boys' journey through fear, vulnerability, and uncertainty of growing up.

Yet the song dwell- never dwells on fear.

It was, like, just a means of survival.

My dad was raising three kids and on his own, and so he just went out and killed food.

It was a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store.

Like, you know, one slug, one deer slug could feed you for, like, three months.

Um, he was kind of this special guy between an adult and a kid, and he never left that zone.

Mm-hmm.

You know? So there was something kind of very approachable to him about kids, uh, because he was bigger than us-

Yeah

He died.

Gordy and Chris Chambers.

Yes,

Chris Chambers.

Gordy Lachance and Chris Chambers.

And

the encouragement that he gets from his friend.

Only you know the world.

Uh, I love the performances in the movie.

And I, I will tell you, um, on my last pick I said, "My number 10 is a movie that is beloved, and if I play it, I'm gonna hurt a lot of people's feelings." And your, Kevin, your name says Gordie Lachance, and I just couldn't place Stand by Me at 10 because I know-

[laughs]

... how many people love this movie.

Exactly.

Because right next to them, walking on the exact same train tracks, you have Wil Wheaton as Gordie and River Phoenix as Chris, and they are delivering these incredibly heavy, melancholic performances.

They aren't playing kids.

No, they are playing weary adults trapped in kids' bodies.

You have half of the friend group clinging to the slapstick comedy of childhood, and the other half is just already crushed by the gravity of adulthood.

That psychological contrast is the engine of the film.

Gordie is a character paralyzed by a fear of loss.

He has already lost his older brother, his father is emotionally absent, and he is just terrified of what tomorrow might bring.