I moved to Brisbane when I was 7. The first weekend I was up I was invited to a camp out with the cousins of a friend of mine from where I’d just moved. We sat up all night eating popcorn and talking and became friends for no other reason than we were kids. Those two guys are still some of my best friends in the whole world. We spent every single weekend together for the next ten or twelve years after that night getting into trouble in one way or another. We broke more bones, severed more fingers, got in more trouble as a group of friends than anyone I know. Watching Stand By Me makes me a little nervous that Stephen King could so accurately assess my childhood and make it so vivid and realistic despite setting it about 30 years before I was even born. I know a lot of people who feel the same way which makes this movie even more powerful. There’s something universal about this story. It’s an incredible piece of cinema. It deals with so called ‘adult’ subject matter and themes and fears and does so with more grace and elegance than most of the melodrama nonsense that gets churned out for adult movie going audiences.