The Body Review: Stand by Me and 친구(Friend)

In this review, I would like to talk about the similarities between the movie Stand by Me and 친구(Friend).

To give you a very general idea of what the movie 친구 is about, it is a movie that talks about 4 friends that eventually grow up and end up in a very different life from one another.
The thing that I found very interesting about both stories is that despite the striking difference between their setting, one in Busan and one in U.S., these boys all go through the same passages in life.
친구 starts from a scene where the boys are very young, as young as 13. This is the age that they are probably like the boys in the Body. At this age, these boys show much similarities to the boys that are in "The Body". They joke around with each other, and talk about things that we find to be quite silly in such a serious manner. For instance, in the movie Stand by Me, the boys talk about whether Goofy is a dog or not. In the case of 친구, the boys talks about whether a professional swimmer or a turtle would be faster.
This talking about things that are not really important as if it really matters to them, is one similarity that I found interesting in those movies.
Another similarity I found in these movies is the family background. 준석 is a character that is like a father to those boys, protecting them from outer sources of influence such as teachers and bad boys. He, a perfect match with Chris, has a father who is a gangster.    Like Chris, who had a drunkard for father.

The main difference between these movies is the point of life that the story focuses on. Unlike Stand by Me, 친구 is more about the people those boys become after they grow up and the life that they lead. Two of them becomes a gangster, a rival gang at that, one becomes a elite, and the last becomes an ordinary restaurant owner. 동수 ends up dead, murdered brutally by 준석' s gang. 준석 goes to prison for life.
Still, the movie 친구 relates with the movie Stand by Me in a way that the directors for both movies would not have noticed. Remember how "Friends Drag you down"?
Well that line is explicitly shown in the movie친구. 동수 becomes a gangster only because of the influence of 준석, whose father was a gangster also. He ends up dead because his friend dragged him down.
A very interesting characteristic that 친구 has with Stand by Me is the future of Chris. The actor who played Chris, River, gets addicted to drugs. Well, 동수, a match for Chris, also goes through periods in which he suffers from drug addiction.

They both have  a similar tone, the tone of nostalgia and that friends can't really last forever regardless of what you think of them in your mind.

친구 is a great movie, a personal favorite of mine and one strangely similar to Stand By Me.

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I wondered whether it was possible to put a video as a title.
It seems that I have failed to do so. Dang.

But wouldn't that be interesting? The concept of having a video for a title.

Having a video for title will, draw people's attention to the article.
Heck, even having a picture for title will help.

People never use it though. Probably because they would think that a title should encompass the contents of the article. Of course, a picture won't be able to exactly state what the article contains. However, isn't that the same for most titles? Unless the author is really down-to-the-earth, most titles aren't that boring. It often uses a similee or a maxim in order to express the overall feeling of that article.

Well, if that is the case, to give an overall feeling of that article, why can't a video or a picture do the same? Instead of having a title like "Death looks upon Africa", and talking about the poverty in Africa, why can't we have a simple picture like this as a title?

Kevin Carter's infamous photo

Certainly, it works amazingly well as a hook, and introduces the contents at a first glance.

Maybe I should try doing so on the final.

God is an Astronaut

This particular band I fell in love with is a group that usually does post-rock.
Now, post-rock is nothing like rock. It is more like newage music, except that it is played with  instruments that will usually have been used for rocks. In most cases, post-rock has no voice at all. It is quiet, and calm, except for certain moments in which the music hits "The Ordeal".

"God is an Astronaut" is the name of the group. Quite a name, huh? The reason they have this name is probably because of the songs are all about stars and night skies.
Their songs are quite complex, yet stunningly beautiful and mesmerizing. For some reason, you find yourself vibrating with the beat of the music and silently humming along.

Here are some of their songs:


What is amazing about their song is that regardless of the fact that I have never really bothered to look at the shores of Orion, it somehow feels that the shores of Orion would look like this music. Like this yellowish, a bit blue, and grand.



This song, my favorite, is named "Suicide by Star".
Just closing my eyes, I can picture the night sky as bright as day, full of blue, emerald green stars.

I made a cover for this album during my Art class.

Yup, it's a bit gory, but still.

I tried to depict the thoughts that went through my mind when I first heard this song. I thought how this song seemed to describe something beyond the reach of our senses, and the desperate attempts of humans to get there. The inevitable failure to do so, to get their, makes people fall. It pains people. So I stabbed a star into that poor salmon's back.

The name of the album is: All is bright, All is violent.
Yup. To that fish, all would be bright, and all those stars will be very violent.

If I had to give this band a five-star evaluation, I would give them as much as there are in the album cover. This music is beyond the scope of star-measurement. God is an Astronaut.