STAND BY ME
BBC America, 10:00 p.m. ET
This 1986 movie, directed by Rob Reiner, is another example of how the son of Carl Reiner has helmed, in many different genres, successful films (stylistically as well as financially) that show him to be a very gifted director. He’s perfect at being faithful to each film’s central conceit and flavor, and just as good working with actors, whether working on The Princess Bride, Misery, or This Is Spinal Tap! And with this coming-of-age period drama, based on a Stephen King story, Reiner does it again. Richard Dreyfuss plays the writer looking back on a pivotal event from his small-town youth in 1959, when he and his best friends went out in search of the rumored body of a missing, presumed-dead boy. And what a young cast: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell play the best friends, with Kiefer Sutherland as their chief tormenter.