[sterling_archer]

Have you watched it? Does it look rushed or missing a lot? I read the first book and while the concept is very interesting I didn't have enough motivation to read more. Maybe sometimes I will try audiobooks versions.
Anyways, I think they couldn't portray enough of the atmosphere of the first book into the movie without messing something up. It simply reality that happens to even the best of directors and screenwriters.

[Beyond Borders]

The preview made it look like a total hackjob. I doubt I'll ever watch it.

I generally find the critics score on Rotten Tomatoes to be pretty dead on with my tastes - the audience score, on the other hand, is all but meaningless to me. If the critics score had been high, which I didn't expect it to be in the slightest, I probably would have sucked it up and at least given it a shot.

Even the ridiculous actor choices and plot tangent wouldn't have dissuaded me if feedback was positive.

But for an 18%?

Nah. Waste of my time. I'm not going to be quite that bored anytime soon...

I do predict someone will still eventually make a version that's more faithful to the book at some point, though, so it's just a waiting game. It's far too much of a cult classic for the demand to go unheeded.

[stugatz]

(05-14-2017 01:07 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  

Interesting thing regarding King is that his lack of knowledge regarding guns produced contradictory descriptions of two six shooters Roland carries throughout the books. Guns "change appearance" during books.

He shares that same thing with G.R.R.Martin who doesn't know very much about bladed weapons.

King was fantastic in his heyday but he was a retard when it came to guns. In Apt Pupil, a round from a .30 .30 rifle takes off the whole top of a guy's head. In The Stand, the round from a "large, unpleasant" FORTY-FIVE takes off a portion of a guy's head and the second round grazes the inside of his mouth and horrifically knocks out all of his teeth.

King seems to think he can just invent body horror with actual balistics. In Cain Rose Up, to be fair, he actually tries subverting this and the character uses a ".352 Magnum". Of course everyone's head gets blown off here too.

[sterling_archer]

Maybe in your example we have King's fascination with gore. He is a horror writer first, either psychological or overt and brutal so he wants to put some kind of gore in his work.

[PuppetMaster]

I've never read Stephen King before. What are some good books to start with? I'm looking for something that is very atmospheric and creepy.

[Tail Gunner]

(08-12-2017 01:25 PM)PuppetMaster Wrote:  

I've never read Stephen King before. What are some good books to start with? I'm looking for something that is very atmospheric and creepy.

1) The Stand

2) It

3) The Shining

4) Salem's Lot

[stugatz]

I'm a fan, sort of, but I admit that King is just a very good pulp horror writer, and not one of the greats. In general, I'd tell you to steer away from anything he wrote after 2000 (or, for that matter, 1996).

The Stand and It are among his best, but I wouldn't really recommend those if you're starting out, they're both doorstoppers and a little overlong even if you're a fan. (If you can find the 823 page original of The Stand, though, I'd recommend you make that your second or third book by him. It's a lot faster than the uncut, and the publishers were right to tell him to trim it.)

I'd also recommend, building off of Tail Gunner:

1) Misery (my favorite book by him, full stop - it's just a great read you won't be able to put down)
2) Night Shift (short stories, but you get a very good feel for his writing style and most of the stories are fantastic - the whole thing's a quick read, too, unlike Skeleton Crew which I've been slowly nibbling away at for over a year)
3) Different Seasons (four great novellas)
4) Pet Sematary (it's short and unpleasant, but it's a pretty good look at how unbelievably dark King can get if he's in the mood - some of the scenes just make my skin crawl)
5) His initial Richard Bachman stuff (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, and Thinner - all five are pretty quick reads that he wrote under a pseudonym that eventually got found out. You might have some trouble finding Rage, he cucked out and let it drop out of print as it's about a school shooting.)

I'm not really a huge fan of his straight horror. I thought both Christine and The Shining were decent, but the movies improved on both by quite a bit. (He can be bad when he goes too far off the reservation too, though - I hated Gerald's Game with every inch of my body.)

[stugatz]

What does everyone think of the Dark Tower, by the way? I'm a fan of the Randall Flagg character, but I read King's (very tenuously) connected fantasy novel Eyes of the Dragon and wasn't impressed.

[sterling_archer]

I like the idea of Randall being a guy who either jumps through universes (using dark tower???) or has incarnation in various universes.
From what I read just now about The Stand, he seems there and the world of The Stand is basically our world. Then I see he is also in The Eyes of the Dragon. Also it seems that this novel takes almost same place as the Dark Tower series.

I will read or listen to the Eyes of the Dragon and then I will continue with the Dark Tower series.

[Beyond Borders]

(08-12-2017 01:25 PM)PuppetMaster Wrote:  

I've never read Stephen King before. What are some good books to start with? I'm looking for something that is very atmospheric and creepy.

Pick up one of his older short story collections. He's a master of the short story and plenty of them will creep you the fuck out if that's what you're looking for.

One of the powerful things about short stories is there's not so much expectation for "closure," which often leaves the author feeling an obligation to wrap everything up and create a tidy ending to the book. As a result, short stories often leave you in the middle of the emotional climax and thus stick you with thoughts and feelings that never fully subside.

It's a powerful experience and I can think of many King stories that still haunt me now if I think about them even though I haven't read them in ages.

Dissent Seasons, Skeleton Crew, and Night Shift are all collections that come to mind.

I also recommend checking out The Bachman Books, a collection of novellas he wrote under a pen name. King did some of his best work as Bachman, in my opinion, and he's also very good with the novella length format - two of his few successful movie adaptations - Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption - both began as novellas.

[Tail Gunner]

(08-13-2017 01:43 AM)stugatz Wrote:  

5) His initial Richard Bachman stuff (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, and Thinner - all five are pretty quick reads that he wrote under a pseudonym that eventually got found out.

When the OP asked about "good books," I thought purely of his best novels. I also really like his Bachman books and "The Long Walk" is probably my all-time favorite work by King.

"Apt Pupil" is another short story that is really creepy and a very underrated movie. There is a powerful scene where the kid forces the old Nazi to march in a SS uniform and the old man temporarily transforms to the man of his youth and the kid finally realizes that he is playing with evil.

[Paracelsus]

(08-13-2017 01:47 AM)stugatz Wrote:  

What does everyone think of the Dark Tower, by the way? I'm a fan of the Randall Flagg character, but I read King's (very tenuously) connected fantasy novel Eyes of the Dragon and wasn't impressed.

The whole seven Dark Tower novels are uneven, but the good mostly overrides the bad.

Probably the best thing about all seven books is that King was fairly content to just let the untold sections of the story remain untold. You're never given the full, unabridged picture of how Gilead was, or exactly what the function of the Gunslingers was (though there is a book not authored by King - the book Black House by one of his novelist friends, Peter Straub - that gives a one-paragraph summary of it) and in the same way that old, minimalist cinema allows you to imagine the things that are just outside the reach of the camera, you fill in the details for yourself.

Almost magically, the fact that the universe itself is fraying works in well with King writing the books over about 20 years or so and some details getting a bit inconsistent or loose as the books go on ... because that's what you expect from a universe whose wheels are falling off. Roland himself is about as interesting a protagonist as Stephen King has ever come up with (as opposed to antagonists) -- he's a thoroughly equivocal figure throughout. King also subverts traditional fantasy stereotypes about confrontations with Big Bads (I'll say no more than that) but in hindsight this shit works pretty well when you consider that the Big Bads in all cases are as vulnerable to the unravelling of the universe as everybody else. I'm in the minority that I actually liked the overall ending of the book, and large chunks of the later books which were written in King's weak period.

It's for all those reasons I both cheered and winced when they announced a Dark Tower film. The hero and the books simply could not have been translated with any faithfulness to the character and story; the normies simply wouldn't have accepted what Roland did with Jake in the first book.

[stugatz]

(08-13-2017 09:36 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

When the OP asked about "good books," I thought purely of his best novels. I also really like his Bachman books and "The Long Walk" is probably my all-time favorite work by King.

The Long Walk was pretty fantastic, although it has a problem Stephen King runs into in his works...he didn't know how to end it. (The Stand sort of had that, too.) I'll take a clunky ending, though, if the rest of it is fine.

[Tail Gunner]

(08-14-2017 10:35 PM)stugatz Wrote:  

(08-13-2017 09:36 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

When the OP asked about "good books," I thought purely of his best novels. I also really like his Bachman books and "The Long Walk" is probably my all-time favorite work by King.

The Long Walk was pretty fantastic, although it has a problem Stephen King runs into in his works...he didn't know how to end it. (The Stand sort of had that, too.) I'll take a clunky ending, though, if the rest of it is fine.

I actually liked the ending, because it dealt with the psychological outcome rather than the physical or material. How can anyone be the same after such an ordeal? But I know what you mean. The Dark Tower series had a very controversial ending, although it certainly made you ponder the nature of Hell.

[Player_1337]

(08-13-2017 05:30 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(08-12-2017 01:25 PM)PuppetMaster Wrote:  

I've never read Stephen King before. What are some good books to start with? I'm looking for something that is very atmospheric and creepy.

Pick up one of his older short story collections. He's a master of the short story and plenty of them will creep you the fuck out if that's what you're looking for.

One of the powerful things about short stories is there's not so much expectation for "closure," which often leaves the author feeling an obligation to wrap everything up and create a tidy ending to the book. As a result, short stories often leave you in the middle of the emotional climax and thus stick you with thoughts and feelings that never fully subside.

It's a powerful experience and I can think of many King stories that still haunt me now if I think about them even though I haven't read them in ages.

Dissent Seasons, Skeleton Crew, and Night Shift are all collections that come to mind.

I also recommend checking out The Bachman Books, a collection of novellas he wrote under a pen name. King did some of his best work as Bachman, in my opinion, and he's also very good with the novella length format - two of his few successful movie adaptations - Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption - both began as novellas.

Dolan's Cadillac is a great short story from Nightmares and Dreamscapes. I also really enjoyed The Body (the source of material adapted for Stand By Me).

[Beyond Borders]

(08-13-2017 05:30 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(08-12-2017 01:25 PM)PuppetMaster Wrote:  

I've never read Stephen King before. What are some good books to start with? I'm looking for something that is very atmospheric and creepy.

Pick up one of his older short story collections. He's a master of the short story and plenty of them will creep you the fuck out if that's what you're looking for [...]
Dissent Seasons, Skeleton Crew, and Night Shift are all collections that come to mind. [...]

Oops...should have been Different Seasons. Autocorrect.

[Gard1983]

i have to agree that most of his stuff is better when it comes to short stories or novellas. King has always had a problem with bloat in his novels. that said he's still put out some good ones over the years-

my personal favorites would probably go in this order-

1- Pet Sematary, just very creepy, dark and atmospheric. when i read, i'm always aware i'm just reading; there are sections of this one that actually made me feel like i was right there though.

2- 11/22/63, semi-historical sci-fi and imo has one of the better protagonists he's ever written

3- Blaze, a Bachman crime story he shelved for years and then mostly re-wrote. kind of a darker take on Of Mice and Men.

4- IT, great characters all around and he does a pretty good job of giving them all a separate voice. whole thing is a fun and interesting read, excepting the kids fucking in the sewer. i still don't know why that section hasn't been chopped in all these years. it still reads like something a middle aged coke addict wrote.

5- Wizard and Glass, the best of the Dark Tower novels i think

[fokker]

I read Christine when I was 16 and liked it. I've got a copy of Misery as well, but I don't know if I've read it or not.

[Elster]

(08-11-2017 08:14 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

I do predict someone will still eventually make a version that's more faithful to the book at some point, though, so it's just a waiting game. It's far too much of a cult classic for the demand to go unheeded.

Funny thing is the first book at least is the kind of movie adaptation you can pull Nowadays with a spaghetti western budget (low) and AfterFX to churn out some thing quite decent.

Would also be nice if someone took to making animations...

[Paracelsus]

Found this article dated 1 August which suggested Dark Tower production was an Irish firedrill:

Quote:

With millions of loyal readers and a fantastical setting, Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” book series has long tantalized Hollywood. The movie business is always on the prowl for the next “Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter.” King’s novels, about a mysterious gunslinger on a quest to save the universe, had the markings of a potential blockbuster.

However, getting the promising adaptation to the big screen took more than a decade and suffered several setbacks along the way, as one top director and screenwriter after another — including J.J. Abrams, who originally optioned the material — tried and failed to wrest the author’s eight-book opus into a workable film. After Universal Pictures scrapped plans to make a series of interconnected films and television shows with Ron Howard running point, Modi Wiczyk, co-founder of Media Rights Capital, set the project up under a co-financing deal with Sony Pictures.

In 2015, MRC and Sony jointly announced they had found a way into the story and tapped Nikolaj Arcel, the Oscar-nominated Danish filmmaker behind “A Royal Affair,” to direct the movie.

With “The Dark Tower” poised to debut this weekend, multiple sources told Variety that the creative process — particularly in post-production — was plagued with problems and clashing visions. Wiczyk and Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman downplay any suggestion that the movie faced major hurdles.

But when Arcel delivered an early cut of the picture that alarmed Wiczyk and Rothman, they considered bringing in a more experienced filmmaker to recut it. While the two men deny this and insist their joint contribution was limited to giving the director notes, one insider said that Rothman spent hours in the editing bay offering his input.

Arcel seemed the ideal director on paper — “A Royal Affair” had earned an Oscar nomination and proved he could handle lavish spectacle, while his screenwriting work on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” demonstrated he could adapt beloved novels. Also, he was a big fan of King’s, enlisting his books to improve his English.

Arcel, however, had never worked on this complicated a project, and he found himself in over his head on the $66 million fantasy film, say several sources.

Three blind screenings last October, shown before final effects work had been completed, confirmed fears that the picture was a mess. Audiences at the test screenings couldn’t understand the mythology and rated the film poorly. A classic tale of good and evil, “The Dark Tower” stars Idris Elba as the last Gunslinger, who is locked in an eternal battle with a sorcerer known as the Man in Black, portrayed by Matthew McConaughey.

Sources say the companies ultimately opted not to enlist another filmmaker (one explained it would have been too costly), but the executives from the studios remained heavily involved. Ron Howard, a “Dark Tower” producer, who had hoped to direct the film when it was set up at Universal, advised Arcel on the music, and co-writer and producer Akiva Goldsman helped wrangle the film into shape.

Arcel insists he wasn’t sidelined.

“On a film with two studios and powerful producers, obviously there is much passionate creative debate on how to work certain ideas or beats,” he said. “But I felt supported throughout, and they all looked to me for answers. If someone had jumped into my editing room and taken over — I would have left instantly.”

Rothman and Wiczyk say they were impressed with Arcel’s work, with the Sony chief saying he “hopes to” collaborate with the director on future projects. Wiczyk also hit back at claims the film was troubled.

“We shot this on time and on budget,” he said. “We didn’t go over our schedule by even a day.” Calling his company “artist driven,” he added, “We would never marginalize or remove a director or dare to edit a film.”

Sources paint a more acrimonious picture of the production, one that was enabled by the unique nature of the deal that Sony struck with MRC — a pact that allowed competing power centers to emerge. The two companies split costs, and in return MRC was granted “kill rights” on everything from the marketing campaign to the final cut of the picture. If one company didn’t like a trailer or a cut of the film, it had to be scrapped, making it difficult to achieve consensus. It’s a rare type of partnership, with the kind of sign-off that few production companies enjoy. That led to a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” according to one insider. [Stephen] King also had a great deal of input. In return for the rights to his work, he retained veto approval of almost every aspect of the film.

Sony and MRC admit “The Dark Tower” defied easy translation. The books move forward and backward in time and reference multiple genres, from gangster films to Arthurian legends. It was a struggle to combine parts of several books into an 88-minute film that appeals to both King devotees and mainstream audiences.

Sony and MRC spent $6 million on reshoots to fill in more backstory about Elba’s character’s hatred for McConaughey’s Man in Black. In addition, to better familiarize audiences with Mid-World, the film’s magical setting, five minutes of exposition were cut and a new scene was shot to combine ideas that had been sprinkled throughout the picture.

Sony’s Rothman believes that the narrative complexity will ultimately help the film connect with audiences. “It’s a fantasy film and so yes, it’s complicated; it’s intricate and ambitious, but that’s a good thing because with the complexity of the stuff on television now, theater audiences want ambition,” he said.

On social media there’s been speculation about the quality of “The Dark Tower” given that the studio moved the picture premiere from February to July, only to push its release back by an additional week. Despite the mixed buzz, “The Dark Tower” is tracking to open in the mid-$20 million range. It also has the support of an important critic. In the novels, someone who acts dishonorably is said to have “forgotten the faces of his fathers.” After seeing the film, King sent Arcel an email praising him. “You have remembered the faces of your fathers,” he wrote.

What this says to me is that the companies tried to get a bargain-basement deal out of it where neither of them wanted to pay much cash for it, and along the way hired an arty director on the cheap and never really understood the material is actually big budget and takes time and some narrative deftness to explain. Whenever the executives get in cutting or with serious input on a film, it sucks balls. Again and again this happens.

[VincentVinturi]

Let's talk Stephen King's It (2017)...

I came in highly skeptical because the original It adapted-for-TV movie was BRILLIANT.

Everything from the casting, the acting, the music, the pacing - every damn thing - was done superbly.

It's easily one of my favorite movies, and I could defend a dissertation on its allegorical significance.

This new one, as expected, was pure horse squeeze from start to finish.

Not even the updated graphics and production value could make up for such poorly done work.

For example...

1. Pennywise

Tim Curry is a hard act to follow, I know. But this Pennywise doesn't approach the dark humor and nuance of the original.

He's too "scary" and not "creepy" enough.

They also produced it to where he does that abnormally fast and twitchy head shaking thing that the dead chick from Saw does.

It's trite already, this effect.

The actor wasn't too bad but his voice and mannerisms don't make him a believable clown.

You can see how in the original Georgie sees Pennywise in the sewer and isn't scared by him until it's too late.

He's deranged (to the adult observer) but not outwardly malevolent to the kid.

Whereas with this one you have to suspend disbelief because he stares a hole through Georgie and yet Georgie goes to get his boat anyway.

2. No adult characters?

The kids are all kids throughout the entire movie.

I guess if you hadn't seen the original this wouldn't bother you but weaving the older kids' storyline in with the younger kids was one of the brilliant storytelling devices that made the original so captivating.

It's also fascinating to see how the casting is done for adult / child actors and how they match up.

3. SJW influence all over the place

- The boys are all fucking dorks and the only remotely cool person is the chick. She's all tall, beautiful, courageous You go grrl and all the boys are wimps. Girls are doing boys a favor by Eddie's cast, telling Ben to buck up, and so on. Fucking sickening. In the original Bevvy was a short, sickly little dork too without the smug smirk that this redhead chick has.

- Bev's father is insinuated to be some kind of rapist instead of just your standard issue abusive dirtbag

- Snarky comments all over the place

- lots of cursing. I didn't think this would bother me but notice in the original they didn't have any swear words and it was still magnetic.

- In the original Henry's beef with Mike H is that he's black and lives down the street from him. They use "nigger" throughout the original and they didn't touch it with a 10-ft pole here. Kills believability (this is supposed to have happened in the 60s right?) and waters things down.

4. Casting

Except Bev's character, the rest of them are completely forgettable, including the one that yaps too much.

In the original Bill was a stuttering dork but also a magnetic and powerful personality that rallied the whole gang.

Ben was tubby but also confident and industrious (the dam).

Eddie was wimpy but stepped up with the battery acid.

Eddie's mom in the original was so well-cast and acted.

This one is some fat trailer trash chick who is completely incongruent with the Munchausen's syndrom mom from the original which fit to a T.

Richie = terrible.

Stan = his whole personality here is chained to being Jewish, which was only incidental in the original and he was characterized by his belief in science.

Henry Bowers = Actually this one was pretty good casting wise but the fact the he actually cut Ben with the knife was tasteless. Just like this Pennywise, this Henry lacks a certain believable insanity until he kills his dad.

And what happened to Belch? That was a great character that is completely undeveloped in this version.

5. Lack of kid-isms

In the original you got the sense that you were hanging out and relating to real kids because kids call stuff by their own kid names, and make up expressions and sayings.

"Collecting birds", "beep beep, Richie" (which was used by Pennywise in the new one with no context, thus making it a non-sequitur for anybody who hasn't seen the original), The slingshot with the silver broach.

6. The Music

The soundtrack from the original It is a masterpiece.

The undulating opening theme that weaves throughout the entire movie in different permutations is haunting, nostalgic and hopeful all at once.

The original also had leitmotifs ala Wagner (Pennywise's insane circus music, the main theme, the hope theme, etc.)

This music is unremarkable.

7. No allegorical potency whatsoever.

It isn't about a clown and kids.

It's about facing your fears, growing up, and facing them again if you have to.

It's an ALLEGORY.

That is clearly completely lost on the purveyors of this slipshod remake.

8. Acting

Bev's character and Henry Bowers' characters were well-acted.

The rest, meh.

I take this shit personally because I've seen the original It probably 20 times by now.

I've never read the book so I can't compare it to the REAL original but this 2017 version is a 3rd rate ripoff of one of the greatest pieces of cinema of our age.

Total sham. WNW.

(Would not watch)

[sterling_archer]

2. In 2019 will come the second chapter with grown ups. Plot happens in 80s in this remake, not in the 60s.

[JayR]

King is a major libtard and gets a lot of flack over on the Politics thread for suffering from TDS, but I'm glad there is a thread on RVF for appreciating his excellent work. I'm a lifelong fan.

I was an English major in college in Maine in the '80s and feel lucky to have seen Stephen King speak about writing on the college lecture circuit. I also remember when the whole "Stephen King is Richard Bachman!!!" news broke. It was huge news at the time if you cared about such things.

I think it's great that, after being panned by snob writing critics for years, he's finally getting recognized for his excellent, entertaining work, and now filmmakers are tripping over themselves to translate his writing to the big screen.

Most of these have already been mentioned in this thread, and I'm definitely partial to his early stuff, but these are my favorites:

-All the early period novels up to around 1987, with "The Stand" being my favorite
-The Bachman Books, especially "The Long Walk"
-Both early short story collections, "The Night Shift" and "Skeleton Crew," especially
-- "Gray Matter" from the former and
-- "The Jaunt" and "Survivor Type" from the latter.
--"The Mist" (unedited version from the "Dark Forces" horror compilation).
-Creepshow (Comic is great, but King's hilarious in the movie as bumpkin Jordy Verrill).

I ran into King in 2004 at a gas station on Rte. 16 North in New Hampshire. Like a regular dude with a sweet tooth, he bought a Pepsi and some Hostess Ding-Dongs. I didn't want to bug the guy, but as he left the store, I asked him if he'd pose for a shot with a "future fan" (my kid). He happily obliged:

[Kurgan]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone read the novel "Thinner" from Stephen King? I watched the 1996 film of it a while ago.

[Tail Gunner]

A film version of "Doctor Sleep," sequel to "The Shining," is in the works.

https://www.newsmax.com/thewire/the-shin...id/866276/