Stephen King Month: The Shining (1980)

5 Stars - Terrific

At long last Stephen King Month is come to a close, do I regret it? A little... Will I ever attempt another theme month? Probably... though not Stephen King again, as there aren't enough films and miniseries left. So to finish let's look at The Shining again, this time the film, that has been brought out at the cinema for a limited period of time, restored to it's original cut that has not previously been available in the UK at all.

I've already described the plot of the book in my review of the miniseries, so I needn't do it again. But basically, family trapped in haunted hotel by snow, father goes crazy.

This film is wonderful, it has haunting imagery, wonderful cinematography that really captures the isolated, empty feel of the hotel. Most of all, though, this film is loud, everything echoes and the music never really let's you rest always unnerving you and making you not sure of what might happen next. Strangely though, I prefer the cut I had previously seen without the extra 24 minutes of footage, it felt somewhat tighter and more menacing, that's not to say this version isn't also great, probably just when you're used to something it can be weird to see it another way, I'm sure the more times I saw this cut the more I would like it.

As an adaptation it hits and it misses. Many elements of the book have been left out or changed, but a few scenes are word for word the same dialogue out of the book. Ultimately though this is more of an example of the book being a diving board for the director to take his own meanings from it and put them on the screen. You ask most people about the Shining and this is what they'll talk about, and that's fine, it's a very good film.

Never Overlook The Past

In short, a great book and a great film. Well worth a watch and read.

Argo - A Review

5 Stars - Awesome

A story so crazy it can only be true. Argo tells the story of a C.I.A. agent who comes up with an idea of pretending to be on a film location shoot to rescue six Americans trapped in Iran following a terrorist attack on their embassy.

The film is terrific, really drawing on the tensions and emotions created by this situation. It has a great attention to detail as displayed by a section at the end where you see several real life images compared to the film to see how well the recreated it.

The performances are top notch from all the cast, probably the most entertaining performances come from John Goodman and Alan Arkin as the two hollywood types with the incredible catchphrase of Argo fuck yourself.

I'm in a good movie this year?

In short, an absolutely great film, go see it.

Stephen King Month: The Stand

1.5 Stars - Awful

Now we're going way back to one of King's earliest books, a sprawling epic that was so long the original version had to cut out a large amount of material, it wasn't until several years later that it was published in its original uncut version. This is The Stand.

The Stand tells the story of a world wiped out by a plague, with only a small percentage of the population surviving. They start to have dreams, dreams of a sweet old woman by the name of Mother Abigail and dreams of a dark man wandering the world in worn down cowboy boots, named Randall Flagg. The people begin to split into two groups, those who side with Mother Abigail and those who side with Flagg. The forces of good and evil are set up on opposite ends of the country, ready to do battle with one another for the future of the world.

The book is an absolute masterpiece, taking its time to play out all the stories that develop and giving birth to King's most iconic villain, Randall Flagg, who would later play an important part in The Dark Tower series.

The miniseries however is atrocious, the characters are poorly acted, the script is nothing to shout about, the effects are lousy and it is really long and boring at six hours of sheer dross.

As an adaptation it is pretty bad, because even at six hours this is too big a story to do justice to in other media. Flagg is turned into a literal devil, which looks stupid. Characters are left out entirely or not as fleshed out as they should be. Despite this however I do kind of respect them for trying.

First Came The Days Of The Plague...

In short, an incredible book, an awful miniseries, skip this one unless you're some stupid guy who decides to watch a Stephen King film every day in October or something...

Stephen King Month: Salem's Lot (2004)

2 Stars - A Bit Crap

Once more we delve back into Stephen King's first small town story 'Salem's Lot, this time in the form of the 2004 miniseries, where they modernised the setting and changed some things... but I'll get into that.

I've already explained the story of this one in my other 'Salem's Lot review, but basically small Maine Town with Vampires.

This miniseries isn't all that good, the story drags and the supporting characters, the very thing that makes the book so good, aren't interesting to watch and so whenever they're on you just think where's the story? The acting is actually fairly decent with notable actors like James Cromwell, Andre Braugher and Rutger Hauer it would be hard not to be, but the best actors don't get that many scenes, in fact I think Hauer has all of about three...

As an adaptation it isn't very good, the modernisation feels forced as they all miraculously seem to forget that they're in a time where mobile phones could help out in a lot of situations and it doesn't contribute anything to the way they tell the story. The biggest change they made is the one most guaranteed to annoy fans of the book and once again it's what they do to father Callahan, who just can't seem to catch a break in these things. They had kept a faithful and true to the character interpretation of him right up until the end where he suddenly gets turned into a badguy, which is such a change from the book that it is inexcusable. There are also little changes made here and there, like when a guy falls where he thought there would be stairs in this he lands on a table saw, as opposed to the much more gruesome wooden spikes on the ground in the book.

Words Are His Power

In short, an annoying miniseries, give it a miss

Stephen King Month: The Mist

4.5 Stars - Good

Let's talk about Frank Darabont, a terrific director who has a great track record with directing Stephen King works, so far he has directed The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and today's offering, The Mist, based on the novella collected in Skeleton Crew. He also owns the film rights to The Long Walk, another of the Bachman books, I really hope he makes it soon.

The mist tells the story of a group of people who get trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious mist filled with otherworldly creatures. As time goes by people's fears start to get the better of them and they give into paranoia and start to turn on one another. The question begins to be raised of which is more monstrous, the creatures in The Mist, or the people trapped in the building?

The film is very good, really capturing the terror of what it would be to get trapped by something you can't fight against and can't really see. The performances are all strong enough to carry across this film and the only gripe I really have with it is that the CGI creatures can look a bit goofy.

As an adaptation it is another rare example where it surpasses the book in some ways. For one it removes the scene where the main character sleeps with a woman in the store, which feels a bit out of place given how close he clearly is to his wife and son and of course it changes the ending to something far more depressing than the book, and it is so much better that way.

Welcome Aboard. Enjoy The Ride.

In short, a really good film, well worth a watch.

Skyfall - A Review

5 Stars - Awesometacular

James Bond is back, celebrating his 50th anniversary with an epic new film. This is Bond as it is meant to be, sleek, stylish and fun as all hell.

Everything you want in a Bond film is here, great action, gorgeous girls, an exciting plot, a vicious villain and an Aston Martin DB5. In fact not just an Aston Martin DB5, the Goldfinger car, with the machine guns and ejector seat and everything.

Performance wise this was a strong film with a wonderful farewell performance from Judi Dench as M and one of the best Bond villains ever in the shape of Javier Bardem, who chews the scenery to a glorious degree and can be as intimidating as hell.

A fair chunk of this film evaluates the need of operatives like 007 in the new age of technological espionage, and it feels like a bit of a metaphor for the spy film genre in general, in that despite it looking like more modern films like The Bourne series might be smarter, or more real, Bond still comes out on top.

Nobody Does It Better

In short, a quality Bond film, well worth a watch.

Stephen King Month: Secret Window

4 Stars - Entertaining

Stephen King writes about authors a lot, many of his books have author main characters, that are often in some way an analogy of King himself, like today's story stars a writer who creates a character so real that he seems alive. Today is Secret Window, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden from the collection Four Past Midnight.

Secret Window, Secret Garden tells the story of Mort Rainey, an author with writer's block, no doubt caused by his depression following his separation from his wife. One day he receives a mysterious visitor named John Shooter, who claims that he wrote a story that Rainey wrote several years before him, Rainey of course denies this claim and tells Shooter to leave him alone. Shooter has no intention of doing any such thing, he starts to use dark methods such as murdering Rainey's cat and burning down his wife's house to intimidate Rainey into telling the truth. All these events and the contact from his wife and her new boyfriend drive Rainey's sanity to it's very limits until he learns the horrible truth.

This is a very entertaining film with great central performances from Johnny Depp and John Turturro, who really play off each other very well and make for a likeable main character and an intimidating villain. No doubt the screenplay and the direction give this film some of it's entertainment value as at just over an hour and a half it absolutely flies by and you enjoy it all the time, is it scary? Not really, is it fun? You bet.

As an adaptation it is very solid up until the end where a fairly substantial change is made, however this is one of those rare times where I prefer the end of the film to the end of the book as it is far more deliciously dark.

Right Time. Wrong Place.

In short, a good film, I'd say well worth a watch.