Stephen King goes to the movies... (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

That would explain that.

 

[Detour (1945)]

Glad to see I'm not the only fan of the Mr. Mercedes trilogy!

 

[Citizen87645]

I was disappointed with Doctor Sleep as a novel, finding it lacked suspense due to its predictability and

Spoiler

way-overpowered "shiner."

I don't usually try to anticipate plot developments, as I'm more of an "along for the ride" type, so when I can see something coming then you know it's bad. That said, I will watch the film adaptation to see what they do with it. I also look forward to seeing Rebecca Ferguson (of whom I've recently become a fan, thanks to the last two Mission Impossible films) as the main villain.

I go in waves of reading or re-reading King's works. Given my schedule with two young kids, it's actually easier for me to read a book in bits and bites than to do the same with a movie. So going through the works of Stephen King may become a long term entertainment consumption strategy.

I read Different Seasons (source material for Shawshank, Stand By Me, and Apt Pupil) when I was a teenager, and I'm currently re-reading it. The only story from that volume that hasn't been adapted is The Breathing Method, which would be interesting to see, though certainly a challenge because of its framing device.

So, apparently there are at least 14 new Stephen King adaptations in various states of production right now (I'm just talking feature films), a minimum of 8 which should be released between now and the end of 2020. I think that puts the "Stephen King Universe" ahead of the Marvel or Star Wars universes.

Here's one of the films that looks pretty interesting from the group.

Doctor Sleep - As any follower of King knows this is his sequel to The Shining. This is being directed by Mike Flanagan whose last film was also based on a King story, Gerald's Game, and will feature Bruce Greenwood (Is it just me or does he come across like the Canadian Sam Neill?) and Ewan McGregor as the adult Danny Torrance. Flanagan being considered one of the more recent "Masters of Horror", or at least a guy that directs horror movies and is a big fan of the genre and King, makes this much more likely to be a good film based on King's work.

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[Winston T. Boogie]

So, I always wondered how the hell Stephen King managed to churn out so many books. I mean the guy is amazingly prolific. Turns out he writes 6 pages a day...most of the time. Here he is answering this question:



This makes me want to take a total count of all the pages in all of his books and divide by 6 to see how many days that comes out to.

 

[Malcolm R]

Considering the length of some of his novels, and the frequency with which they're released, it seems like he'd write more than that.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If you've never read King's book "On Writing," there's a lot of great insight into his process there. I think the key for him is that he truly does treat writing like a day job, so unlike some other people who wait for inspiration, King wakes up every day, goes into his study, and sits as the typewriter as if he's punching a clock. Sometimes it'll be writing new material, sometimes it'll be revising previous drafts, but he's always working. It probably also takes some of the pressure off of trying to be genius all the time. If you're going to write for a few hours every day, you can do so with the knowledge that there's plenty of time to revise/revisit/try again if one day's work doesn't amount to anything, which would seem like a great way to take some of the pressure off.

I'm not sure if I'd be any good at being my own boss, but if I was ever in a situation to try it, I think that's probably the only way I could make it work - to assign myself time and force myself to just go and do it.

 

[Detour (1945)]

Considering the length of some of his novels, and the frequency with which they're released, it seems like he'd write more than that.

Pretty sure his process works something like this:

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, a confession...it had been a very long time since I had read a Stephen King novel so, in October I decided to pick out one and give it a shot. I will admit I had not read one of his novels in a long time because I tend to find them hit or miss but I thought if I am going to revisit King through a novel, October was the perfect month to do so. The novel I had my sights on was Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining which I read back in 1980. However, before diving in I decided to read some reviews and turns out Cameron was not the only one disappointed in this one.

So, I looked through the other novels I had not read and stumbled across Revival, which sounded interesting and I had completely missed this one when it was released in late 2014. It also seemed to get a lot of great reviews calling it one of King's best. So, I settled on this one.

Suffice to say I was pleasantly surprised as this is an extremely well written work and I would say showed King has been improving his craft over the years. I don't want to go into specifics because if you have not read this one you should and it turns out this is one of the King stories currently in the works to be a major motion picture. The film is being written and directed by Josh Boone (director of The Fault in Our Stars and the soon to be released Marvel flick The New Mutants) who seems to be a giant King fan and is involved in several coming King adaptations (The Stand, The Talisman, Lisey's Story, My Pretty Pony) so he seems to be heavily into the business of bringing King stories to a screen near you.

It seems Russell Crowe either was or is attached to star in Revival.

So, has anybody else read this one and did you enjoy it as much as I did? I can say after reading it this is now the King film I am most looking forward to seeing.

 

[Malcolm R]

So, has anybody else read this one and did you enjoy it as much as I did? I can say after reading it this is now the King film I am most looking forward to seeing.

Yes, and no. I was looking forward to it when I first heard about it, then I read it, then was disappointed.

I don't recall the details, as it was a while ago, but it mostly put me off King's books again. Most recently I picked up "Mr. Mercedes," and was again disappointed. IMO, King has been mostly off the rails since "Needful Things".

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Yes, and no. I was looking forward to it when I first heard about it, then I read it, then was disappointed. I don't recall the details, as it was a while ago, but it mostly put me off King's books again. Most recently I picked up "Mr. Mercedes," and was again disappointed. IMO, King has been mostly off the rails since "Needful Things".

Interesting. I was curious where Revival would go but found it a good, if slow building, ride. I liked all the ideas he was examining and thought he did a great job with them. I guess a lot of it was just right up my alley from the stuff about music and playing guitar to the examination of faith and suffering in life. Plus I often find the dialogue in King's novels to be humorously vulgar and it seemed much of the time he could not help but write that way but in this novel he seemed much more thoughtful and serious. As if he wanted to take a serious look at life, family, and faith while, as he says, slowly leading you into the dark.

Probably the first two thirds of the novel does not much seem like a horror tale but he does take you into the dark.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, Maximum Overdrive is out on blu-ray and you can check out Sam's review of it on this site. I have only seen the film once when it first was released to theaters. I did not enjoy it but this scene may be the highlight of the picture...



Also King had a pretty major cocaine issue at this point which they say has something to do with how this picture turned out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, what happens when you animate a Stephen King interview? Let's find out...

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

So, Castle Rock comes to blu-ray this week. Did anybody around these parts watch this series and what did you think of it?

I'm pondering picking it up but I did not watch it nor have I really read anything about it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

So, Castle Rock comes to blu-ray this week. Did anybody around these parts watch this series and what did you think of it?

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/castle-rock-hulu.351445/

I was ultimately disappointed by the show; I did not think it was particularly well-written and it felt more like fan fiction than a genuine Stephen King work (which is what it was). Though it had one or two episodes that were pretty good, I found the majority of it to be dull, poorly paced, derivative and not very interesting. The show had nothing to say but took far too long to say it. That said, there was not a universal consensus in the thread, so your mileage will almost certainly vary.

 

[Sam Posten]

So, Castle Rock comes to blu-ray this week. Did anybody around these parts watch this series and what did you think of it?

I'm pondering picking it up but I did not watch it nor have I really read anything about it.

I'm reviewing the UHD now. I have one episode yet to see, I binged hard Friday and Saturday. I did not watch it on Hulu, because Hulu is dumb, but that's a different story =)

Buy with confidence. The disk looks and sounds amazing. The show (so far anyway!) is as Kingian as you can get without having been written by him directly.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Interesting, those are two polar opposite opinions from you guys. One says it is like fan fiction, the other as Kingian as you can get.

I will say that they came to New England to shoot this series and people around here were making a big deal about it. So, I am curious to see how this turned out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Has anybody read In the Tall Grass, which is coming soon to a cinema near you...

 

[Detour (1945)]

Has anybody read In the Tall Grass, which is coming soon to a cinema near you...

I've never even heard of it. Looking online, all I can find is audio books, audio CDs and Kindle versions. Is there a print version for those of us who still like physical books?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I've never even heard of it. Looking online, all I can find is audio books, audio CDs and Kindle versions. Is there a print version for those of us who still like physical books?

It appears it was published as an eBook, so you can read it that way, but it looks like it may not be available as an actual book.

 

[Worth]

It's a short story.