I saw this movie on opening weekend
and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to review it. I thought the movie was okay but I didn’t
feel strongly enough to give a detailed review.
I remember hearing gossip about how Christopher Nolan said this would be
the last Batman movie and if that’s true then this is a fitting end.
I didn’t really like Batman Begins,
in fact I absolutely hated that one.
Part of it has to do with Katie Holmes' wooden acting but most of the
people in this movie act really stiff. I
also really hate origin stories and Batman Begins is an entire movie devoted to
its character’s origin. The movie is
packed full of b.s. symbolism and philosophy from his father to Ra’s Al Ghul
and The Dark Knight Rises returns to that formulaic simplicity.
I may be over critical of Batman
Begins but I absolutely loved The Dark Knight.
All the problems from the previous movie were fixed in this one. It had a more intricate and compelling plot, better villains, it was less
boring, and had no origin story. Oh and Katie
Holmes’ part was recast by a more likeable(for me at least) actress.
For the most part The Dark Knight
Rises was just boring. I went into this
fresh, actively avoiding the previews so I didn’t spoil anything for
myself. So I didn’t know what to expect,
but if you were expecting action packed scenes with Batman kicking ass you will
be sorely disappointed. Batman appears
in one scene towards the beginning and once again towards the end. That’s it.
That’s all you get. The rest of
the movie features Bruce Wayne hidden away in an underground prison laying around
watching tv. Chances are you probably
also heard Catwoman was going to be in this movie, even if you were trying as
hard as I was to avoid Dark Knight Rises trailers. So if you thought that Catwoman or Bane was
going to pick up the slack for Batman you’ll be disappointed again. I’m reminded of so many other superhero
movies that introduce too many characters and one or more of them is completely
wasted and Catwoman is wasted in this movie.
There’s just not much for her do and she adds very little to the story.
Last
year I saw the Batman Year One where Frank Miller turned Catwoman into a
lesbian. It looks like they were trying
to do the same thing in this one but just dropped it half way through the movie
when she becomes a love interest for Bruce Wayne. Catwoman is a self-serving
character throughout most of this movie but they attempt to redeem her in the
end. She’s just poorly written and
irrelevant to the story. If she weren’t
in this movie I wouldn’t miss her at all.
There’s just not much for her to do and she’s not very interesting.
The most distracting thing for me was
the macguffins*. As a
result of the end of the last movie Bruce Wayne’s leg is damaged and he has to
walk around with a cane. In one scene
he uses a mechanical brace to correct this so he can go out and be batman again. Later on he’s seen walking around without
this device and not so much as limping.
Catwoman is given a macguffin as well.
Her entire subplot revolves around a computer program that erases your
identity but it’s never revealed why she wants it or what’s she going to do
when she uses it.
Despite my many complaints The Dark
Knight Rises is not a bad movie. It’s a
little uneven at times but it’s a fitting end to series. Disregarding everything you’ve seen before
this it’s an okay movie in its own rite.
Not great or even good just simply okay 82/100 B
Macguffins aside the only thing that really bothered me is how Bane's voice sounded like a really bad Sean Connery impression. Am I the only one that picked up on that?
*If you’re confused by this industry term you’re not alone. For the longest time I heard this word tossed
around in reviews without so much as an explanation. In my own words a macguffin is a device in a movie
that is mentioned but never explained and then quickly dismissed hoping the
audience will eventually forget about it.
I’ve given a few examples but according to Wikipedia the briefcase in
Pulp Fiction is a good example.
I read the first book in the
Drive-In Omnibus and that got me in the mood to watch some good ol’ fashioned
b-horror movies. The book mentions a few
of these so rather than review them all separately I’ve decided to give a short
review for each of them.
Death Wish – 1976
I was watching something earlier
this week and they mentioned Charles Bronson.
I thought to myself ya know I’ve never seen a Bronson movie so why not
start with what is arguably the most infamous.
From what I gather he’s typecast as a thug or a tough guy. I’m reminded of a few Simpsons sketches that
reinforce this:
After checking out his imdb page I
found he was quite a diverse actor, starring in westerns, war dramas, and of
course action movies. I remember him
best for the episode of The Twilight Zone he was in.
Death Wish wasn’t exactly what I
expected but I was pleasantly surprised anyway.
Based upon its reputation I thought it would be revenge movie and it
sort of is but it’s different than most of the ones I’ve seen. The story takes place in New York City. Bronson’s wife is murdered and his daughter
is raped and turns into a vegetable by thieves who break into their home. If you’ve been reading my blog you know by
now I’m no stranger to rape in cinema.
This was by and far more brief than the ones in I Spit on Your Grave,
Last House on the Left, the Halloween remake, Straw Dogs, and even American
History X and Deliverance which feature male rapes, but it had a bigger impact
on me. It’s not very graphic but it
feels more real for its frenzy and lack of premeditation.
Death Wish isn’t well acted but I
wasn’t expecting it to be, the effects aren’t all that good either but in spite
of these problems it still offers a compelling story. With comic book movies becoming more popular
it’s nice to see a more realistic view of vigilantism. Bronson is just a normal guy who’s fed up
with seeing crime all around him. I’ve
often criticized the modern Batman adaptations as being too high and mighty in
regards to his no killing policy.
Chances are no matter how skilled you are you would be faced with a kill
or be killed scenario which you couldn’t avoid and taking the high road might
just get you killed. There are also
consequences both positive and negative to Bronson’s actions. Towards the end of the movie he gets stabbed
and shot. He also drives the crime rate
down by half and as a result the mayor and district attorney don’t want to
prosecute him. This is a little
farfetched but it does make sense. It
made me wonder if two wrongs make a right.
Death Wish isn’t a perfect movie
but it is entertaining and I highly recommend it. 90/100 A
I Dismember Mama - 1972
Aside from Killer Clowns From Outer
Space being mentioned by Don Coscarelli(director of the Phantasm series,
Beastmaster, and of course Bubba Ho-Tep in case you didn’t know) in the
introduction this is the first movie to be mentioned in The Drive-In. I understand why Lansdale mention this, it’s
just the kind of obscure sleazy b-movie you’d see at a drive-in.
Man this was bad! Once again I’m treated to rape scenes. Not just one but two! In the first 30 freakin minutes of the movie,
the first one taking place just 5 minutes in.
I’m starting to think its really sad how often I watch movies where
someone gets raped.
I didn’t know what to expect
because I didn’t look it up on imdb and the book doesn’t describe the movie at
all. I just thought it would be a fun
experiment to watch the movies in the book in the sequence they appear and even
though I didn’t like this one I still had fun.
Okay so the movie is about an
institutionalize young man who has an intense hatred for all womankind. He attacks a nurse and tries to rape her
before he’s interrupted by two orderlies.
As a consequence for this he is to going to be sent to a state
facility. Before this can happen he
kills an orderly and escapes. If this
sounds familiar you’ve probably seen as many slasher flicks as I have… and you
ought to be ashamed. He was incarcerated
for attacking his mother and the first thing he does as soon as he escapes is
to give her a call. He tells her he’s
coming home and she’s moved and put into police protection. When he gets to his family’s mansion he rapes
and kills the maid in the most humiliating way possible. After he’s done the maid’s daughter shows up
looking for her mother and this is where the movie goes downhill and not for
the reason you think.
Rather than kill the 11 year old
girl he jokes around with her, feeds her candy, and plays with her. After he gathers some money they leave to go
to an amusement park then to a hotel.
The sequences with Albert(the killer and rapist) and the little girl
take up half the movie and at some point I started to wonder just what the hell
I was watching. Albert’s impulse to kill
women takes over and he runs off to a bar in the middle of the night to pick up
what I think was a prostitute so he bring her back to the hotel to kill
her. The little girl wakes up, witnesses this and runs away. Albert
runs after her and in the commotion the police are summoned. The movie ends when Albert rushes after the
girl and falls out a high window. The
title is a little misleading because he never gets close enough to his mother to
dismember her. I realize it’s fucked up
but the only thing that kept me going during the boring parts was the
promise that someone was going to get dismembered and I was more than a little
disappointed when that didn’t happen.
I Dismember Mama is bad but it’s
not terrible. I heard about this movie
when I was reading a book about a grindhouse drive-in so I wasn’t really
expecting much to begin with. What can
you really expect out of an early 70’s exploitation movie? 30/100 fail.
The Toolbox Murders - 1978
Once again we take a look into the
dark psyche of a deeply disturbed person.
Unlike I Dismember Mama this one is really good and lives up to its
title. What’s strange is I’ve seen
movies like this before. Otis springs to
mind but there are a lot of movies out there that attempt to get inside a
killer’s mind but don’t do it affectively.
Red Dragon is a good movie but I never really felt like I was immersed
in Dolarhyde’s world and the same goes for Hannibal Lector. They’re both captivating characters but each
time you just felt like you were just scratching the surface. The only other time I felt this close to a
killer was in Seven.
The movie begins without any plot
or story when the killer murders 4 people one right after the other. We’re not introduced to any lasting
characters or backstory for any of the people he’s killed and we’re only given
a paper thin motive. True to his name
this guy kills with tools. He kills the
first woman with a drill, the second with a hammer, the third he strangles, and
the fourth he shoots with a nail gun. Instead
of killing the fifth victim he kidnaps her.
Upset that they aren’t doing enough
her brother takes the investigation into his own hands. Helping him is the building owner’s nephew
who’s being paid to clean up the crime scenes.
I won’t ruin some of the great surprises this movie will have in store
for you but in the middle of the movie the killer has a very creepy 10 minute
monologue with the kidnapped girl. This
sick film is a classic and worth your time if you’re looking for a good late 70’s
b-movie. 85/100 B
The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale
The first book in The Drive-In
omnibus is the shortest but it lays the groundwork for the other two and as
good as it was I can’t wait to see what the others ones have in store. The book introduces four friends going to a
drive-in on a Friday night. In the
middle of the second movie a comet comes towards the drive-in, cracks in half,
smiles, then leaves. After the comet’s
departure all four screens of the drive-in is coated in an oily black mist. Watches and phones stop working but vehicles,
electricity, and plumbing still works.
People try escaping but only end up getting melted by the oily film
surrounding the drive-in.
After the panic the manager offers
free concessions until they get rescued, presumably by the National Guard, and
assures everyone the movies will continue playing. After watching nothing but horror movies and
surviving on nothing but hot dogs, popcorn, soda, and candy people start going
insane. What results from here are
malnutrition, murder, chaos, cults, cannibalism, mutants, and lyncings.
I honestly can’t say I’ve ever read
anything like The Drive-In and I enjoyed every second of it. I’d definitely recommend it to any b-movie and
drive-in fanatic especially if you’re looking for a short entertaining read
90/100 A
With
Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and “The Worst Baseball Team in History” The
1973-1975 Texas Rangers.
Seasons in Hell can best be described as a
comedy of errors, from worn out broken down players to poor ownership to bad
management decisions to hard partying players and eventually fist fights and
full blown riots, it is like a real life portrayal of Major League. It’s hard to believe The Texas Rangers came
from such humble beginnings to become the team they are today, a team that was
described as the best team in baseball in April(and again in July). The Rangers are also the first team to reach
50 wins this year and a majority of the all-stars for this year’s all-star game were from The Rangers and their manager is managing the AL all-stars for the
second consecutive year. I think it goes
without saying they’ve come a long way since 1973. From now it must also go without saying that
I’m a Rangers fan.
Seasons in Hell has the
distinction of being the first sports book I’ve ever read. Going in I really didn’t know what to expect
but since sports and baseball in particular is considered a wholesome pastime
designed for the whole family I was expecting a book appropriate for all
ages. When I read about teenagers
smoking pot above the pressbox at The Rangers spring training stadium in
Pompano Florida I had an idea of what I was in for. With that said I was still a little surprised
and shocked at how candid Mike Shropshire was both with the liberal use of
coarse language and juvenile behavior of himself, his colleagues, and The
Rangers players and staff.
“Defensively
these guys are really substandard, but with our pitching, it really doesn’t
matter.”
“Even
before the start of spring training, Herzog had said, ‘If Rich Billings is the
starting catcher again, we’re in deep trouble.’
When that evaluation was passed along to Billings, he simply nodded and
said, ‘Whitey, obviously, has seen me play.’”
“After
reflecting on a popular bumper sticker at the time, I thought, ‘If this really
is the first day of the rest of my life, then pass the hemlock, please’.”
The book is filled with sarcastic introspective
quips like that, but it is not without sentiment and a sense of love for the
game regardless of how well it's played and I feel that is the message of the
book. It’s not a book poking fun at a
terrible baseball team, but a testament to the philosophy parents, teachers,
and adults tried teaching me as a kid.
It’s not how well you did it’s how you played the game. Well it’s kind of half and half but aside
from the aforementioned passages there are some emotional and inspiring ones as
well:
“Paul
told me that he so loved the great American game ‘that when they finally run me
out of the major leagues, I’ll go pitch in the Mexican League.’ One year later, Paul did exactly that.”
(Shropshire is forced to be the official score keeper which means he
makes the ruling whether a play is considered a hit or a fielding error. After ruling an error against a ranger an
irate player confronts him on stealing a hit from his teammate and lowering his
average. Shropshire apologizes to the
player and gets this response.)
“Last
year, I hit about .292 and had the best average on the team. This year I can’t buy a hit and that means
that with the contract I get next year I not only won’t be able to buy a hit, I
won’t be able to buy a pack of cigarettes.
I don’t know what in the hell is wrong.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve taken
extra batting practice. Sometimes I’ve
taken no batting practice. I’ll bet I’ve
tried two dozen different bats this year.
Nothin’ works.”
“Look.
It’s not like I’m playing den mother to a bunch of winos. Just about everybody on this team has played
his guts out,’ added Herzog, ‘and that’s what has to concern a manager. You gotta wonder when you team is giving it
the old 110 percent effort and their record is still 45-86.’”
“I’ve
been in the majors a dozen years and I’ve never been around anything like
that. That was not only the worst team
I’ve ever been associated with, but also it has the best morale, far and away.”
Like many nonfiction books what comes first and foremost is the subject
matter. If you don’t already like
baseball you’re not going to have an interest in reading Seasons in Hell. For my first sport book I’d
say Season in Hell was pretty damn good.
It’s not at all what I expected and I was pleasantly surprised. I’d highly recommend it and give it an 85
B. It’s good but more of a casual read
rather than a gripping one(I picked up and finished two different books while
in the middle of this one). While living
in the DFW area for well over 20 years I get a lot of the references in
the book and have read the newspaper that employed Shropshire when he was
covering the Rangers but not having been born anywhere near 1973 some things
flew right over my head. Seasons in Hell
is an enjoyable and hilarious read.
After all everyone wants to write about the winners and likewise
everyone wants to read about them but it isn’t very often that you get to read
about the losers.
I can think of few things more ironic than my copy of Seasons in Hell next to my American League replica trophy.
“What's behind your
painted face can you see the real pig in the mirror?”
Fiend
“If it stayed I'd
never leave it. If that turned around I'd grieve the special dirty things that
we used to talk about. I mean that loving you is strange and adored by me
throughout.”
Stitches
Hmmmm I wonder if these lyrics are about women. I think I heard somewhere that Jay Gordon, frontman for Orgy, is bisexual so in the interest of sexual as well as
gender equality I guess it could be about a guy too.
Wow just look at these guys. I'm gonna play cranky old man here but I really don't think five grown men should be wearing more makeup than the average corner prostitute. Looking at this photo I can't help but think these guys were selling an image.
I stumbled across an old boombox
and in it was a blank tape. I played a minute
of it just out of curiosity and then pushed the stopped button. What came out was some awful sounding alt punk
shit that I later found out from my brother was AFI(the tape used to belong to him). When we were talking about it he said he made
it sometime during high school and I told him, “Yeah man I don’t really dig the
same shit I used to listen to in high school either. I mean it’s not like I listen to Korn at all
anymore.” This discussion gave me an
idea for a segment I could run on my blog where I look at all the stupid crap I
used to listen to when I didn’t know any better because it was popular among
teenagers that hated life and everything and yet despite their misanthropy and apathy felt
alienated from the world even though that was the cause of it in the first place. There’s stuff
I used to listen to like Metallica that is ageless and I still listen to but
there’s also a bunch of shit that I haven’t listened to since I graduated
high school and with good reason.
When I
was in 9th or 10th grade Korn embarked on The Family
Values Tour which showcased a lot of bands most of the Korn community either
hadn’t heard of or didn’t get much airplay.
One of these bands was Orgy. I
had a lot of friends that went to this concert but seeing as I was underage and
poor and my mother wouldn’t be caught dead at a Korn concert I was one of the
few that didn’t show up wearing a Family Values Tour t-shirt the next day. But my friends were going crazy over this
band called Orgy that they saw there.
Later on the band’s singles were released as music videos on MTV and
their popularity reached the mainstream’s and my attention. Soon after they started getting radio play
and you couldn’t escape that Blue Monday remix.
I didn’t even know it was a remix until I heard the original in the
Wedding Singer. By the time their second
album was released interest in the band ceased.
Like before they released videos and singles to the radio but no one
cared. None of my friends who were
self-professed Orgy fans a short 2 years early felt obligated to get the second
album. A lot of the popular music back
then was rather disposable and we just moved on to the next big thing or
whomever else toured with Korn.
There’s
a track on here called “All the Same” which is a pretty apt metaphor for this
album. Musically it is very different
from most of the stuff at the time but lyrically it’s the same as everything
else. Let me ask you a question, what is
more self-indulgent than an entire album devoted to bitching or whining about
one relationship or another gone wrong?
Unfortunately this was a problem that reached across every musical genre
at the time. I think this was the very
reason I started listening to alternative, hard rock, and heavy metal in the
first place. However well designed or
intellectual your lyrics and no matter how well you sing them you still come
off as a whiny cunt. That’s why even
though I think Adele’s got an amazing voice I can’t help but think she’s a
one note artist because the content of all her songs seem to revolve around men
that mistreated her. The only time this
does work is in blues but that’s because blues is a music defined by its own
misery.
Enough
about the lyrical content how bout the music?
The music for the most part is good and also quite diverse. The tempos rise and fall throughout the album
creating different moods. There are
songs on this album that I can imagine a trendy yet tragically(and fashionably)
depressed teenage outcast(Track 1 Social Enemies), some poor goofball trying to
get into some dumbass’s pants at a dance club(Track 7 Blue Monday), and the
goth crowd(Track 2 Stitches).
Blue Monday - This actually isn't a bad song and whatever I may say about this album I still love this cover. That's not to say that I don't prefer New Order's version.
This here is least visually appealing video I've ever seen. The point of most music videos are the same as the singles released to radio stations. It's to promote forthcoming albums or ones that have been recently released. Music videos are designed to offer something artistic, sexy, or visually pleasing to those singles so you can reach wider audiences... or at least I think that's what they're for. This one however just has the band playing in a motorized cube while the director looks at lyrics and points at stuff. I can't believe he got paid to make this video. I bet that asshole was laughing all the way to the bank.
He
Came As The Caretaker, But This Hotel Had Its Own Guardians - Who'd Been There
A Long Time
The Shining isn’t just one of my
favorite horror movies it’s one of my favorite movies period.For the longest time I watched it every
Halloween along with The Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and of course
Halloween.I’ve seen a lot of horror
flicks and what a lot of the ones released during the late 70’s and early 80’s
have in common is they’re all b movies, have small budgets, and a great deal of
them are campy(literally a lot of them take place in summer camps).The Shining differs from these movies in
tone, talent, setting, and of course budget.
I’ve never been a Stanley Kubrick
fan.For reasons I’ll never understand A
Clockwork Orange reemerged as a cult favorite among members of my generation,
and I’ve never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, or Dr. Strangelove.I have seen Full Metal Jacket(I didn’t
understand the appeal of that one either), and Eyes Wide Shut(I don’t dislike
this one but it can be boring and I really don’t like Tom Cruise).Even though I’m not a Kubrick fan I’ll admit
that the cinematography and imagery in this movie is amazing, especially the
opening mountain sequences.
Before I started reading the book I
researched the movie and was surprised to learn during its release The Shining
got bad reviews from almost every major film critic, reviews that have since
been reversed by the very same critics.As much as I adore this movie it’s still far from perfect.The family dynamic in this one is similar to
the one in the miniseries.Jack seems
indifferent to both Danny and his wife and Wendy is submissive, weak willed,
and not very matronly.Once again the
family isn’t seen together very often.Jack spends a lot of time alone writing and Danny is often seen playing
by himself and wandering around the hotel.Another problem I have is Jack is hired as the winter caretaker but is
never seen doing any actual work.The
truth is the pacing of the movie would have been thrown off if we were forced
to see him partake in the many chores he would have to undergo, but we don’t
even see him taking out the trash
Danny Lloyd is as good as Courtland
Mead is bad.The only thing that really
bothers me about Lloyd is his dated hair and wardrobe.This seems to be a common problem with movies
and tv produced near the end of an era.Like some early 90’s movies seem like they’re in a transition period
between the current fashions and the ones of the decade that preceded it.The same can be said of the late 60’s and
early 70’s.Hippies and hippie fashion
seemed to stick around for a few years after the 60’s ended.In the Shining’s case the wardrobe is stuck
in the late 70’s(I should note here that the movie was released in 1980 but was
shot sometime around 77 or 78 based upon what little information I could find
on the internet.I just think it’s odd
how drastically fashions changed in a few short years)Wendy suffers from the
same problem.Her wardrobe is just for
lack of a better word bizarre.She
dresses like a conservative nun.I
realize that they’re up in the mountains during winter but every scene she’s in every inch of her body is covered.
The acting is more or less good
except for Shelley Duvall.I’ll never
understand why she was chosen for this role.The only thing she has going for her is she can scream and looks
terrified really well.Throughout much
of the movie she looks and sounds dazed like she took a handful of ADD
medication.No matter what’s going on
she never seems all that concerned whether it’s her husband going insane or her
child having fainting spells.The Wendy
character in the movie is also a far cry from the one in the book.She has no chemistry with either Jack or
Danny and is a weak submissive doormat.
No one plays crazy quite like Jack
Nicholson and this is Nicholson at his craziest.Unfortunately just like Duvall he doesn’t
have much chemistry with his wife or son.I really don’t know much about Nicholson’s personal life so I don’t know
if he was married or had any kids at the time but if feels like the idea of being
a family man is entirely alien to him.When I think about it most of the movies I’ve seen him in since this
movie he’s been a bachelor, a widower, divorced, or a loner with no kids.
What’s strange is this is the only
movie I’ve ever seen where my opinion of it was not altered by reading the
book.Actually this is one of a few
where I enjoyed the movie far more than I did the book and I think a lot of
that has to do with Kubrick cutting out a great deal of the filler and
improving on the atmosphere.I can see
how a more modern audience would find this boring in the same way they might
find Psycho or Jaws boring.My advice
would be to forget the book and just watch the movie.While I was more invested in the characters
in the book I was more invested in the story with the movie.The Shining just makes a better movie than a
book.As good as it is it’s not perfect
and I’m sure if it was I’d have no interest in it.So I give it a 90/100.I watched a lot of horror movies in my youth
and the only one that scared me more than The Shining was Candyman.
I'm at the end of Hyperion and while the book is pretty damn good the last section is incredibly boring and hard to follow. To give myself a little break so I didn't fall asleep I started surfing videos on youtube, that's when I found this guy.
I don't usually feature other people's reviews on my blog but every thing this guy says is absolutely right. He's also kinda funny. You can check him out at dose of buckley and of course his YouTube channel Buckley @ YouTube
As a
book worm I’ve often wondered what a movie that’s entirely faithful to the book
it’s based on would be like. A few good
examples are George Orwell’s 1984 ironically released in the year 1984 or Cormac
McCarthy’s The Road(2009) and let’s not forget Stephen King himself with The
Mist(aside from a few minor details and the bad downer ending) and The
Shawshank Redemption . The 1997 made for
tv remake of The Shining is not a good example.
Not because it deviates from the book but because it does not. In fact I think it may very well be the best
example of why movies should be made to disregard elements from the books
they’re based on. You’d be doing
yourself a favor by just reading the book instead since the movie is pretty
much a copy and paste representation of the book.
One of the
issues this miniseries suffers from is Mick Garris. I think Garris might actually be a Stephen
King fan himself judging by how many of his stories he’s adapted. Just seeing his name on the opening credits
for a Stephen King movie is enough to make me cringe. Desperation is one of my favorite Stephen
King books and the first one I read from start to finish, and Garris totally
butchered that one. Not to mention there
was no reason to release it as a tv movie.
The book is far too graphic. In
the first 100 pages a little girl gets her face blown off and later on an
elderly veterinary doctor gets ripped apart by a bobcat. I may have been 13 or 14 the first time I
read the book and back then it seemed like every year Stephen King released a
major motion picture to theaters, and I remember thinking even then there is no
way Desperation can ever be made into a movie. But we're not talking about Desperation. As it stands there is no way The Shining can be adapted as a movie let alone a
miniseries. The book is just too boring
and uneventful and maybe it’s just me but I don’t like watching movies where
nothing much happens. I should point out
here I have nothing against Mick Garris.
I’m a huge fan of Masters of Horror and to a lesser extent Fear Itself
but half of the time whenever I see his name attached to a Stephen King project
I know it’s going to suck. For instance
The Stand was good(I have not read the book), but Riding the Bullet was not(entirely
meaningless if you ask me. You could read the short story in the time it takes
you watch the movie), Sleepwalkers was okay(in a campy sort of way),
Desperation totally sucked, Quicksilver Highway was good, The Shining is
not. I haven’t seen it or read the book
but Bag of Bones didn’t get very reviews either.
Your director ladies and gentlemen in an entirely meaningless 5 second cameo
The
casting is pretty bad too. Steven Weber
plays the father, Jack, Rebecca De Mornay plays the mother, Wendy, and neither
of them is believable either as partners or parents. They have no chemistry with one another, De
Mornay has no chemistry with anyone really.
I don’t want to demean her or her acting ability but she seems like
little more than just a pretty face in this movie or at the very least a
recognizable one. After looking at her
IMDB creds I can’t remember seeing her in anything where her performance was
any good. Risky Business I guess but it’s
kinda sad to say the best thing she’s been in was where she played a
prostitute, especially since she plays a mother in this one. Weber has better chemistry with his son but
his acting is just so over the top in this one.
I don’t know who to blame for that so I’m just going to blame Garris
again. What makes these two so hard to
believe as parents is that they’re rarely seen together doing anything as a
family. Throughout a majority of the
scenes in this movie Jack is doing his thing separate from both Wendy and
Danny. Danny himself is often wandering
around the hotel or around the grounds by himself. Wendy only seems to show up to chastise Jack
for losing his temper. So assuming any
of these characters had any chemistry with any of the others they are never
together long enough for it to make a lasting impact. I guess I could talk about the actors who
play Hallorann or Ullman but honestly they don’t have much screen time in this
movie and as far as everything else goes they actually did a pretty good job. And I saved the worst for last.
Courtland
Mead(I can’t get over the idea that his name sounds like a Ren Fair beer stand)
plays Danny Torrance. I’d hate to play
the gender card here but I think most times the only movie goers that are
dazzled by child actors are women. A few
notable exceptions for me are Natalie Portman in Leon: The Professional, Kirsten
Dunst in Interview With the Vampire, Christina Ricci in Addam’s Family, and
Chloe Grace Moretz in Let Me In. I
realize it’s a little hypocritical to name only female child actors but it
seems like every time a male child actor hits the screen it’s like the
directors tell them to sweeten it up and act really cutesy. That annoying kid from Jerry McGuire and that
dull emotionless monotone kid from The Ring still haunt my nightmares. Well I guess Haley Joel Osmant and Daniel Radcliffe
were pretty good. It’s strange but it
seems to me that the boy actors get the cutesy roles where the girls get the
dramatic and emotional ones. You’d think
it would be the other way around. Courtland
Mead is the exception. I think he was
meant to be cute but he isn’t and what’s worse is he can’t act or deliver lines
all that well either. Most of his lines
he flat out flubs due to the fact that for whatever reason he can’t breathe out
of his nose. Every time this kid was
on screen I was distracted by his wide gaping mouth and dull vacant stare. Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s a little visual aid to help you out:
Does anybody have an inhaler or some allegra?
Now
that we’ve got the directing, casting, and acting out of the way how well does
the script/story hold up? Well Stephen
King wrote the teleplay for this version of The Shining himself. I think he admitted when he saw Kubrick’s
version he didn’t really like it and I can see why. Kubrick’s while superior to this one is
vastly different from the story Stephen King was trying to tell in the book. Kubrick cut out a lot of things
that would have just made the movie longer and weren’t really needed to tell
the story. King’s version of the movie
includes every single event whether necessary or not causing the movie to
become so long it had to be split into 3 different 90 minute episodes, which
were probably well over 2 hours on tv.
That means this miniseries was just one movie shorter than The Stand, a
book which was twice as long as The Shining.
For whatever reason King decided to add and change a few things. In the book Jack realizes how bad his
alcoholism is and how much it is affecting his family and quits. In the miniseries he’s in Alcoholics
Anonymous and is even seen going to a meeting. This is one of the things that bothered me
the most about this miniseries. In the
book his decision to stop drinking is a sacrifice he makes by himself out of
love for his family, by making him seek out help it diminishes this sacrifice
and turns Jack into a weaker character. In
another scene Jack destroys the CB radio in his sleep and blames Danny for it
and this happens right after Danny is brutalized by the ghost in room 217. In the book he takes full responsibility for
destroying the radio himself. It’s just
a really weird scene and makes Jack out to be a bad guy before he starts attacking
his family.
I'm not very good at spotting continuity errors or visible equipment but when I do it's gotta be pretty obvious. What's worse is this happens in the first hour of the first episode. If that isn't a bad omen I don't know what is. Hey guys guess you shouldn't have cleaned the windows so good for this scene.
After reading the book I really didn’t see anything that was
so vital it needed to be split into 3 different parts totaling four and a half
hours. The casting, acting, directing,
and story are all bad and uninteresting.
The pacing is just about as bad as it was in the book. For all these reasons I’m going to this book
the lowest rating I’ve ever given anything, 2/100. It’s an utter failure in every way and it’s
certainly not worth your time even if you watched just one of the three
parts. I’ve seen some bad Stephen King
adaptations(Sometimes They Come Back, “The Lawnmower Man”, The Running Man,
1408, The Langoliers) but this one is by far the absolute worst. If you want to catch some good King movies I’d
suggest Night Flier, Cat's Eye, The Mist, the other Shining movie, and
Creepshow.
