I am excited that this will be a mini-series, as if gives King's work room to breath. However, I hope it maintains a little more energy than Desperation did.
Lights. . . Cameras . . . BAG OF BONES!
I am excited that this will be a mini-series, as if gives King's work room to breath. However, I hope it maintains a little more energy than Desperation did.
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I don't like Garris's work at all. "The Stand" and "The Shining" have their moments, but they also have many, many moments that don't work at all. "Sleepwalkers" and "Riding the Bullet" are just terrible, and "Desperation" isn't much better.
ReplyDelete"Bag of Bones" is a great novel, and it deserves better than it is likely to get in this adaptation.
Two things struck me as odd in the article you linked to. Firstly, no cast members are mentioned; if filming begins so soon, it seems strange that a cast wouldn't be in place, and if a cast is in place, it seems strange that a production announcement wouldn't say who was in that cast. Secondly, no network is mentioned in terms of who will be airing the miniseries.
None of this sounds good to me at all.
Bag of Bones is my FAVORITE King novel, I don't care what anybody says. My copy is in tatters from being read so much. So I care very much about the story and I always thought Darabont would have been the best choice for this project, not Garris. And as a miniseries? Ugh. They better make this DAMN good or I will be royally pissed.
ReplyDeleteIt's isn't my favorite King novel, but it's an awfully good one ... and my advice to you is to go ahead and do what I'm doing: assume the miniseries will be bad.
ReplyDeleteHow did I know the mention of Garris would evoke emotional reactions from King fans?
ReplyDeleteThe common weaknesses complained about in The Stand and The Shining were due more to the mini-series format (and rating) than to direction or project. I thought the Stand was great.
the only project Garris did that I'm really not a fan of is. . . sleepwalkers. I still don't "get it."
Oh, no, I definitely complain about the quality of the direction. I don't think either "The Stand" or the tv version of "The Shining" work at all, and it's got little to do with the medium.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with Garris's style of direction is that, for one thing, he has no idea what is scary. I've never for one moment been scared by a Mick Garris movie; I've never for one moment been creeped out by one of his movies, not even a little. I get chills even thinking about moments of Kubrick's "The Shining," on the other hand; or "Poltergeist" or "The Birds" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," or any of the other horror movies that have ever really worked on me.
I'll grant you that whether something is or isn't scary is very much an eye-of-the-beholder thing; more so even than comedy, maybe. And I'll also grant you that with King, it's the characters that really matter ... only Garris typically doesn't get good performances from actors, either. He's good at casting, but the performances in his movies tend to feel like exactly what they are: a bunch of people getting paid to say things somebody else is making them say. So the "characters" don't ever feel like characters in a Garris movie; they feel like actors whose agents couldn't find them anything better to do that month. There are few things that will take me out of a movie quicker than a bunch of actors who sound as if they're just punching the clock, and that's exactly what the acting in a Mick Garris film tends to feel like to me.
All that said, I hope that Garris is able to do something nice with "Bag of Bones." I never root for a movie to be bad; and I never root for an artist whose work I don't appreciate to fail. I'd be pleased as punch to love a Mick Garris movie.
He seems, based on interviews I've seen/read with him, like a nice guy -- nice enough that I always feel guilty when I bad-mouth his work. But I go right on ahead and do it anyways, because King's work deserves better than it sometimes gets from the people who adapt it, and it definitely deserves better than Mick Garris seems capable of giving.
As for "Sleepwalkers," there's nothing to get. It's a terrible, terrible movie. Alice Krige is hot, there is an amusing scene with a policeman singing a song in his car, and that's about it.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that at least two of the "Children of the Corn" movies are better.
And even "Sleepwalkers" is better than "Riding the Bullet"! At least five of the "Children of the Corn" movies are better than that one. FIVE!