Ghosts – also known as Michael Jackson's Ghosts – is a 1997 short film – or, alternately, a long-form music video – starring Michael Jackson and directed by Stan Winston from a story written by Jackson and Stephen King.
The video runs 39:31, and first aired on 9 May 1997. On 8 December 1997, SMV Enterprises released the movie on VHS.The Stephen King Wiki article is HERE.
Whether it is apocalyptic thrillers (The Stand), human drama (Dolores Clairborne, Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption), or just outright horror (It, Thinner, Christine, etc), his stories never fail to enchant, holding the reader’s attention from their first pages until their conclusion.And what genre does Toh put WTTK in? Fairy tale. Calling the novel a "midquel" (I've never heard that term), Toh says the book is "dark" and "unforgettable." He thinks the book both adheres to and plays with "fairytale conventions."
I’m back with a bit of a survey through the worlds of fatherhood in Stephen King, prompted by the death of my dad on August 11.
Also have some tidbits on the Dark Tower movie project, the new production of Carrie, and a little bragging. Enjoy!
“A few ‘real’ references have been included because A) I inferred they would have also have occurred in the King Universe, and B) I ran out of new historical information, of which the book does not give much,” Selman says. “Also, for some reason unknowable alternative history reason, alternative history Billy Joel chose to put out this version of ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ in 2012.”The full song is at the link below. Here is the part that picks up where serious time changes are established:
J.F.K. NOT BLOWN AWAY, AMBERSON SAVES THE DAY!
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, EARTHQUAKE IN LOS ANGELES
MARTIN SHOT, SAIGON ROCKED, CHICAGO BURNS, HANOI DROP
WALLACE DEAD, CURT LEMAY, BYE-BYE BOMBAY
Ayatollah’s in Iran, RONALD REAGAN’S DEADLY PLAN
BLIND BEATLE, JONESTOWN, VERMONT YANKEE MELTDOWN
FORD BREEZE, MORE QUAKES, AIDS, Crack, MIAMI SHAKES
HOKKAIDO IS UNDER SEAS, PRESIDENT HILARY
MAINE LEAVES USA, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY?
Stephen King has a new short story available on Tuesday, August 28, in the latest issue of Harper's Magazine. It’s King's first time featured in Harper's. The story features a middle-aged man and who has a weekly lunch with his Alzheimer’s afflicted dad. After three years of the same lunch and the same conversation, the man is saved from a violent assault by his father. (www.examiner.com)Harpers gives this introductory tease:
Sanderson sees his father twice a week. On Wednesday evenings, after he closes the jewelry store his parents opened long ago, he drives the three miles to Crackerjack Manor and sees Pop there, usually in the common room. In his “suite,” if Pop is having a bad day. On most Sundays, Sanderson takes him out to lunch. The facility where Pop is living out his final foggy years is actually called the Harvest Hills Special Care Unit, but to Sanderson, Crackerjack Manor seems more accurate. (www.harpers.org)What does a man with Alzheimers have to do with "Batman and Robin have an altercation" ? I don't know! King's short story titles have been a little more daring lately -- example, Herman Wouk Is Still Alive.
He said that we did a great job with it and his exact quote was, 'It's next to brilliant," which I mean, I feel I can die a happy man now," said Hanson.The Full Article Is HERE.
 |
| The Talisman Slovak source: Lilja's Library |
 |
| The Stand (uncut) Swedish source: Lilja's Library |
"I couldn't vote for Moby Dick. Everyone says it's great and blah-blah-blah, but I drown in whale-oil every time I try it. My bad, people, I admit it."I've not read, nor been tempted to read, Moby Dick. It did ge tme to thinking about some novels I should like -- that everyone loves -- but I just don't. Some books have their own version of "whale-oil" that we drown in.
Try as I did on several occasions, I just couldn't get into the story. Having read (and reread) virtually all the King novels and a number of Straubs novels, I find that The Talisman remains and oddity on my King bookshelf: The unread book. (I might add that I felt the same way, initially about,about Tolkiens trilogy, Lord of the Rings. On the third try, I got into the story and it swept me away. When I finished, I was sorry that the story had ended.)
I'll try again, of course, but what's interesting to me is that I'm not alone. I've talked to other people who read widely and deeply in and out of this field, people who have read all of King and all of Straub, and they either loved The Talisman or couldn't get into the story.I wonder if he ever read it! May I also point out that the novel's cover does nothing to make you want to read the novel?! Red and black swooshes with the author's names. Rates right up there with Insomnia. Of course, Insomnia is a book I have not made it through -- I can't stay awake for it!
Kubrick cut the film for Europe after the longer version was poorly received by critics. However, he gave his blessing to both versions. The European version removes background storyline as well as plotlines such as Jack's battle with alcohol problems and beating his son. Among the shocks to be added back in are the appearance of skeletons seated round a table in the hotel.
 |
| image credit: Dread Central |
I just interviewed the author; King knows his way around a good story, and here is how he described what is waiting for whoever steps up to fund this movie: “The Dark Tower, to me, and I’m not unbiased because I’m the writer on this thing, but to me it looks like gold on the ground waiting to be picked up.”Fleming summarizes the situation with what is on all of our hearts: "I hope that Howard and his posse reload and try again, but this is a major setback for them."
Moore: Kimberly Peirce directed it. I love her. She was so specific in exploring the relationship between the mother [Moore's role] and the daughter, played by Chloe Moretz. She allowed me to create something of my own. I took more from Stephen King's novel than Brian De Palma's original movie. In the book, she's a fundamentalist and has her own church. But in the film, she's obviously mentally ill.
THR: So you're probably not going to, um, look your best in this movie.
Moore: It's certainly different, my look. . . . I look awful! I have to do a comedy next! I could not wear any makeup -- it's a long way from the red carpet.The Reporter then asked how nervous she was without the makeup. Moore responded that she had to let her vanity go to allow the character to work. She said, “Anyway, with actors, all our ages are out there for all to see -- you can't hide anything, really. And it's kind of a relief. This is my age, this is what I look like without makeup on -- who cares? That youth culture -- that lying about your age -- it's all denial of death anyway.”
This book is, in a way, like a photo negative of my novel “The Dead Zone.” In that book, Johnny Smith is the guy in the high place with the rifle who feels like he’s seen the future. He’s seen this guy, Greg Stillson, and he sees what he’s going to do when he becomes president, because he has this precognitive talent. And he feels like he has to kill him. At the last moment, fate intervenes. I got really uncomfortable with the idea of saying, “Well, under certain circumstances, assassination is a good thing.” And this book is a chance to do it the other way and to take the assassination back.Morris also wrote a positive -- insightful -- review of the novel. Morris offered all out relief that King did not worry about the machinery of Time Travel or swim through the depths of philosophy on the subject -- the author stuck to the story and allowed time travel to be little more than a vehicle to carry the story.
Media Rights Capital is in serious talks to take on The Dark Tower after Warner Bros. declined to make what potentially amounts to three feature films and two limited run TV series.The article is HERE.
 |
| photo credit: www.daveart.com |
To make it even more scary we decided to use only one color all over the mask, and it is all painted in a scary mix of calm paint and an uncomfortable feeling all over the mask. It is all created with old school airbrush paint mixed with oil paint tech.
The left side has just an evil sinister feeling, and if you look close into the star you find the same carpet as in the hotel! On the right side we present the rage.Of course, Stubits asks the question we all immediately want to shout out – HEY! Why not pay homage to a story Richard Bachman wrote? How about: The Running Man, or Thinner . . . wait, I just realized why. Because the helmet is of the MOVIE – and those movie’s were not , uhhhh . . . they were not. . . beautiful. So why The Shining? Probably because it’s just that cool!
 |
| photo credit cbssports.com. |
 |
| picture credit: WSJ, Anne Isabelle |
Take, for example, my husband's extensive collection of Stephen King books. I'm fairly certain that if Mr. King decided to aggregate and publish all of his old grocery receipts, Clay would be standing in line at the bookstore to purchase a first edition.
Although a part of me can appreciate the creativity of demon-possessed automobiles or pets suddenly coming back to life as bloodthirsty zombies, I question whether they need to occupy so much critical real estate, especially when they don't really get used.
"It's a collection," Clay said, defending his right to the complete works. "They're coming."Kreutzer’s full article is at wsj.com
As many people who know me are aware of, I have been planning to write a book about the Stephen King dollar baby filmmakers for a few years now. That book will finally get underway, as I start interviewing the filmmakers at the end of August and into September. The exciting news is that I have over 20 different dollar baby filmmakers lined up to interview.
The book should be available and on sale by the end of 2012. Early in September, I will build a new website, specifically for the book, and will keep it updated as the book progresses with director bios, photos and more. Keep an eye out here at shawnlealos.net for more news on that.What's exciting about this is that Lealos is just the right guy to write this book. Having made a dollar baby himself, he knows the ins and outs of the process and will produce some home run interviews, I'm sure! I'm mean, think about it -- he has TWENTY filmmakers who have agreed to be interviewed.
"Stephen Rebello is an expert on Psycho and his book on the subject is being turned into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren."I can't wait for that movie!
He was going to go up to the old hotel and sketch the ruins. His pictures were going to be with an article they were doing. It was a famous old hotel called the Overlook. It burned down ten years ago. The caretaker burned it down. He was crazy. Everybody in town said so. But never mind; he’s dead.That's pretty neat!
he understood that when this was over, she would have only the vaguest memories of what she had done, as she had only the vaguest memories of killing the children and the old people and the terminal patients and Andrew Pomeroy.
In its own right, “The gunslinger” is a good book, although not one of King’s best, but leaves the reader wanting for more. The revised edition is much better than the first edition that was published as it is easier to read and the story flows smoothly. If you are looking to enter into this world for the first time or to travel with Roland once again, “The gunslinger” will serve as the doorway into the mind of Stephen King as he chases his elusive dreams.The full review is at examiner.com
“Over the years Paul had grown more and more resigned to the fact that he could not read stories as he had when he was a kid; by becoming a writer of them himself, he had condemned himself to a life of dissection.” – Misery, p.151When you do something often, it can become difficult to enjoy the art itself. Misery touches on a period in Paul’s life when he found it difficult to enjoy other people’s writing without being a critic. Makes sense – dancers each think they can do better than the person on stage; writers can be tempted to think they can write a better book than another writer. Even preachers can struggle to listen to someone else preach, because they sit there thinking, “I wouldn’t have done that with that text. . .” or “I would have said that much better.”
Off-Broadway's reworked and re-imagined production of Carrie, the musical, had its first preview on January 31, 2012, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The show opened officially on March 1, 2012. Carrie was forced to cut short its previously announced extension and closed following the evening performance on Sunday, April 8, 2012, after 34 previews and 46 performances.
Based on Stephen King's bestselling novel, the musical of Carrie hadn't been seen since its legendary 1988 Broadway production. The show's original authors joined with director Stafford Arima (Altar Boyz) and MCC Theater for a newly reworked and fully re-imagined vision of the gripping tale.
The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book by Brian James Freeman (The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book), Hans-Åke Lilja (Lilja's Library: The World of Stephen King), and Kevin Quigley (Wetware: On the Digital Frontline With Stephen King) features more than 1,000 questions to test your knowledge of the movies, miniseries, and television episodes based on ideas conjured from the imagination of the King of Horror, along with more than 50 special illustration-based questions from Cemetery Dance favorite artist Glenn Chadbourne!
In addition, the book concludes with a special afterword by Mick Garris, director of The Stand, The Shining, Riding the Bullet, Desperation, Bag of Bones, and many others!
The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book includes material right up through this year and no Stephen King collection will be complete without it!You can purchase the book HERE.
During the month of July several Maine libraries received news that they had been awarded grants from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. Once again, Maine libraries are so fortunate to benefit from the generosity of this Foundation. Libraries have shared with us their delight in learning that their library was a recipient of a grant from the Kings in this latest round of awards. Keep in mind that the list includes only those libraries that shared this information with the Maine State Library.
Abel J, Morneault Memorial Library (Van Buren) $20,000 bathroom and entry way renovation
- Edythe Dyer Community Library (Hampden) $10,000 boiler replacement
- Bingham Union Library $6,000 replace furnace
- Lincoln Memorial Library (Lincoln) $1,500 Read it Forward Program
- Treat Memorial Library (Livermore Falls) $25,000 HVAC project
- Millinocket Memorial Library $30,000 to replace windows
- Brownfield Public Library $800 new conference table
- South Berwick Public Library $50,000 shelving for new facility
“My screenplay, which Kubrick chose not to use, was considerably different from the script that came out at his end. For one, my screen play was pegged even more heavily than the book on something Kubrick never touch on: the past of the hotel. It says in ‘Salems Lot, ‘An evil house calls evil men.’ That was the idea in THE SHINING. The hotel was not evil because those had been there, but thsoe people went there because the place was evil.”
–Speaking of The Shining with Christopher EvansKing is saying that the Hotel's past matters to the texture of the story. Of course, I think King's version of The Shining (the ABC mini-series) gave a lot of history and back story. I enjoyed that Mini-series a lot! I wonder how much of King's original script, the one given to Kubrick, was used to create the mini-series. I wonder what happened to that script.
Where King's previous antagonists were small fry (or protagonists flipped on their heads), Randall Flagg is never less than pure evil. He has a counterpart, as all evils should: Mother Abigail, 108 years old, who communes with God, and who is the frail good to Flagg's evil.Job and Revelation:
I read once that The Stand was essentially the Book of Job, with the survivors in Job's place: tested by good and evil both; pushed and challenged to see how much they could endure, as if their suffering were a game. There's a little more epic fantasy here than in the Bible, maybe, and it ends not with a war, but with an accident; with the chaos of Trashcan Man finding a weapon, and with Flagg's showing off going to far. But I can still see it. Good wins by default, because evil cannot. Those were the rules in the Old Testament, and they're the rules now.That's an interesting perspective. The Stand is very much like Job! However, in Biblical terms, I think the Stand is more like the book of Revelation. (No "s" in Revelation.) Plagues are poured out on the world, evil rises up and people must choose which side they will turn to. As evil rises, the good must decide if they will bow down to evil (take the mark of the beast) or stand up against evil (the mark of God.) Yet, in the end, man cannot stand against evil alone, only the work of God can end it. Thus in revelation fire comes from heaven and destroys the enemies of God, while in the Stand, the finger of God brings an end to evil.
I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said— his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice: the voice of a teen-age gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You’re not so good. Hell, you can’t even please one crazy overweight ex-nurse. Maybe you broke your writing bone in that crash, too ... only that bone isn’t healing.At another point he hears the Red Queen lecturing Alice.
deus ex machina, the god from the machine, first used in Greek amphitheaters. When the playwright got his hero into an impossible jam, this chair decked with flowers came down from overhead. The hero sat down in it and was drawn up and out of harm’s way. Even the stupidest swain could grasp the symbolism-the hero had been saved by God. But the deus ex machina— sometimes known in the technical jargon as “the old parachute-under-the-airplane-seat trick,” finally went out of vogue around the year 1700. Except, of course, for such arcana as the Rocket Man serials and the Nancy Drew books. I guess you missed the news, Annie.Annie explains the problem with an illustration from the Rocketman short films she used to watch every week as a kid. She was upset one week when the story picked up, but made changes to the previous week. Annie tells Paul, “The car went over the cliff, and all the kids in the theater were cheering because Rocket Man got out, but I wasn’t cheering, Paul. I was mad! I started yelling, ‘That isn’t what happened last week! That isn’t what happened last week!’” and, ““He didn’t get out of the cockadoodie car! It went over the edge and he was still inside it! Do you understand that?”
The typewriter sat there, smirking at him. “I hate you,” Paul said morosely, and looked out the window. (Misery)And
TRYING TO HAVE AN IDEA wasn’t the same thing as GETTING AN IDEA. GETTING AN IDEA was a more humble way of saying I am inspired, or Eureka! My muse has spoken! (Misery)4. What Annoys Me
