Revival is out and doing great! In fact, seattletimes.com has listed the top 10 bestseller -- and Revival is leading the pack.
Hardcover fiction
1. Revival, Stephen King
2. Gray Mountain, John Grisham
3. Flesh and Blood, Patricia Cornwell
4. The Burning Room, Michael Connelly
5. Havana Storm, Clive Cussler
6. Prince Lestat, Anne Rice
7. Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult
8. Blue Labyrinth, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
9. Pegasus, Danielle Steel
10. The World of Ice & Fire, George R.R. Martin
The Mist The Novella Cut
This is what happened. . .
I'm watching my copy of The Mist, The Novella Cut. And, of course, I'm liking it a lot. I haven't seen the end yet, but I'm liking the film more because I'm not dreading the end. The movie is broken up with headers, much the way the novella was. There is an opening note that assures us that this is only a fan film, not meant to in any way disparage Mr. Darabont's work.
Another difference; not only am I not dreading the end, I'm watching it with my daughters. Why is that different? Because I previously was hesitant to let them see a dad blow his kids brains out.
This movie really does have the feel that the novella had.
Some quick notes:
1. Mother Carmody is no Bible scholar. She quotes Revelations, which is a common mistake. But the Biblical book is titled Revelation, no S. Why? Because it is the singular Revelation of Jesus, more than it is a series of revelations of end time events.\\
2. I like almost all the scenes with the monsters. I think they are truly horrifying. Fromm the attack in the loading dock to the fight in the store with the flying things -- it's great stuff! What's more, trips to the grocery store are not nearly as boring, as I can now imagine an attack by prehistoric creatures.
3.Few movies (at least in the world of Stephen King) manage to capture the feel of a novel quite as well as The Mist. Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile all do a great job bringing the book to screen. But King's really scary stuff usually remains locked in the pages of his books, because you just can't make it happen on screen. I think The Mist accomplishes some real scares. This is no B-movie, as Darabont joked.
4. I don't think there is any way a crazy like Carmody would gete that many people to follow her. I do understand there are religious nuts who gather a crowd; but she goes from being a total outcast in the community, to gaining complete trust in a few moments of crisis.
5. This is easily my favorite version of The Mist. I LOVE IT! I feel like something has been redeemed. That is, it was good all along, but deeply marred by the ending.
6. The Durabont film brings resolution to two issues: Will the mist go away? And what happened to David Drayton? The re-cut. . .
I won't give away the ending to the novella cut, but I will say:
THERE IS HOPE.
I'm watching my copy of The Mist, The Novella Cut. And, of course, I'm liking it a lot. I haven't seen the end yet, but I'm liking the film more because I'm not dreading the end. The movie is broken up with headers, much the way the novella was. There is an opening note that assures us that this is only a fan film, not meant to in any way disparage Mr. Darabont's work.
Another difference; not only am I not dreading the end, I'm watching it with my daughters. Why is that different? Because I previously was hesitant to let them see a dad blow his kids brains out.
This movie really does have the feel that the novella had.
Some quick notes:
1. Mother Carmody is no Bible scholar. She quotes Revelations, which is a common mistake. But the Biblical book is titled Revelation, no S. Why? Because it is the singular Revelation of Jesus, more than it is a series of revelations of end time events.\\
2. I like almost all the scenes with the monsters. I think they are truly horrifying. Fromm the attack in the loading dock to the fight in the store with the flying things -- it's great stuff! What's more, trips to the grocery store are not nearly as boring, as I can now imagine an attack by prehistoric creatures.
3.Few movies (at least in the world of Stephen King) manage to capture the feel of a novel quite as well as The Mist. Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile all do a great job bringing the book to screen. But King's really scary stuff usually remains locked in the pages of his books, because you just can't make it happen on screen. I think The Mist accomplishes some real scares. This is no B-movie, as Darabont joked.
4. I don't think there is any way a crazy like Carmody would gete that many people to follow her. I do understand there are religious nuts who gather a crowd; but she goes from being a total outcast in the community, to gaining complete trust in a few moments of crisis.
5. This is easily my favorite version of The Mist. I LOVE IT! I feel like something has been redeemed. That is, it was good all along, but deeply marred by the ending.
6. The Durabont film brings resolution to two issues: Will the mist go away? And what happened to David Drayton? The re-cut. . .
I won't give away the ending to the novella cut, but I will say:
THERE IS HOPE.
Revival Journal #4: The Mystery
Mr. Mercedes is supposed to be a mystery -- and Revival is supposed to be, well, something else. It's King's new "dark" novel. It has the tone of King's novella, 1922. But it also has a great deal of mystery in it. What's up with Rev. Jacobs? That is the mystery. It's what keeps us coming back, wanting to know more.
After we discover he has the power to heal, the reader wants to know how. I've always been interested in "faith" healers and how they pull their stunts. Partly because so many people I know, people I love, are easily taken in by religious shysters and shenanigans. TV preachers and tent revivals with the big sign out front, "HEALING SERVICE" are of great suspicion to me. In fact, I'd suggest that one of the great wounds to Christianity is the showman preachers who use the Gospel as a platform for making money. But more about that in later posts.
They mystery at the mid-point and just beyond of Revival is three fold: How is Jacobs healing all those people, why do things sometimes go "bad" for the healed, and what happened to Jacobs? I don't know the answer to any of those things at the moment, because I'm still plodding. And here's the thing, I'm interested in the answer to all those things.
King does a great job ruling out early suspicions on the healing service. No, he is not just using plants. And yes, he really does seem to be healing these people. But is he maybe doing more? Is he actually experimenting on them? Is something else going on that the reader has not been let in on? Well, of course!
It is King's ability to turn a good mystery, to keep enough elements up in the air like a great juggler, that has me fascinated. Now, here's a small confession. If this were an author I'd not heard of, I'd be concerned that he'd bit off more than he could chew. There are too many questions to resolve in the number of pages ahead. Can he do it? Will the answers be lame? But this is Stephen King. And there is a sense in which I keep reading simply because I know he will work some magic when the curtain is pulled back.
In some ways, Revival is a better mystery than Mr. Mercedes. In Mr. Mercedes, we got a peak in at the criminal mastermind at work. In Revival, things are more limited. We don't get Jacobs perspective, so we are kept in suspense.
There is a slight change in writing style for King in Revival. In the past King built a book scene by scene, the way a television show would progress. In Revival, and other recent books, King does a lot of narration that skims over scenes, simply pushing the plot forward. He's "telling" instead of "showing" a writer friend of mine would say. And that's pretty easy to do when using first person narration. I like it, because I don't always want to travel scene my scene.
And where's another confession; while King might identify with Jamie, I don't. In fact, I find Jamie a pretty unlikable character. Is it his sleeping with a much younger woman? Maybe it is. King works pretty hard to make us, the reader, cool with the older man sleeping with the younger woman. It's a delightful fling for him, and a educational step into the world for her. But it feels unreal. I don't think younger woman just throw themselves at older guys and say, "yeah, I have daddy issues." Maybe. But I talk to A LOT of people, and that's not the way that goes down.
The bottomline is, I see Jamie as a user. He uses women, he sues drugs, he uses opportunity to advance himself. So it makes me suspicious of his desire to hunt down the old reverend and find out what he's really up to. I don't think our main character is really all that noble. King is working to show Jamie as someone who doesn't have the wool pulled over his eyes; but what he gives us is a loser.
I'm secretly rooting for King to pull a Christine on us, move from first person to third person and knock Jamie off.
But here's the deal: It's all enough to keep me interested, and that's what matters in a novel, isn't it? I'm driven back again and again to Revival because I want to know what's up.
I should note why I'm SO SLOW at reading this book. I only allow myself to listen to it when I go running at night. It's my motivation. Sometimes I can do five miles, I just keep choosing longer routes, because I'm hooked. So it keeps me from skipping too many nights on the road exercising. It also slows the pace.
The Mist -- There Is Hope!
I'm excited about this. . .
Kevin Karstens, a graphic illustrator, who shared with me that he also prefers King's version of the Mist and in particular, our strong dislike for the movies ending. Kevin wrote,
I had looked forward to a film adaption for over 20 years, and was thrilled to hear they were doing one (and by Frank Darabont, no less)...until I started hearing, 'they changed the ending'....and I personally REALLY did NOT care for the 'new version'...so I did something baout it, and you might find it interesting...What he did was recut the movie, creating a fan film titled, "The Mist, The Novella Cut." Great title!
The movie's webpage does a great job explaining exactly what was done:
'The Mist-The Novella Cut' is a fan edit of the Frank Darabont/Stephen King film 'The Mist' which was released to theaters in 2007.
It is in no way meant to disparage the wonderful work created by Mr. Darabont and his brilliant team of filmmakers, it is simply a version of the film meant to more closely adhere to the original text from the Stephen King novella upon which the movie was based. As the original story is my all time favorite King tale, I wanted a version that reflected the source material as closely as possible, especially the original, ambiguous finale...so I created this fan edit for fun.
Certain scenes have been cut, others added from the DELETED SCENES found on the DVD release, as they mirrored actual sequences from the source material. Chapter 'headings' have been added in areas to reflect the feel of a novella, and the ending now pays homage to the 'Hartford/hope' finale originally seen in King's original text.This is from a conversation between Kevin Quigley and I. Kevin is the overseer of charnelhouse, a Stephen King website.
Talk Stephen King: The novella left the story open ended. The movie, however, chose an ending scene that was rather controversial. King said he liked it. I hate it. Which of us is right?
Kevin Quigley: King and I often disagree about movies. The ending of The Mist is atrocious. It’s going for shock value and succeeding at that, but it doesn’t do much for the film itself. It’s a complete shift in tone and intent, one that feels incongruous with the rest of the movie. (talkstephenking interview with Kevin Quigley)Wait a minute, you may be saying -- is the ending to the Mist really that bad? Allison Weaver wrote an article earlier this year titled, "Which Movies Have the Most Terrible Endings?" She wrote, "Did anyone actually enjoy the ending of 'The Mist'? I don't believe it's possible. Who could be happy after watching the main character give up, shoot his own son, and then head off in search of the perfect way to kill himself? Honestly, though, even if it ended there, it would've been more acceptable than what really happened. Instead, he discovered that he and the rest of his family and friends could have survived the entire ordeal if they had just waited a few moments longer. Oops! Tough break." My heart cries, "YESSSSSSSS!" (in best Darth Vader noooo voice)
Also of interest to this discussion is Blake Hennon's LA Times article, "‘The Mist’: Frank Darabont, Thomas Jane on ‘angry, bleak’ ending." (herocomplex.latimes.com) Hennon quoted Darabont,
“I was really getting something off my chest here,” Darabont said. “So if you hated the ending, I apologize for the two hours of your life I took. … This is an angry cry from the heart from a humanist who is really pretty pissed off about the fact that all the reasonable people seem to be marginalized, ground under the heel of the extremists.”The good news is that I didn't lose two hours of my life. The movie is great -- until characters who had been making solid decisions began acting irrationally.
A producer once offered Darabont a 30 million dollar budget for The mist IF he would change the ending. Darabont asked, “What ending would you like me to have? What is your suggestion?” The answer: I don’t know! Darabont explained, "This is the ending I’ve been thinking about for 30 years now. He didn’t have a suggestion."
To be clear -- It’s okay for the main characters to die – just not that way. Let them drive away and get eaten by a big dino-monster. That’s fine. But a father cannot do that to his child – not a good one. It messes up the movie for re-watch. To me, the ending makes the David Drayton unlikable. As you watch again, you are thinking, “I can’t like this guy, he’s got a major character flaw.” He does what Mother Carmody wanted to do but failed. He does it with different intentions. Simply put, a good reason not to blow a kids brains out when a situation looks really really really bad – is because there might be a miracle. Not only does David Drayton carry out a incredibly painful act, but the movie rubs our face in it by showing the mist getting blown away by the army.
Curious what kind of reviews the recut of The Mist is getting? Here are a few:
Original Runtime : 126 min
New Runtime : 1 hr 45 min
Amount of time Cut/Added : CUT: Approx 10 min ADDED: Approx 5 min
More about the changes, the website explains:
The added sequences were from the DELETED SCENES which can be found on the DVD release of 'The Mist'. These specific portions mirrored sequences from the book (Mr. Norton speaking with Stephanie before he, David & Billy leave for town, conversations in the store and so on)...also, the entire ending seen in theaters has been dropped and replaced with new scenes that reflect the original, haunting and more ambiguous 'Hartford/hope' angle found in the original text.Check out the website at: http://kkarstens.wix.com
BOOM! So Stephen King is a MASTER!
See, I would never ever want to say, "I told you so." Or suggest I was ahead of the curve. But. . . now that Revival is out, people are starting to note that King makes a lot of connections to other masters of the craft. In particular, H.P. Lovecraft. Why does this matter to me? Because I put a book out this Summer (before Revival came out) discussing King and the enduring nature of his work as serious literature. I also discussed connections between King and Lovecraft.
Note this article posted at oregonlive.com. Before diving in to King's use of Lovecraft in Revival, the writer says, "He seems to be trying to make sure his own pop fiction lasts by going even darker than he has before, into the realm of earlier horror masters Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft."
What Douglas Perry (the author of the article) totally misses is that King didn't just wake up and decide to start shadowing some of these people. He didn't just decide to get more serious with Revival. King's work has been consistently serious literature; it's just the critics who have been reading him wrong. It's time they gave the Stephen King library another read.
Perry nicely summarizes some recent reviews of Revival:
The New Statesman calls "Revival," King's 58th novel, a "serious book by a major writer," insisting that it "reads like a populist sequel to Sinclair Lewis's evangelical satire 'Elmer Gantry.'"
The New York Times calls it "a well-built book that unfolds on a big canvas." The paper adds, teasingly, scarily, that the novel "winds up with the idea that to be human, you must know what it is to be inhuman."
That sounds like Shelley's influence, but The Guardian says "it is Lovecraft, and the quote 'That is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange aeons, even death may die,' that reverberate throughout the book."
King, 67, happily admits he's been influenced by "everything" Lovecraft has ever written.
In chapter 1 of Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters, I included a portion titled, "The eyes of H.P. Lovecraft." I noted not only similarities in their writing, but biography as well. I also looked at how the two are very different.
King’s Lovecraftian stories include such titles as Jerusalem’s Lot, I am the Doorway, Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, N, and Crouch End. In the documentary, Fear of the Unknown, Peter Straub compared The Mist to Lovecraft. “Tentacle things break in from another dimension, that’s just pure Lovecraft.”
Gardner, Brighton (2014-05-04). Stephen King A Face Among The Masters
What I find in Revival isn't a brand new Stephen King. This King was with us in Full Dark, No Stars. He was there in the pages of The Dark Half and especially Desperation. The depressing tone of the book mirrors very much the narrative style of the novella 1922.
So to put it simply, I'm excited. I'm so glad that King's novel, Revival, is being taken as serious literature. Because I think it will force some others to look back at the work of Stephen King. All along King has been giving us serious literature; we were just having so much fun reading it, we didn't realize how great it was. I believe someday, future generations will study Stephen King the way we study Lovecraft, Dickens, Poe, Twin and Shelly.
William Shatner joins the cast of Haven
Greetings Captain Kirk! tvbythenumbers is reporting that "William Shatner (Star Trek) is set to guest star in a four-episode arc on the Syfy fan-favorite series in 2015. Shatner will play a pivotal character that has the potential to forever impact the fate of the town of Haven and its troubled residents."
tvline.com puts it this way:
William Shatner will seemingly throw the Prime Directive out the window when he sets foot in Haven later this season. The iconic Star Trek captain recently teased on Twitter his gig on the Syfy series. Now, TVLine can exclusively reveal that Shatner will recur in a four-episode Season 5 arc in “a seminal role,” as a pivotal character that has the potential to forever impact the fate of the town of Haven and its Troubled residents.
(thanks Stephenkingonly)
The Stand to be FOUR movies
Fleming writes:
Boone told Kevin Smith in his Babble-On podcast (I heard it on Aint It Cool News) that after he boiled down the tale to a single script for a three-hour movie, Warner Bros actually suggested to him a more ambitious plan for what he calls “The Godfather of post-apocalyptic thrillers.” Said Boone: “They asked, would you do this as multiple films. I said f*ck yes. I think we’re going to do four movies. Do The Stand at the highest level you can do it at, with a cast that’s going to blow peoples’ minds. Production in the spring.” Boone said he’s writing that first installment, based on the script he has happily scrapped.I like this line, "Do The Stand at the highest level you can do it at..." YES!
Fleming rightly says, "It all starts with a studio decision maker, one with a spine, saying, yeah, I want to see this." This series of films will take someone with spine. He compares the work to the multi-part adaptation of Tolkien's work.
There are opportunities for visuals from The Stand that rival what Stanley Kubrick put on the screen in King’s The Shining. The depiction of the apocalypse in The Walking Dead, you just know that and other filmed works were informed by some of what King presented in his seminal novel. Stay tuned.Check out the full article at: deadline.com
Flashback to 2003
For throw back thursday, King posted this November 19th, 2003 picture of himself and Tabitha at the 54th National Book Awards.
The text of his speech is at nationalbook.org. The speech is like a public love letter to his wife; it's beautiful.
"Tabby always knew what I was supposed to be doing and she believed that I would succeed at it."
"She's what the Bible calls a pearl beyond price."
Will There Really Be A Running Man 2?
cinemablend.com and digitalspy.com are citing Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent comments that he might be returning to the role of Ben Richards in a new Running Man movie.
Cinemablend writes:
Of course, we are also enduring talk of a single movie version of The Stand. King suggested maybe this would not just be one movie. And there's the IT remake.
If they're looking for something great to film, here's some ideas:
1. THE DARK TOWER
2. The Talisman
3. Duma Key
4. Rose Madder
5. From a Buick 8
Really need to remake something? How about getting on that IT project? I watched the miniseries recently and thought, "This could be a lot better than it is."
Of course, no one is really looking to remake or do anything with the Stephen King property, The Running Man. The movie had very little to do with the novella. I loved the novel -- and the movie, not so much. The book had an almost 9/11 type ending. The movie was actually less suspenseful.
Cinemablend writes:
The Austrian-born actor is currently in London, and it was while speaking during a Q&A that he revealed talks of a possible Running Man 2 in the works. According to Digital Spy, Schwarzenegger didn't exactly elaborate on what might be happening with the property or if he is actually attached to a project, but he did say that there have been rumblings about a return to the 1987 sci-fi film. This comment was looped in with a lot of other talk about in-development sequels, including The Legend of Conan (the actor saying. "It's an honor to be asked back after all these years, back to the franchise. This is really wild") and the Twins sequel, Triplets (the script for which Schwarzenegger says he's read the first draft).Wait. . . Twins 2? Or, to put it another way -- Hollywood is now officially out of ideas. Between sequels and remakes, there aren't a lot of original stories.
Of course, we are also enduring talk of a single movie version of The Stand. King suggested maybe this would not just be one movie. And there's the IT remake.
If they're looking for something great to film, here's some ideas:
1. THE DARK TOWER
2. The Talisman
3. Duma Key
4. Rose Madder
5. From a Buick 8
Really need to remake something? How about getting on that IT project? I watched the miniseries recently and thought, "This could be a lot better than it is."
Of course, no one is really looking to remake or do anything with the Stephen King property, The Running Man. The movie had very little to do with the novella. I loved the novel -- and the movie, not so much. The book had an almost 9/11 type ending. The movie was actually less suspenseful.
Revival Journal #3: Not Vintage King
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| EDEL RODRIGUEZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE |
Revival has the feeling of returning the constant reader to some home turf. With Castle Rock near by and characters who have a special place in their heart for drugs -- the hard kind -- it has traces of novels offered long ago. But the story is no rehash. It's new, and written by a much more cynical man than penned The Green Mile. Are the dark musings in Revival a phase he is passing through, or a final resting place he's stepped onto? I don't know. King does what most people do; he wrestles with the issues of life. Only, King does it in public while most people work issues through in the privacy of their heart.
It is King's ability to work things through while all eyes are on him that make his stories so engaging. We enjoy the ride because we're taking it with a man who's not quite sure of the road ahead himself. Thought he novel is tight and moves quickly, King has said more than once that he does not write with an outline in hand. That is to say, he doesn't always know where he'll end up when he starts the journey.
After the terrible accident that takes pastor Charles Jacob’s wife and son, and the terrible sermon, the novel follows Jamie Morton as he bounces about as a rock musician and sinks deeper into drugs. I found this portion of the novel difficult to get into, because I was so interested in what would happen with the preacher. As with Christine, the story is not told from the position of someone who would always be in the “know.” This makes some scenes a little awkward, as Jamie drops us in on scenes he had no way of being there for. How does he know? Well, he listens a lot. In Christine, when the narrator broke his leg at a football game, King ran into a problem and switched to third person. No third person in Revival. Instead, we continue to travel life’s road with Jamie.
Revival is as much about Jamie’s coming of age as it is the evil preacher. It seems the older King gets, the better he is at reviving the flavor of first love. His recent novel Joyland had a wonderful story of first love. But unlike Joyland, Revival is about two young people coming of age together. There is no one to guide Jamie in the way of love – he and his girl must explore that path together. And the scenes are rather tender.
It is amazing how King can take us back there. Back to another time and era. More than that, back to young love and young thinking. For instance, Jamie discusses how easy it is to make a promise about life when your fourteen. That's true -- but most of us forgot that.
The rock band Jamie joins was originally called the Gunslingers. They dropped that name, and the new name – I’ll let you find it – combined with the old name is almost a direct nod to Guns n Roses.
It seems obvious that in many ways, King lives through his characters. Of course, he has had a taste of the rock star life; but that was always overshadowed by the fact he's a famous author. That is, the question of could he have made it onto the stage just on his music powers, had he not first been the author of some super-duper novels -- is really in doubt. There is a sense that Jamie is a shadow, an alter ego, of what King might have been. Not what King was, or was ever in danger of actually becoming -- but in some other dark tower world, King mixes bits of his own personality and experience with his fictional characters.
It is funny when people ask him if these characters are based on himself. Of course. That was true of Devon and Stu and even Jamie Mortion. But, it's also true of Pennywise and Mr. Mercedes. GASP! Because they are all coming out of the same guys head.
I’m reading a lot of people who say this is “vintage” King. I disagree with that entire line of thought. Even when it comes from King and his publisher. There is no vintage King. Vintage King is Salems’ Lot. And the author who wrote that has moved on with life. He can’t dull his skills back to that age. In other words, while Revival and Joyland might contain themes and flavors of the old dark novels, these are written by a man who has traveled much further in life and has a better grasp of his artwork. While I don’t enjoy every Stephen King book, I enjoy books from every era.
You Can't Kill Stephen king on DVD and Amazon
I saw this on Amazon instant the other day. You Can't Kill Stephen King has confirmed that the film has a platform that can reach an audience. Posting on Face Book, YCKSK wrote:
Our movie will be released on DVD on December 9th and is available for pre-order from Amazon, BestBuy, and other retailers! We'll be digitally available at a later date. Thank you so much to everyone for all your interest and support! It is finally here! www.amazon.com
What They're Saying About REVIVAL
csmonitor.com: for the millions of us who keep ignoring Camus and Proust in favor of “Cujo” and “Carrie,” King scatters a few Easter eggs in “Revival.” Among them: references to the amusement park setting in his short novel “Joyland” and a setting in Maine near Castle Rock, King’s version of Yoknapatawpha County. This book isn’t as much fun as “Mr. Mercedes,” published way back in the summer of 2014, but King fans won’t lose any faith in his powers while breezing through “Revival.
nytimes.com: He does not ramble on, as he did with “Dreamcatcher” and “Duma Key,” which at 600-plus pages each both seemed endless. “Under the Dome,” his best behemoth of recent years, might have been 1,074 pages, but each one was worth it. “Revival” is much shorter, but it, too, is a well-built book that unfolds on a big canvas.
. . . and: “Revival” winds up with the idea that to be human, you must know what it is to be inhuman — and to know that only this thin partition separates that horror from ordinary life. So it’s not just a book that delivers its share of jolts and then lets the reader walk away unscathed. Older and wiser each time he writes, Mr. King has moved on from the physical fear that haunted him after he was struck by a van while out walking to a more metaphysical, universal terror. He writes about things so inevitable that he speaks to us all.
bostonglobe.com: Stephen King has taken a more expansive — and less apologetic — approach to describing the world. In book after book, he has poked, prodded, and thumbed open loopholes in the fabric of reality. He has questioned the mysterious, and then expanded on it in novels of fabulous and intensely wrought prose.
MERCY -- we have a problem
That sinking feeling when what was an interesting movie begins to slide, and then drag, and then sink. That's the feeling I had watching Mercy, which is based on Stephen King's short story, Gramma.
What is an interesting short read, is a painful long watch. Simpy, this is a movie that needs -- BEGS -- for an editor. Because somewhere in all this mess is probably a good movie. But what comes to screen is not enjoyable. The music is good. The acting is pretty good. But the dialogue is belabored, and the scenes ramble on so long they fail to scare. No quick shots. No suspense. Simply put, the movie commits the deep sin of boring the audience.
There are elements that are just hokey. Throwing a flower at gramma causes her face to burn. Yeah, whatever. This is starting to feel like kids telling a story. "My gramma is a witch. And if you throw a flower at her, her face will burn. But it has to be a verbena flower." Say, very nicely to the child, "Oh really." The child is excited someone believes them. "Yeah. Then a piece of wood came from the wood chipper and stabbed my brother in the stomach." "wow, that must have been something," you say to the kid. "Yeah, and we were about to put the weeping book inside the wood chipper. . ." pat the kid on the head an ignore them.
Whatever, let the Langoliers have this movie for dinner.
Speaking of the Langoliers, I think the special effects are just about as good as that mini-series.
One nice touch: The R.L. Flagg home of the aged.
What is an interesting short read, is a painful long watch. Simpy, this is a movie that needs -- BEGS -- for an editor. Because somewhere in all this mess is probably a good movie. But what comes to screen is not enjoyable. The music is good. The acting is pretty good. But the dialogue is belabored, and the scenes ramble on so long they fail to scare. No quick shots. No suspense. Simply put, the movie commits the deep sin of boring the audience.
There are elements that are just hokey. Throwing a flower at gramma causes her face to burn. Yeah, whatever. This is starting to feel like kids telling a story. "My gramma is a witch. And if you throw a flower at her, her face will burn. But it has to be a verbena flower." Say, very nicely to the child, "Oh really." The child is excited someone believes them. "Yeah. Then a piece of wood came from the wood chipper and stabbed my brother in the stomach." "wow, that must have been something," you say to the kid. "Yeah, and we were about to put the weeping book inside the wood chipper. . ." pat the kid on the head an ignore them.
Whatever, let the Langoliers have this movie for dinner.
Speaking of the Langoliers, I think the special effects are just about as good as that mini-series.
One nice touch: The R.L. Flagg home of the aged.
Revival Journal #2: Darkness Descends
The journal entries are my thoughts as I read. There are spoilers, because I'm talking about the book, and issues raised by the book.
Darkness descends quickly in Stephen King's latest novel, Revival. We meet the preacher; he's awesome; his wife is pretty and everyone loves his little boy. Then there is a terrible accident (was she drinking?) and the preacher, Charles Jacobs, is out of commission for a few weeks. When he returns to the pulpit, he is bitter and has lost every bit of faith.
The sermon that follows the tragedy, the bad sermon, is really built up. I was pretty hyped, thinking something truly inspired was going to drip from the pulpit. Unfortunately, the preacher didn't have anything really new to say. I would have outlined his sermon with these points:
The bad sermon:
1. There is a lot of bad things that happen to good people.
2. There are a lot of bad things done in the name of God.
3. There are a lot of people claiming to follow God, but they send mixed messages.
4. There is no proof that there's an afterlife.
This would be interesting, if I sensed it was true to life. Since I actually do deal with people often when they slam into life's worst storms, I feel it fair to say that I have some understanding of the way people of faith respond to storms.
What is more likely if a person who once held a deeply rooted, even a trained faith, were to walk away is that they will do so in gradual stages. They begin to question, struggle through terrible, dark nights, and the bitterness begins to grow. It doesn't strike like lightening. Tragedy does. Tragedy hits and we are swept away in grief. But for a genuine believer to drop into unbelief usually takes some time.
Here's the thing: There are people who hold one or all those views. (The views presented in the bad sermon.) But they don't stumble into them over a three week process. World views don't usually change to the negative that quickly. More likely, if a person with a relatively robust faith experiences a sudden tragedy, their initial response is not to say, "There's no proof of an afterlife." At that moment, people reach for their core convictions. This isn't the point where most walk away.
Reverend Jacobs never preached an Easter sermon? Or he preached it with no application point? These are pretty straightforward messages. 1. Jesus physically died. He was put to death by trained executioners. Dead people usually stay dead. That's how the world works. 2. On the Sunday after his death, his tomb was found empty. 3. Over a forty day period his disciples encountered him in a variety of situations in which he proved to them he was still alive. 4. All of those he appeared to (of the Apostles) would go to their deaths, one by one, saying they had encountered the risen Jesus. APPLICATION: If God could raise Jesus from the dead, then the other things discussed in the Bible are not so far fetched. As Gary Habermass says, "The resurrection is a rock that can bear the weight of Christianity."
Why does this matter? Well, if Jacobs is a farmer who just lost his wife, the four point "bad sermon" is pretty normal. But if Jacobs is a preacher, he should have already dealt with some of these issues.
So here's what strange about the novel: All of the points of the "bad sermon" are things any person with a strong faith has thought seriously about. What's more, they are things anyone who has been theologically trained at a seminary has been forced to wrestle with.
Pre-Doubt and the building blocks of faith:
A guy who's been to seminary doesn't say, "There's no proof." A writer in Maine might. But someone who has given their life to pastoral ministry doesn't do so without some pre-doubt. That is: Before the storms in life smack us, we've already had some restless nights where we've asked these very questions. How do I know this is true? Why is there suffering? And for those who continued on, there were answers they were able to accept at the core of their being.
This isn't void lofty talk for me this week. I'll be doing the funeral of a three month old. What do you think a mothers asks the preacher in that situation? "Why did this happen to me?" My core isn't rocked by this, because I've already had some storms before this one where I asked those same questions. The questions, the doubt, was healthy for my faith because it forced me to seek answers. Am I an idiot to believe? Is faith foolishness?
So, here's a simple problem: Has our dear minister never previously wrestled with these issues? He never took Apologetics in seminary? While preachers might be emotional, and some do walk away and leave the faith -- they don't do it three weeks after a crisis. It takes more time to break down the emotional/spiritual fortress that's been built up. One tsunami doesn't usually wipe it out.
Doubts force us to move either form a childish faith to a mature faith, or to walk away. But Jacobs responds to tragedy like someone who has never ever experienced doubt at all.
It's hard to believe Jacobs loses his wife and son, and then suddenly goes, "Well if that's the way life works, I'm out!" Give him a year, and he might end up there. But he isn't going to start there.
Why would faith disappear in such a short period like that?
1. Faith was shallow an immature. That happens all the times! Someone starts out great, but their faith is lost during a great crisis. The truth is, their own faith never matured, so when the crisis comes they fall away.
2. Their faith relied on another person. The removal of that other person causes personal faith to collapse.
3. They never really had personal faith. The faith is full of fakes. Crisis exposes fakery.
But I don't get the feeling King was building toward either of those caricatures with reverend Jacobs. Yet, when tragedy strikes, he drops out pretty quickly. His "bad sermon" isn't really that bad for anyone who's heard people in pain talk for very long. He doesn't bring anything new to the table. Nothing that makes others go, "oh my goodness! There's suffering in this world! And many denominations with different views? I'm done with God."
What Jacobs does have is something of his own idol; electricity. Perhaps it was electricity he really worshiped all along. Tragedy struck, and he turned his back on God and leaned into the lightening.
Darkness descends quickly in Stephen King's latest novel, Revival. We meet the preacher; he's awesome; his wife is pretty and everyone loves his little boy. Then there is a terrible accident (was she drinking?) and the preacher, Charles Jacobs, is out of commission for a few weeks. When he returns to the pulpit, he is bitter and has lost every bit of faith.
The sermon that follows the tragedy, the bad sermon, is really built up. I was pretty hyped, thinking something truly inspired was going to drip from the pulpit. Unfortunately, the preacher didn't have anything really new to say. I would have outlined his sermon with these points:
The bad sermon:
1. There is a lot of bad things that happen to good people.
2. There are a lot of bad things done in the name of God.
3. There are a lot of people claiming to follow God, but they send mixed messages.
4. There is no proof that there's an afterlife.
This would be interesting, if I sensed it was true to life. Since I actually do deal with people often when they slam into life's worst storms, I feel it fair to say that I have some understanding of the way people of faith respond to storms.
What is more likely if a person who once held a deeply rooted, even a trained faith, were to walk away is that they will do so in gradual stages. They begin to question, struggle through terrible, dark nights, and the bitterness begins to grow. It doesn't strike like lightening. Tragedy does. Tragedy hits and we are swept away in grief. But for a genuine believer to drop into unbelief usually takes some time.
Here's the thing: There are people who hold one or all those views. (The views presented in the bad sermon.) But they don't stumble into them over a three week process. World views don't usually change to the negative that quickly. More likely, if a person with a relatively robust faith experiences a sudden tragedy, their initial response is not to say, "There's no proof of an afterlife." At that moment, people reach for their core convictions. This isn't the point where most walk away.
Reverend Jacobs never preached an Easter sermon? Or he preached it with no application point? These are pretty straightforward messages. 1. Jesus physically died. He was put to death by trained executioners. Dead people usually stay dead. That's how the world works. 2. On the Sunday after his death, his tomb was found empty. 3. Over a forty day period his disciples encountered him in a variety of situations in which he proved to them he was still alive. 4. All of those he appeared to (of the Apostles) would go to their deaths, one by one, saying they had encountered the risen Jesus. APPLICATION: If God could raise Jesus from the dead, then the other things discussed in the Bible are not so far fetched. As Gary Habermass says, "The resurrection is a rock that can bear the weight of Christianity."
Why does this matter? Well, if Jacobs is a farmer who just lost his wife, the four point "bad sermon" is pretty normal. But if Jacobs is a preacher, he should have already dealt with some of these issues.
So here's what strange about the novel: All of the points of the "bad sermon" are things any person with a strong faith has thought seriously about. What's more, they are things anyone who has been theologically trained at a seminary has been forced to wrestle with.
Pre-Doubt and the building blocks of faith:
A guy who's been to seminary doesn't say, "There's no proof." A writer in Maine might. But someone who has given their life to pastoral ministry doesn't do so without some pre-doubt. That is: Before the storms in life smack us, we've already had some restless nights where we've asked these very questions. How do I know this is true? Why is there suffering? And for those who continued on, there were answers they were able to accept at the core of their being.
This isn't void lofty talk for me this week. I'll be doing the funeral of a three month old. What do you think a mothers asks the preacher in that situation? "Why did this happen to me?" My core isn't rocked by this, because I've already had some storms before this one where I asked those same questions. The questions, the doubt, was healthy for my faith because it forced me to seek answers. Am I an idiot to believe? Is faith foolishness?
So, here's a simple problem: Has our dear minister never previously wrestled with these issues? He never took Apologetics in seminary? While preachers might be emotional, and some do walk away and leave the faith -- they don't do it three weeks after a crisis. It takes more time to break down the emotional/spiritual fortress that's been built up. One tsunami doesn't usually wipe it out.
Doubts force us to move either form a childish faith to a mature faith, or to walk away. But Jacobs responds to tragedy like someone who has never ever experienced doubt at all.
It's hard to believe Jacobs loses his wife and son, and then suddenly goes, "Well if that's the way life works, I'm out!" Give him a year, and he might end up there. But he isn't going to start there.
Why would faith disappear in such a short period like that?
1. Faith was shallow an immature. That happens all the times! Someone starts out great, but their faith is lost during a great crisis. The truth is, their own faith never matured, so when the crisis comes they fall away.
2. Their faith relied on another person. The removal of that other person causes personal faith to collapse.
3. They never really had personal faith. The faith is full of fakes. Crisis exposes fakery.
But I don't get the feeling King was building toward either of those caricatures with reverend Jacobs. Yet, when tragedy strikes, he drops out pretty quickly. His "bad sermon" isn't really that bad for anyone who's heard people in pain talk for very long. He doesn't bring anything new to the table. Nothing that makes others go, "oh my goodness! There's suffering in this world! And many denominations with different views? I'm done with God."
What Jacobs does have is something of his own idol; electricity. Perhaps it was electricity he really worshiped all along. Tragedy struck, and he turned his back on God and leaned into the lightening.
Thoughts on BIG DRIVER
Lifetime's "Big Driver" leaves little to be discussed. Mostly because -- it's not THAT interesting. It's one of those things that you watch and think, "that was interesting. I wonder what's on HBO." It doesn't have a lot of sticking power. I did not find myself out running or doing daily tasks while I mentally rehearsing Big Driver. I was not left dwelling on elements of the story.
As with the novella, I am left totally confounded by decisions Tess makes after she is raped. Most of it just doesn't make much sense. The Lifetime version of the novella becomes little more than a toned down retelling of "I Spit On Your Grave." (And your mothers grave. And your brothers grave.)
Did I like it? Shhhh, I can't admit this very loudly. I did. I read lots of reviewers who hated it. I mean, all out hated it! But I think it's okay. Maybe it's not much more than a C, but it kept me watching. This is not cinema with lots of subplots; and it's not a mini-series where characters were able to be fleshed out. It is a single story driven by one terrible event and the aftershocks. The characters are pretty shallow, including Tess. That said, I declare my favorite character to be Tom.
I thought the rape scene was long and drawn out; especially for television.
Things in Big Driver go from having what a real-estate agent might declare as "potential" -- to something more awkward. "This isn't really working," you start to realize. And here's the thing; when a story isn't really working, it better at least pull off its main objective. So this is a story of revenge. Parts of it don't work. But as a viewer, I'm a little forgiving of some of those things that don't work, so long as there is some payback given; and that there is. So on a very surface level, it works. In truth, it's not much more sophisticated than an Erector set.
Tess is a crime novelist, so the movie suggests she knows how not to get caught. I'm a crime expert -- because I watch television -- and I suspect Tess isn't as safe as she thinks she is. Her biggest safety net is that she lives in the pretend world called TV land, where the police will not look too hard to figure out what happened. She has a lot of unaccounted for time; she used her gun; she drove her car and she had her GPS on the whole time. None of this was resolved.
As the movie progressed, a little too much just worked out for Tess. She got all the luck; all the information; everything just worked for her. So, for a revenge story, it was this splendid happy ending. Which is kind of messed up. I agree with Brian Lowry, who writes, "the climax . . . is not as satisfying — or for that matter, morally challenging — as it should be." (variety.com) Thus the show leaves little to think over after it's been viewed. It was just another block of time eaten up by the glowing box. But I enjoyed it while the box ate my time.
My wife liked it much more than I did. She thinks the bloody dead guy who talks (the brother) is reminiscent of Pet Sematary. I think she's just trying to get me more excited about this film by lumping it with one of my favorite Stephen King works.
So there you have it. Big Driver has problems. I liked it. My wife liked it more. I'll probably forget I liked it -- or watched it -- and watch it again and possibly have totally new feelings toward it.
REVIVAL journal #1: Electricity Is In The Air
I started through revival tonight.
About the Journal entries:
Here’s the deal: Journal entries are my thoughts as I read through a book. There are lots of spoilers because – gasp – I’m talking about the book! If you don’t want to discuss the book yet, don’t read the journal entries. Sorry that sounds grouchy.
I’m not offering reviews. I decided years ago that there are great sites that do reviews of King’s books; my favorite is Lilja’s Library. Reviews are usually written after the book has been read at least once, sometimes multiple times. A brief overview of the book is given and usually a final verdict, declaring if the novel is top grade meat or a second edition of The Tommyknockers. I decided instead to journal through the books. That is: To talk as I read, not knowing as I write each portion how the book will end. It also allows me to include much more personal notes.
The Old Stephen King Is Back! – not really
The book is being pushed as King back to his old self. The Stephen King who gave us Pet Sematary and The Shining is “back.” Whatever. He never left, ya know? I understand that the publisher and writer want us to know up front that the novel will be dark; maybe really bleak. It’s as if everyone has forgotten a set of short novels in Full Dark, No Stars. Remember 1922? That was pretty bleak. And there were rats.
The “old Stephen King” (which makes no sense, because we now HAVE the OLD Stephen King!) won’t be coming back. Why? Because even if things have a similar tone to his earlier novels, King himself is a better writer. The writing is crisper, in many ways even more energetic. King dives into the story itself with more vigor. The young Stephen King eased his way into a dark novel – the old guy dives in. Yeah, there’s character development and stories that build toward the main story; but there are not the long sidebars that King used to offer up. I can’t think of another way to put it, but his writer is crisper. That sounds like potato chips.
Army Men
A strange thing happened as I read the opening scene in Revival – I became suspicious that Stephen King had somehow spied on a childhood event. In the novel, a boy named Jamie meets the new preacher, a man named Charles Jacobs. The boy, six I think, is playing his army men in front of his house when the shadow of a man disturbs his play.
When I was a boy, I had a huge collection of army men. Our family lived next to the church. One day while I was playing, a big ethnic church event was taking place. (Korean, I think.) As I played a shadow fell across my army men. I looked up, and an Asian man had come up to the house. At first I thought he was going to ask for my parents; but instead he began to speak to me. “I want one,” He said. Huh? He held up a single finger. “Just one.” Then, rather boldly, he reached down into the grass where I had sat up my army men and plucked up one of the troops. “Just one,” he said. I did not protest – I had a billion and my parents had taught me to “share,” (something Jamie’s parents have also taught him to do with his army men.)
I have wondered sometimes what that man anted with my single green soldier. Was there something unique about mine? Was he an Asian preacher who used that toy to hold up in church and condemn American kids for playing war? Was it personal for him? I don’t know. I was too young to look at an adult and say, “You can have it, but what do you want it for.”
Electricity
Revival is a book about electricity. The power of electricity to heal a boys voice. Electricity as a picture of the Gospel. Electricity to light a miniature town. As I was walking/running (mostly walking) and listening to the novel, I was loving all the electricity talk. But at points, buzzing over me in the quiet desert was that sound of electricity. It burns in the air at spots, humming a steady reminder that it’s there.
Over the town was a pretty bright moon tonight. I ran down a long hill beside the highway coming into town, and then looked back. Overhead the electric lines hummed. The moon hung over the hill, and the nights sky was absolutely huge.
The promise of something Frankenstein-like – something with electricity – has me excited.
Haunted Religion
Remember that short novel of King’s, Secret Window? The writer is accused of stealing a story. Part of me keeps doing a slap to the head. For years I’ve been thinking that an evil preacher would be the perfect set up for a novel. What if a preacher fame to town with the power to heal – maybe raise the dead – but his powers were not from God?
Some church’s are spooky places. Send the crowd away and walk through long corridors, and you might be surprised.
No real fears about losing the novel I’ve got tied up inside. Just real pleasure at reading King do his magic.
Why Revival Makes Me Uneasy:
I approach Revival with some hesitation. I’m not sure I’m going to like this. In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t. I downloaded the book to my ipod last night, but waited all day to even start listening. In fact, I put off walking tonight because – why? A new Stephen King book should propel me into the dark desert. I realized that I was dreading this book. A new Stephen King book about a preacher who loses his faith? I wasn’t sure I was totally game. This one promised to strike home a little closer than I was totally comfortable with.
The book is quite addicting. And here’s what I appreciate so far; what makes it less painful. Thus far, the people of faith are painted as genuine believers. They aren’t nasty hypocrites – though I’m sure there are plenty of those. The church goers have arguments with their spouses, financial and health problems, and suspicions about the preacher. They’re very real; and King doesn’t mock their faith. Why am I on edge about this? Two words: Needful Things. In Needful Things in particular, and several other novels as well, it has seemed King painted Christians – Baptist and Methodist in particular – with a pretty wide brush. “Self righteous worms,” would seem to be words that would appropriately describe some of the people who inhabit Castle Rock.
Now King has written some great stuff about religion – and Christianity in general. And I’ve documented that pretty carefully in Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters. The Green Mile in particular was almost a parable of Christianity. But there is a stark difference in a book like The Green Mile and Needful Things; organized religion. In The Green Mile, King gives an enthusiastic retelling of some central aspects of the Gospel. What the novel does not have is any real hint of church. After all, they’re on death row. But when we get to Needful Things, we have Baptist and Catholics calling names, fighting and getting pretty nasty – in Jesus name.
Of course, I’m well aware that happens. But the people who do those things are all a little deeper than King has previously shown the ability to explore. It seemed that the religious church goers were simply sprinkled into Needful Things when King needed bias, ignorant wide-eyed idiots spoiling for a fight. And there are certainly folk like that! But most people in church aren’t; and many in church are the salt of the earth type.
The question I approach the book with is: Are you going to play fair, Mr. King? Or are you going to use your big paint brush and cast everyone who loves the church in the same hues?
King’s own views on church, religion and God seem to be evolving as he moves further away form the Methodist faith he grew up with. Some of this thinking is really digging at a question: can King deal with characters who he might personally disagree with -- politically or spiritually? Will be draw a literary straw-man and use them as a kind of punching bag, or will he show them as truly three dimensional characters? So the question seems valid. Is everyone going to be Carrie White’s mama, or Mother Carmody, or reverend Rose?
In the early pages of Revival, we are given people of genuine faith living out very real lives. They are not fanatics or nuts.
THE STEPHEN KING A to Z CHALLENGE
Wow, this is quite an endeavor! To celebrate the release of Revival, Rolling Stone has posted a "Stephen King A-Z" article. (rollingstone.com)
Now, in my opinion -- the list could be a little more KINGLY. (X-Files ?) The article states it is, "26 places, faces, and nightmares that rule King's kingdom."
(By the way, the Rolling Stones is an ARTICLE, not just a list. So check it out.)
Let's make it a challenge.
ROLLING STONE:
A: Annie Wilkes
Now, in my opinion -- the list could be a little more KINGLY. (X-Files ?) The article states it is, "26 places, faces, and nightmares that rule King's kingdom."
(By the way, the Rolling Stones is an ARTICLE, not just a list. So check it out.)
Let's make it a challenge.
ROLLING STONE:
A: Annie Wilkes
B: Bachman, Richard
C: Captain Trips
D: Derry
E: Eddie Dean
F: Flagg, Randall
G: Gerald's Game
H: Hearts in Atlantis
I: It
J: JFK
K: Kids
L: Lisey's Story
M: Mr. Mercedes
N: Night Shift
O: Overlook Hotel
P: Pet Sematary
Q: Queen Laura DeLoessian
R: Riding the Bullet
S: Storm of the Century
T: The Tommyknockers
U: Under the Dome
V: Vampires
W: White, Carrie
X: X-Files, The
Y: Yankees, New York
Z: Zihuatanejo
TALK STEPHEN KING:
A: A Face Among The Masters
B: Bag of Bones
C: Castle Rock
D: Derry
E: Everything's Eventual
F: Four Past Midnight
G: Golden Years
H:Haven
I: In the Tall Grass
J; Joe Hill
K: Kingdom Hospital
L: Low Men In Yellow Coats
M: Maine
N: Nineteen
O: Old Dude's Ticker
P: Poems
Q: Quizzes
R: Rock Bottom Remainders
S: The Stand
T: Telekinesis
U: Under the Dome
V: Very best of new horror
W: Willa
X: X-Files (leave me alone. You do it.)
Y: You Can't Kill Stephen King
Z: Zenith Rising
Alright fellow gunslingers, your turn --
Lilja weighs in on REVIVAL
Check out my favorite Stephen King website, www.liljas-library.com. He has posted a review of Revival. Now, honestly, Lilja's reviews are my favorites because -- well, he actually understands Stephen King's work. He's always honest when something doesn't work; and is able to spot unique things King does.
I like this -- "the last 50 pages are really dark."
Check out the review for yourself.
Needful Things
I enjoyed this short comment by a French reader about Stephen King's Needful Things:
thediaryofhonoriadardaine.overblog.comI am currently in the process of reading a Stephen King, which is called Bazaar.
This is the story of a small American town called Castle Rock, who lives a life of more common, until a small shop called "The Needful" opens its doors in the neighborhood. It turns out that this little shop is wonderful because it gives us what we love the most, even if we did not know before coming! But the seller, Leland Gaunt, is charming and very charismatic, does not require any money at all, no, it takes a little although specific service in return ... He asks that the person has a turn to another resident of Castle Rock. This obviously leads to considerable tension and draws some people against each other, or even to kill .. But this is only the beginning of the downward spiral.
Stephen King has created this work, drawing on 80 years, because at that time, everything had a price, bought everything we could absolutely, and that's where it leads us ...It is interesting to see what people in other countries think of the very American -- Stephen King.
I find this very well written book, and even if it is very thick and quite impressive, you'll be going through King.
Bangor Daily News: Stephen King Still Wants to Scare You!
check out the entire interview at bangordailynews.com
The author of The Shining, Pet Sematary and Carrie is BACK! Yeah, I know, he never went anywhere. But -- he kinda sorta did. Christine and Carrie were blood baths. Some of his later novels -- not so much. Here's my favorite quote from the interview:
“I think that one of the things behind ‘Revival’ was [for] people who really like books like ‘Pet Sematary’ and ‘The Shining,’ I really wanted to see if I could still bring a real scare to people and write the sort of book that people would say, ‘It’s a great story, but it scared the hell out of me and I had to keep the lights on,’” King says. “I was sort of aiming for that in particular.”
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
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King has announced that in the fall of 2015 there will be a new collection of stories called The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. He said it will collect about 20 short tales. Kin noted, "It should be a pretty fat book."
Goodreads Interview With Stephen King
Freelance writer Catherine Elsworth posted an interview with Stephen King at Goodreads. It's a great interview because it includes a lot of questions from readers, not just Elsworth.
Elsworth reveals that Revival is dedicated to "some of the people who built my house," including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovecraft.
Of course, King spends some time in the interview smashing stupid sayings. Remember his rant about how dumb an authors notebook is? Well this time his gripe is with the advice, "Write what you know." It's bad advice, King declares! He then says it's good advice if you use it as a "foundation."
Also on the subject of writing, Elsworth cites a line from the book, "Writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped." She asks King if this is true from him and his fiction. "Writing is like being in a dream state or under self-directed hypnosis. It induces a state of recall that—while not perfect—is pretty spooky."
King does reveal he's working on a project with son Owen, but he doesn't say what.
Asked what his scariest monster is, King declares it a tie between Pennywise and Flagg. (Really?)
And then, discussing the Stand and ebola, King said:
Elsworth reveals that Revival is dedicated to "some of the people who built my house," including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovecraft.
Of course, King spends some time in the interview smashing stupid sayings. Remember his rant about how dumb an authors notebook is? Well this time his gripe is with the advice, "Write what you know." It's bad advice, King declares! He then says it's good advice if you use it as a "foundation."
Also on the subject of writing, Elsworth cites a line from the book, "Writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memory that were previously capped." She asks King if this is true from him and his fiction. "Writing is like being in a dream state or under self-directed hypnosis. It induces a state of recall that—while not perfect—is pretty spooky."
King does reveal he's working on a project with son Owen, but he doesn't say what.
Asked what his scariest monster is, King declares it a tie between Pennywise and Flagg. (Really?)
And then, discussing the Stand and ebola, King said:
There's one Stand story that still needs to be told, although it's not a long one. I happen to know that when [Stand characters] Stu Redman and Frannie Goldsmith headed back to New England (with their baby), Frannie fell into a dry well. That's all I know. I'd have to write the story to find out what happens.When asked what books inspired him, King gives a list which includes, surprisingly to me the Dean Koontz novel Watcher. Also Lord of the Flies, all things Lovecraft and several others. File this under shameless self promotion -- Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters discusses King and the novel Lord of the Flies as well as giving some space to Lovecraft's influence on King.
MTV Pet Sematary Review
I like the reviews and interviews that are close to when a project was made and there's still a lot of energy.
Is FROZEN the Disney version of THE SHINING ?
cinemablend.com's Kristy Puchko posted a fun article, asking if maybe Frozen is actually a "remake" of the Shining. Go to the link because after building her case Puchko gives you the opportunity to vote. How should you vote? Well, it's obvious -- right?
Add this to the Room 237 theories.
Citing blogger Mary Katharine Ham, (the original blog post by Ham is at mkhammer.squarespace.co) the article lists out several amazing -- or not so amazing -- similarities to The Shining.
Here's the argument broken into simple bullet points:
Similar characters.
- Elsa = Jack. "Both have something inside them that is a danger to their loved ones. And when given a position of power--be it queen of Arendelle or caretaker of a remote mountain resort--they lose control. Also, both tend to favor a place of solitude high in the mountains." Ah, now it's clear as day! But wait. . . there's more!
- Anna = Danny, because they are both left to "their own devices" in high ceilinged posh buildings. One a castle, the other a hotel. NOW YOU SEE IT, right? Ham notes, 'while Jack dislocated Danny's shoulder in a moment of out of control (drunken) rage, Elsa nearly killed Anna twice."
- Wendy = Olaf. Because, like Olaf, Wendy will do whatever necessary to protect the innocent Danny Anna.
- And that means Kristoff = Dick Hallorann, who acts as both Danny and Wendy's protector.
This is directly from Ham's blog post:
When Anna and Olaf realize they are stuck in the Arendelle castle as Elsa's power begins to throw icicle daggers in their way, Olaf throws open an upstairs window, and sends Anna sliding down the snow to the ground. Olaf follows.
In "The Shining," as Jack corners Danny and Wendy in an upstairs bathroom with his ax, Wendy throws open a window and sends Danny sliding down the snow to the ground. In this version, of course, Wendy cannot escape as easily as Olaf does.
Yep, that pretty much did it for me. I'm never watching either movie again.
Waiting For A New Stephen King Book
Waiting for a new Stephen King book is like waiting in line for a roller coaster. You try to find things to talk about with your friends as you wait in line. Little snippets of the coaster thunder by as you wait, building the anticipation.
I didn't get to read this one early. (I did Joyland. And was quoted on some of their publicity stuff.) But I know Lilja has already read it and has expressed pleasure. See, there's always people getting off the ride going, "Yah dude! That was awesome!" Of course, there are also people getting off who are puking their guts up.
As you near the gate, everyone gets a little quiet. Both scared and excited. Scared -- in terms of a book, what if this thing is a total bummer? Excited because it might just blow us away.
Did I mention I live in SoCal -- where there seems to be more roller-coasters here than anywhere else on planet earth. We have Six Flags, Disneyland (yes they do have good coasters), Knotts Berry Farm and Legoland. Yeah, there's no cool coasters at Legoland!
But this is Stephen Kingish -- this year my favorite wood Coaster got torn down. Magic Mountain decided it was time to take out the old wood structure, which had been a park staple for years. It was once a duel track coaster, but in later years they just ran one track because. . . I don't know. At Halloween time, they'd run the coaster backward, which was indeed the freakiest, funniest thing I'd ever been on. It was awesome! When riding a coaster, your eyes do a lot of talking to your brain as you judge how much further you have to fall. Without seeing the drops, even little drops felt like dips toward a bottomless pit.
When Magic Mountain decided to tear the Colossus out, it was a sad day for many of us. But the old pile of wood did not go down without a fight. A big fight. The thing caught fire as they tried to tear it down! The fire department had to be called in to put out the fire. Imagine the person who had to call 911 on that. "911, what's your emergency?" "Yeah, well, I work for Magic Mountain, and our roller-coaster is on fire. You'll probably need a ladder truck, it's pretty big."
CHRISTINE among MSN's 20 best movie cars
MSN has an article titled, "Movie cars: 20 best of all time." (msn.com)
OF COURSE -- Christine has to make that list!
Along with the leading man or woman, sometimes a car becomes a co-star in a certain movie — or even eclipses a film's animate characters. After all, can anyone name an actor from the cult horror classic "Christine"?Christine comes in at #12 with this note:
Based on Stephen King's novel about an evil hunk of automotive metal, the 1983 horror classic "Christine" featured a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury as its title character. A sentient but possessed car that could mysteriously repair herself, Christine could also communicate her murderous intentions. Although there were some human actors in the movie, they've long been forgotten. Who could upstage an evil 1950s land yacht with huge tail fins?The list includes:
1962 Volkswagen Beetle, ‘The Love Bug’
1981 DeLorean DMC-12, ‘Back to the Future’
1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’
1981 Porsche 928, ‘Risky Business’
1983 Wagon Queen Family Truckster, ‘National Lampoon's Vacation’ (haha!)
1977 Pontiac Trans Am Special Edition, ‘Smokey and the Bandit’
1974 Dodge Monaco, ‘The Blues Brothers’
1941 Lincoln Continental, ‘The Godfather’
2008 Audi R8, ‘Iron Man’
1970 Porsche 917K, ‘Le Mans’ (never saw it)
1958 Plymouth Fury, ‘Christine’
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’
1949 Mercury Eight, ‘Rebel Without a Cause’
1959 Cadillac Ecto-1, ‘Ghostbusters’ (that car was great!)
1963 Aston Martin DB5, ‘Goldfinger’
1968 Ford Mustang GT, ‘Bullitt’
1932 Ford Coupe, ‘American Graffiti’
1973 Ford XB Falcon GT351, ‘Mad Max’
1980 Lamborghini Countach LP 400S, ‘The Cannonball Run’
1970 Dodge Charger, ‘The Fast and the Furious’
what about
1948 Fruehauf Tank Trailer, DUEL. (Steven Spielberg)
Capacity: 7000 Gallons
Length: 33 Feet Overall Length
Number of Product Compartments: 5
Construction: Steel
Suspension: Page & Page 60/40 spring suspension
(You can buy it at www.stlouisdumptrucks.com0