Carrie - Film

I watched Carrie last night.  I enjoyed it about a hundred times more than the first time couple of times I saw it when I was younger.  Probably for the reasons I keep mentioning.

Anyway, in lieu of a serious discussion of the film I'm going to summarise a major theme thus:

Girls can be cunts and boys will do almost anything for a sniff.

Sorry Brian...

The Shining - Film

I finished reading The Shining on Saturday night and it was a bit late and with a belly-full of wine I didn’t think I’d make it to the end of the film. So, I resolved to do so at the next convenient opportunity.
6 AM, next morning and BOING!, my eyes spring open and sleep eludes me. That’s 6 AM on a Sunday morning, which is a catastrophe in anyone’s book. So, while it’ll be a push to fit the whole thing in before the kids wake up, it’s still dark, I can still have the room and TV to myself, so I tramp downstairs, make a cup of coffee and put the DVD in.


I’ve come to realise that rather than saying that I’m not much of a fan of Kubrick, I should say that I haven’t watched his films properly and didn’t appreciate the complexity of what he was doing. With that in mind, when I went out to buy The Shining on DVD in preparation for when I finished the book, I ended up buying a box-set of his last eight films plus the Jan Harlan documentary.


So, lights off, volume up.


As I’ve said before, comparing books and film adaptations and getting all bent out of shape about the divergences from verbatim is for whiny tits. They are different and for good reason. Kubrick’s film is his vision, not Stephen King’s.
I’ve seen the film before, but this time it hit home. There are times when you wonder whether Jack Nicholson was the right choice for Jack. From early on, you can see the psychosis bubbling under the surface. His cracking up isn’t a big step and I’m sure, even for those who haven’t read the book, it doesn’t come as a surprise.


I made it through the first 45 minutes or so when I heard my son chatting away to himself. Well, I initially just heard some noises and, being a bit on edge from the film, wondered what it was. I paused the film and went to the foot of the stairs to find that he was calling me. So, I went upstairs to find him leaning over the headboard of his bed and peering out the window to announce,
“Daddy, it’s snowing!”
I hardly watch any scheduled television and very rarely see the news or weather reports, so this snowfall came as something of a surprise. There wasn’t much on the ground at that time and it could have gone either way, but after three hours steady snow, we had to cancel the day’s plans (cinema followed by dinner at the mother-in-laws) and were effectively, although much less dramatically than it sounds, snowed in. At this point I had to leave it there and, far from contemplating a bloody conclusion to the day as the mildest of cabin fever seeped in on the heels of the Tinkerbell dvd followed by lashings of Thomas the Tank Engine, we made the best of it.
I eventually finished the film that night. Awesome.
I know many people have a problem with film adaptations for not sticking to the source, but the few I’ve watched so far, ‘Salem’s Lot (2004), The Shining and Carrie last night have been so much better for having just read the books. Far from spoiling them by taking away any of the surprise of the plot turns etc. you can appreciate the film much more as ‘the film.’ There’s no need try to work out motives or who did what (or even who’s going to do what) and, a bit like the inverted detective story format favoured by Columbo and Hitchcock among others, you are free to sit back and revel in the spectacle of it all. Done well, you can see the actors breathing life into the characters, see the director’s take on the vision and, done badly, you at least get a reminder of the Stephen King story and, quite often, a nudge to read the novel or story again.

Night Shift

20th Feb...
I'd been looking forward to reading this as my first experience of Stephen King's short stories.  I'm a big fan of short stories and wanted to see how he fared without the usual 500-1500 pages.  It was only when I picked up the book and made a start on Jerusalem's Lot, that I remember having read The Body years ago.  Whether I actually read the whole of Different Seasons, I can't be sure.  I'm leaning towards thinking not, as I'm sure I would remember having read Rita Heyworth... and Apt Pupil as I've seen the films (who hasn't).

Jesus, sorry.

Short stories are awesome.  Let's see how awesome King's are...

The Shining 5th-20th February 2010

Amazing!!  More brain vomit to come.

This is my favourite read of this project so far. While it was quite difficult to read the book without seeing Jack Nicholson, his hairline and eyebrows, it was long enough since I’d seen the film to not have Shelley Duvall or Danny Lloyd in mind. I had someone else completely in mind for Halloran, but can’t, for the life of me, think of his name at the moment, or anything he’s been in to be able to look him up on IMDb.com. It’ll come to me.


One of the things that struck me when reading The Shining was, having set up this mammoth task, I’m always conscious of keeping it moving and keep catching myself looking at the road ahead, rather than where I’m planting my feet. Due to the express purpose of this mission of immersing myself in the experience of the books, this will never do.

Related to this is the defence mechanism I tend to feel kicking in when the horror/suspense of the plot situations sometimes hit and other times they don’t. For example, when I read the part where Danny has slipped the passkey into the lock of Room 217 for the first time and, thinking better of it he walked away and had the encounter with the fire hose. I read it, and realised that despite the language, pacing and suspense of the writing, all of which, when I read it a second time, should have had me gripped and feeling Danny’s fear. However, I read it matter of factly and a plainly as any other prosaic plot turn. I think a big part of this has to do with something I heard Neil Gaiman say in an interview (yep, the same one where he described a book as a movie without a budget) where he discussed the disparate attitudes of adults and children to his book Coraline. He said how adults had seen it as a horror tale, whereas children viewed it as an adventure story. He put the children’s point of view down to their conviction that everything will turn out alright in the end. It sounds about right; there are no Arlington Road endings in Disney family favourites. So, while I know that things aren’t necessarily likely to come to a happy conclusion with his books, for the ones that I have read or seen the film at least, I know how things turn out, and with that in mind, the story marches inexorably to that end and despite any plot twists and turns, there are no real surprises.

So with these two factors, it’s taking some concentration to stick to my intended modus operandi. With the one’s I have read before, I’m fascinating in the language, the characters and, above all the story. In that respect, I loved The Shining and am already looking forward to reading it again in the future.

I read somewhere (and hope I’m not making this up) that Stephen King referred to his books as dating quickly. By that I mean they are entrenched in the time in which they were written. So far, I’d agree. From references to cars, popular culture, and in ‘Salem’s Lot, Ben’s presumably near-full tank of gas costing a little over $3, it’s not hard to judge the year of writing. It’s not all that related, but when I picked up the book, I saw it had been published in 1977, the same year as I was born. That got me to thinking that the book and I will always be the same age (I know that’s obvious) and as such, we have been around for the same amount of time. I’m not sure that’s as significant as I’d like, the more I think about it. What I do think is that I’ll never have a static relationship with the book. While the book has had thirty odd years to be read, digested, analysed, and to suffuse itself into our consciousness, I have had the same amount of time to grow, learn, develop and cultivate a mind with which to receive it (not exclusively of course, I’ve got a bit more going on than that.) Like I said, I think I’m inventing significance, or at least not explaining it properly, or perhaps misinterpreting the significance. Fuck it.


If you haven’t read The Shining, do.

'Salem's Lot - 2004 Mini-series

I finished watching the 2004 ’Salem’s Lot TV mini-series last night. I watched it over two nights due to its almost three hour runtime and wanting to make sure that had some time on both nights to keep on going with The Shining.
Before I started this project, I was speaking about it to a friend who has read a lot of Stephen King and we got on to the point of the film and TV adaptations and he said he hoped I wouldn’t be wasting my time with some or most of them. Of course, I have pretty much ignored his advice.
I know some are better than others and some, as films in themselves, without the reference point of the novels or stories, are dire. I am prone to accommodating my obsessions, though, and can already see myself going against my better judgement and adding any adaptations to my LOVEFiLM online DVD rental list soon after closing the book.
One of the things that steered me towards not considering it to be a massive waste of my time to watch these adaptations is an interview I heard with Neil Gaiman. When asked why he subsequently wrote a novel of the TV series Neverwhere he said that he saw the book as a ‘movie without a budget’ (I’m a little reticent to put that in quotation marks as I can’t remember the exact wording and haven’t got the interview to hand). Anyway, this idea rings true with me. It’s part of why I love books and reading. Your enjoyment of a book is a subjective thing. Regardless of the quality of the writing, it’s the depth of your imagination that brings the words to life and injects vividity into the black and white of the type. And imagination isn’t bound to or restricted by how much you’ve got to spend on special effects and how advanced these technologies are. Stephen King’s a great writer, so he puts a great movie into your head. It’s a comparative interest, then, to see someone else’s imagining of the story, the characters and the action.
It’s interesting to see what they include and omit, what they alter or invent and to consider the reasons, obvious, less so or purely cynical, for doing so.
So, the ’Salem’s Lot as imagined by Mikael Salomon and Peter Filardi…
Of course, it was hampered by budget, strange performances from Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer and, of course, Rob Lowe was is it. And not forgetting, it’s always nice to see that my teen crush, Samantha Mathis, is still working. They also changed quite a bit of the book. But it wasn’t horrible.  (By the way, I can't be bothered hyperlinking anymore.  You know how Google, Wikipedia and IMDb work.)


My main enjoyment came from reliving my imagining of the book while seeing someone else’s. Having just read and enjoyed the book, it’s a shame that, due to my need to keep things going with this project, I have to put it down and pick up the next one. There isn’t a lot of time to dwell on it, consider it and let the whole thing sink in. With some of the books, The Shining in particular, I plan to reread at some point. It will be a long time in the future, but it’s on my ‘to do’. At least with Kubrick’s film and the mini-series whose script he oversaw, I can stay in the world of the book while I move on to Night Shift.


I seem to have forgotten to say that anyone who says that a film isn’t as good as the book on which it is based is a tool. It goes without saying. The two are incomparable.

The Shining

Once again, this is one of the books that I have already read. I’m not sure whether I saw the film before reading the book, although I’ve certainly seen it since. Perhaps I merely knew the basics, particularly the “Here’s Johnny!” scene and picked up the book at home (my parents seemed to have quite a few decent books lying around when I was young (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Kramer Vs Kramer are ones I remember most clearly – maybe they only read novels that had been adapted to film, who knows), although they’ve never been what you’d call readers. These days, such a description would be doing them a disservice as, my mum particularly, consistently has a book on the go.

Anyway, the reason I mention the film is that it’s barely possible to conceive of the novel without the image of Jack Nicholson in your head as well as so many of the scenes from the seminal film. I’m going to do my best to separate the two as I re-read it, concentrating more on the writing and allowing myself to follow the story as Stephen King told it. Only then will I go back to the film and try to see that in as great a degree of isolation as possible.

Out of the books I’ve already read and those of which I haven’t, but know something about, this is one that I’m most looking forward to and will be opening myself up for.

Rage 31st Jan - 5th Feb 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(novel)

I read Rage as a kid and am, thankfully, not one of those dicks who thought emulating Charlie Decker would be a good idea. When I initially read that Rage had been taken out of print in reaction to school shooting/hostage incidents, I didn’t realise just how many there had been. I, of course, live in the UK where Bill Hicks’ bit on hooligans isn’t exactly wild hyperbole. Kids generally take knives to school here, not guns.

I was going to say something about censorship and that, in this case, that conscience driven self-censorship, is sad and (I hate to use the word) unfair. People are dicks and insist on pissing in the punchbowl. However, I don’t have a particularly informed opinion on adolescent crime, the availability of firearms and the root causes of kids shooting up their schools and classmates. And I don’t really have the time to get one. So, I won’t waste my time or yours opining on it.

Why not read Mr. King’s own word on the subject - http://www.horrorking.com/interview7.html

Rage

I don't know whether it was a test, but when I was first talking about doing this, a friend asked me whether I would be reading King's 'Bachman' novels. I said 'of course'.

I'd read them before when I was younger and they may well have been the first things I read by him. I remember seeing 'The Bachman Books' lying around at my parents and picking it up a number of times before actually reading it. I'd already seen the Arnie film of 'The Running Man' and at a tender age, thought it was great. Being well shy of the '18' certificate probably added to my estimation of it and also made watching someone being cut in half with a chainsaw one of the best things I'd ever seen. Particularly when followed by the cutting line - "What happened to Buzzsaw?"

"He had to spleeet."

Eventually, I decided to read 'The Running Man'. That led on to the the other three. "The Long Walk" was the stand out for me and, aside from the obvious factor of the anal comprehensiveness of this reading mission and the way he has since (unlike the original four) published books as Richard Bachman despite everyone knowing it's Stephen King, it's the main reason for my including all of his Bachman novels.

So, on with Rage.