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Moriarty Survives An Early Trip Into Frank Darabont’s THE MIST!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
If you had to make a list of the most influential television shows in history, I’m guessing TWILIGHT ZONE would be very, very near the top of that list. Rod Serling created the formula, but he worked with some amazing writers to create the series. Guys like Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, or Earl Hamner Jr. all contributed significantly to the show, helping to set a tone and perfect a style of storytelling that was predicated not just on twist endings that frequently blindside the audience, but that also depended on strong moral messages about the way we treat each other as human beings. There are so many writers who have grown up admiring that series, and I’m sure Stephen King counts himself among them.
It seems like as long as I’ve known Frank, he’s been attached to do THE MIST. This one’s been brewing for a while, and the thing that Frank does best in adapting King’s work is capture King’s voice. He preserves the language that makes something so recognizably King’s. Here, King was doing some pretty knowing homage to Serling’s “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” and Frank’s film feels like a nod to those origins, but it’s shot in a very aggressive, documentary style, which makes it feel both vintage and cutting-edge at the same time. No easy trick, that.
And, yes, to respond to some of the comments I read in our own talkbacks and elsewhere after the trailer made its debut a few weeks ago... this is a very inexpensive film. I would imagine that this was made for about what Warner Bros. spent on the catering for THE GREEN MILE. That seems to be a good thing, though. First, it knocked Frank out of his comfort zone, and as much as I like his previous films, it can be exciting to see what happens when a director throws out all the things he depended on as a stylist. Frank’s always been all about the careful compositions and the long carefully-choreographed takes, but here, he’s brought the camera crew from THE SHIELD in, and the result is this ragged, hunted energy that really suits the material. The film is intimate, claustrophobic, and as it progresses, it gets more jittery, until a turning point when a horrible calm finally sets in.
The trailer places an emphasis on the special effects sequences, and Café FX, who handled the digital work in last year’s PAN’S LABYRINTH, is busting ass right now to finish their work here, which sometimes shares the frame with the onset work that was done by KNB. The movie certainly features a few key sequences where the monsters come out to play, but this really isn’t a monster movie. I think they spent their micro-budget really well, and there’s a set piece here involving bugs and dinosaur bird creatures and fire and chaos that is just plain great. A hint of Harryhausen underscores every appearance by the monsters, and I’m dying to see the finished work on the pharmacy sequence, where I saw mainly unfinished spiders. For fans of the novella, there’s a moment near the very end of the film involving something enormous walking by on the road... you know the moment if you read it. It’s brought to haunting life here with a creature that was designed by Bernie Wrightson, and for a lifelong Wrightson fan, it’s a kick to see something that is so blatantly his brought to life. And having said all that, if the effects work doesn’t really ring your bell... well, it’s still only part of what this movie is. The things that are truly scary and upsetting about this film aren’t the effects.
Thomas Jane intrigues me. He’s a very strange, very particular actor. He can vanish into a role. He’s sort of hard to get a bead on. Is he the guy from BOOGIE NIGHTS? Is he the guy from STANDER? The guy from THURSDAY or THE VELOCITY OF GARY or THE PUNISHER? Because side by side, none of those guys seem to be the same guy, and when so many of today’s actors seem invested in creating a persona that they live from movie to movie, playing constant variations on a single theme, Jane’s one of the guys who seems determined to keep “Thomas Jane” out of focus while bringing different characters to life. David Drayton’s one of the oddest things he’s ever played. At the start of the movie, he’s Drew Struzan. Sort of literally. When you see him painting in his studio in the film’s opening moments, it’s Struzan’s work you see lining the walls, and the one he’s actually working on should be a particular blast for King fans. There’s even a moment when he’s sort of grousing about the way studios typically just slap together movie posters in Photoshop these days that is so obviously a line written by a lifelong poster art nerd like Darabont, but which cuts right to the livelihood of Struzan... it just made me laugh. It’s fairly inside baseball.
But that’s just a touch. Just a little thing. What really defines David is his fatherhood. Nathan Gamble plays Billy Drayton, David’s son, and he’s most recognizable from his role in BABEL, where he was one of the children left behind with the Mexican housekeeper in the most harrowing sequence in the movie. Watching that film in the theater, it was the scene in the desert involving Gamble and Elle Fanning and Adriana Barraza that freaked me out, set me on edge. Here, Gamble has several scenes that just gut me, and there’s a quiet conversation with Jane halfway through that tears me apart. It’s one of the simplest scenes in the film, but it’s real. It’s primal. Billy asks his dad to make him a promise. “You have to promise the very best promise that you can,” he whispers. “You have to promise you won’t let the monsters get me.” After what Billy’s seen, after what his dad’s seen, that question is no idle childhood speculation. Billy’s asking something that you can’t really ask of someone, and the notion of a ten-year-old acknowledging that he knows he’s probably about to die... that’s some dark, grim shit.
More than anything, that’s the word I’d use to describe THE MIST. “Grim.” Like I said, effects play just a small part in this film’s ultimate impact. What makes this truly horrifying is the shit we do to each other as people. Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) is the face of fear and extremism, and as things get worse both inside the grocery store and out over the course of this film, she emerges as a fairly persuasive human threat. I am sure some people will be upset because she’s portrayed as a religious fantatic, but she represents a valid point of view in this story. When faced with the extraordinary, it’s not a stretch to assume that many people will turn to religion to give them comfort or hope or strength. And as things wear on and get worse, Mrs. Carmody begins to prey on people’s proclivity to prayer, an insidious presence giving voice to everyone’s darkest suspicions. People want to understand. They want explanations. Carmody offers one, and she offers up “proof” that ties everything together, using scripture to somehow make sense of the hellscape they all get glimpses of in the mist. Just how far people fall apart is the substance of the film, and it escalates with a steady, awful gravity. In a way, I think part of what makes this film so shocking is that Darabont’s work as a director has always been marked by a sort of sweetness. SHAWSHANK, GREEN MILE, THE MAJESTIC...
... but not this one. This one’s jet-black, and it’s a reminder that Frank’s roots are indeed in horror. The opening moments are a sort of a tip of the hat to the tone that audiences might expect from a Darabont film, but that all goes away fairly quickly, and by the time this film reaches its shattering conclusion, you’ll understand why this didn’t get made at Paramount. You’ll understand why no studio could make or release this. You’ll understand that Frank Darabont is out to hurt you. He wants to make this horror film count. He wants it to stick to you, leave a scar. Even having read this a few years ago, seeing it play out is something else altogether. Frank’s cast really delivers in the last ten minutes or so. They hit every note just right. There are a few places earlier in the film where King’s highly-mannered small-town dialogue lays a little flat in the mouths of a few of the actors who are more naturalistic, but by the time things come to their wrenching end, everyone still in the film really nails it in moment after awful moment.
I still need to see this movie finished. I need to hear whatever final score they decide to use. I need to see the finished FX work all the way through. I need to see it color-timed, so all the darkness works on me the way it’s supposed to. But even in the state I saw it in, THE MIST is the real deal... a horror film that actually still has the ability to horrify. This isn’t a movie about cheap scares... it’s about deep scares. There are few things we are more afraid of deep down in the animal center of our brains than being devoured by the night, and this movie is a great reminder that there are things worth being afraid of, that some of them may live outside of us while others simply lay dormant in us all until some crisis awakes them. THE MIST works best when it reminds us that the genre of “horror film” is something more than just a way to score some quick opening weekend money off unsuspecting kids. At its best, the genre allows us to challenge ourselves to survival of things we can’t imagine surviving. It’s a hell of a movie, packing a much bigger punch than one would expect from such a modest production overall, and it’s a pretty significant reinvention of Darabont as a filmmaker.
Here’s hoping this experience spurs him to work again sooner rather than later. Especially if his next movie’s going to pack a brutal, unforgiving punch the way this one does.
I've still got more reviews to work through this week, but right now, I'm off to interview Sean Penn about his amazing INTO THE WILD, which I can't wait to see again. This is already one heck of a fall season, and it's just barely gotten started.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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I haven't seen really good horror in a while, and I'm not even a horror snob!
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Finally...Anyway, the trailer looks good. Look forward to seeing this one.
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Oh well, I'll get it next time.
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The moment in the book that's described here is one of my favorite parts, and I can't wait to see it.
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You certainly sing its praises well Mori, I hope it lives up to them. I'm not a big fan either, at least what is usually served up in theaters. This, however, sounds very intriguing...
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...The Green Mile were great films.
Frank Darabont films King's material better than anyone ever has (with a bit of a nod to Mick Garris for his work on The Stand miniseries... even if the effects do look very cheesy 13 years later). I'm looking forward to seeing The Mist... should be fun. -
"The Descent" and "28 Weeks Later." Both efficient, workmanlike scare machines. Hope this one's as good.
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Every so often, not often but occasionally, I am filled with jealousy for you guys who get to see stuff this cool before anyone else does!!!
So I am JEALOUS! But mostly I am psyched for The Mist, I really believe in this project. Quint's set reports should be DVD extras, they really got me excited about this movie. Not in an "expecting the moon" way, just in a "Damn this sounds cool!" way. -
than before. Its been stated that this looks to be a big screen version of a Mick Garris ABC movie of the week. Your review has convinced me otherwise. With Stand By Me, Shawshank, 1408 and now this, maybe its Kings short works are the best to develop.
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...AKA the worst film of all time (that I can think of right now). *shudders*
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Lets not forget Dreamcatcher, that Kasdan, Goldman, Jane, Olyphant and anyone else should exclude from their resume.
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It's been a while since we've had a good old fashioned creature feature. King's short story is a pretty good read and Darabont is a hell of a filmmaker so this is bound to be something special.
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He gets to do cool movies like The Mist in return for formulaic family films like Homeless Dad. An ode to Arrested Dev't :)
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I miss Arrested Development.
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I really couldn't tell from the spoilerific trailer.
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I'm Thomas Jane the movie star.
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Come on. Microbudget is when I go out with my digital camera and some friends and shoot a feature guerrila-style for a few thousand bucks.
These guys are working with a low budget for this kind of material, no doubt about it, and it's certainly the kind of change-up that Darabont needed to kick him in the ass and inspire him to shoot it with the Shield crew. But it's still a Hollywood production with a name director and name actors. Remember when an indie film (pre-Pulp fiction) actually was an independent? Let's no go co-opting the term microbudget now and rendering it completely meaningless and irrelevant in the same way. I don't really need to hear about how Michael Bay's next project is going to be all about keeping it real and getting back to basics and shooting on a microbudget. -
OMFG it looks like Darabont NAILED this. Great feel and atmosphere. I'm glad the effects are not taking the front seat in this either, although the ones they showed looked damned good. The dinosaur bird thing was spot on.
I still think Marcia Gay Harden is just way to young and hot for Mrs. Carmody, but she sure got the crazy bitch's character right on from what I saw.
Man, I cannot wait for this to come out! -
That's just pussyfooting which translates to "shake cam", right?
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It seems that he really did remake King's horror story into an eye-roller about "religious extremism", because that's all he wanted to see. Is there at least a glimpse of the gargantuan creature's legs in the end? That's all I care to see at this point... Or did he replace it by a giant crowd of religious fanatics?
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You have no idea what this is going to be like. This is truly a "horror" story. See, horror films today are nothing more than cheap scares with some high quality gore and audio design set up in a way to make you jump. Formulaic, in a word. Since arguably Halloween, horror has degenerated into a one-trick pony. This is not that kind of horror. It is a very bleak tale, one that sits with you long after it's over. And -- spoiler -- the cause of this particular horror is never resolved. The closest thing I can compare it to from a current standpoint would be Pulse. But even Pulse gave you the "why" in a nice tidy package. The Mist gives you hints at what caused all of this, and essentially justifies that with a discovery regarding two nameless characters about midway through. People who have read the story will know that I'm referring to who is found in the back room, and what state they are in. But the actual explanation, it's not there. If you can't handle that, then you won't like this. But to me, that just means that unlike the fans of Freddy and Jason who go actively seeking those jumps and scares... you do NOT want to be horrified. Cuz really, what is more horrific than a deadly scenario that you can't control, that you can't resolve, and that you certainly will never understand? That being said, I truly hope that Arrowhead is never fully understood during the course of this movie. This is one of those Stephen King tales that stands firmly outside the scope of his Dark Tower saga. This is a world that does not and can not exist inside that realm. That only serves to enhance the horror for me, because I know deep down inside... this version of reality is truly without hope.
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Did you do a 3:10 TO YUMA review yet? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
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According to King himself, apparently this IS a DT-related story. So fuck me, I'm wrong :) Whatever, there goes my sense of "oh shit, what a horrible horrible scenario" but it's replaced with "WOW!!! That's fucking COOL!!!"
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In answer to your question: no.
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I always enjoy your reviews, Moriarty, they're very well written, and you don't take the cheap political routes that some critics take. If you like a movie, you'll sing its praises, and if you don't...well you'll let us know in no uncertain terms. I wasn't all that excited for this movie, but this review has sparked my curiosity, I'll definitely be checking this one out, assuming it gets a wide enough release.
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I asked this in the original Mist Talkback and no one answered it. Now that you've seen an early cut, maybe you can answer it. At the end of the short story, as the survivors are driving down the highway, they encounter a huge creature that walks over the car. Will we see this creature? It's one of the more memorable moments for me as far as the story goes.
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doesn't sound like it gets the 'big screen' treatment from me.
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in conclusion: yes the special effects are going to look cheap and awful.
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The answers to your questions are in the last five minutes of the film. Once you see it. You'll know.
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Are you really that sensitive? Is it completely implausible to you that in an extreme situation some people might go fucking bonkers? Including Christians?
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The reason why we don't have other religious zealots in American movies taking center stage is because in American social situations Christianity is the largest and most relevant religion at hand. A crazed Hindu doesn't really add up because nobody would actually be listening in this culture, plus what's a crazed Hindu doing in small town America? The only other extremists that are remotely socially relevant are Aeitheists (the smug condescending kind like Christopher Hitchens and also the ones in the distant future at war with super-intelligent otters) and Muslim fundamentalists (who really aren't interested in an argument but would be more than happy to relieve you of that extra eight pounds you're truding around on top of your neck). Do Christians get kicked around in movies and TV? Yes. To see a positive character is a rarity these days, the closest I've seen lately was on the rather vapid Studio 60, but you have to admit a bible beating fruitcake makes for a good villain. Besides King doesn't seem to have anything against Christian fundamentalists, he's made positive characters in that vain like in The Stand. So I'm really looking forward to this. Gotta be better than Dreamcatcher. I'd sooner plop out a shit weasel than watch that again.
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the Christians will swallow what we GIVE them to swallow.
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Anchorite said, "...it's another horrible King adaptation..." followed shortly by "I haven't seen it."I have read every Stephen King book there is, and have been repeatedly disappointed by the film adaptations, this one looks to be possibly among them, but in my eyes, good old Franky D. has never let us down enough to deserve anything less than at least a little hope that this movie might be somewhat redeeming. He did after all make the two best King adaptations as well as being one of the credit writers of the best of all the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels.As far as you people bitching about the Christian (some go so far as to say "anti-Christian")element of the story, give me a fucking break! In a small town in America, when apocalyptic shit goes down, which religion is most likely going to be the one represented? Hindus and Sikhs? Islam? Come on people, it's not "Anti-Christian" it's anti-Extremism. (That is to say, from the brief trailer, it looks like it might be anti-extremism.)Besides, apart from the trailer, none of you know how Christianity is represented in the film. Maybe half the people are crazy asshole Christians, and the other half are perfectly reasonable Christians. Knowing small town America, I'd imagine just about every character, good and bad, extremist or not, is a Christian.All those Christians aside, I will still go see this movie, and will hope it's good, even though I know it will probably be okay at best.
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These guys must really respect your opinion and your knowledge of filmmaking to let you see the movie in such rough shape.
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I've been wanting to see this on the big screen since I was a little kid. It sounds like Darabont nailed it. And I have to wonder, all of you asking what we see towards the end, did you even READ this article?? "For fans of the novella, there’s a moment near the very end of the film involving something enormous walking by on the road... you know the moment if you read it. It’s brought to haunting life here with a creature that was designed by Bernie Wrightson, and for a lifelong Wrightson fan, it’s a kick to see something that is so blatantly his brought to life." Does that answer your question?? Now HERE'S something to get excited about - During an interview to promote Dimension Films' upcoming Stephen King adaptation, The Mist, director Frank Darabont revealed that he is in fact going to helm King's The Long Walk once he has completed Fahrenheit 451. http://liljas-library.com/article.php?id=987 Darabont directing THE LONG WALK!! Woo-hoo!!
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From the review above:"For fans of the novella, there’s a moment near the very end of the film involving something enormous walking by on the road... you know the moment if you read it. It’s brought to haunting life here with a creature that was designed by Bernie Wrightson, and for a lifelong Wrightson fan, it’s a kick to see something that is so blatantly his brought to life."
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Pretty fucking scary if you ask me, no idea how it'll play out on small screens, but on the cinema it was an Evil Fucking Room all right.
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there, i said it.
His stuff on the Shield, by contrast, is among his best. -
Tom Jane sold me in Thursday and by the time he was in Stander, he was my favorite actor. He will rule in this and Ifor one can not wait to see it. Best part is I have never read the story so i'm going in with no other view but the movie.
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Sep 18, 2007 6:10:36 PM CDT
So When is the Next Matinee with Mori Column Coming out
by internet thug
or the next Dvd column??? Hellooo...anyone..anyone?????
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I rarely end my side of an argument or discussion this way, but, I am going to do it now. You seem to want to decide that Christians are being somehow singled out and persecuted or something, and maybe that's the case, maybe not. You see what you want to see, and say what you want to say, and no amount of logic or reason can sway you from your position. So to you, sir or madam, whatever the case maybe, I say a firm and steadfast, WHATEVER!As for the rest of you, I know I might be opening a can of worms here, but where are these movies, this overwhelming volume of "Hollywood" movies that are anti-Christian that all of you seem to get so pissed off about? The way I see it, there seems to be a pretty even amount of movies with Christians who are normal, and Christians who aren't.But movies tend to be about exceptional people in exceptional situations. Movies tend to represent the smallest minority of people. You don't believe me? How many of you have won Karate championships? How many of you have gone to Wizard School? How many of you are Billionaires who die with the word "Rosebud" on your lips? Almost none, in every case. Who cares is most Christians are normal thoughtful and caring people. Last I checked, we go to the movies to see things that we don't see in life. Stories about the 1%. A movie with Apocalyptic overtones where everyone is playing nice nice and singing "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore" sounds boring as shit to me. Throw in a few religious nutjobs, and now you got a movie!
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Christianity is a monster behemoth of an organization that is government supported and shielded. It has been the richest and most powerful organization for hundreds of years and has had its fair share of chastising and persecution of countless others. Boo-fuking-hoo if they get ragged on from time to time!
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Moriarty's early peek just kind of added to the growing dissapointment. It's understandable that Darabont lacked the funds to do any really impressive physical on set effects work...But if your going retro, why not some stop motion or something. Sure, it looks goofy as fuck, but cheap ass CG looks goofy and...cheap. Plus, sad to hear the film apparently concludes around the same point as the short story. Meaning, if its like the short, it plays like the first half of a short novel.
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just to point out ---possible spoilers--- that the type of tentacled creature in the mist is seen in one of the later dark tower books chasing roland beneath the castle. meaning that the world opened up in the mist is the world of monsters from the dark tower stories..sorry i don't remember all the technical names, been a while since i read them...and so explaining what is happening in the mist wouldn't really work without making reference to the dark tower...but then again they made up a different explanation for "hearts in atlantis" that removed it from the dark tower world.
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I trust Mori so I'm gonna hold out hope for The Mist. Unlike many, I don't want to suck the short story's cock. I thought it was weak compared with most of King's other novellas/short stories, too basic and cliched. It probably felt a lot fresher when it first came out. Now we've seen situations like this done over and over again, so much that I think it will be very hard indeed to do it without the tongue-in-cheek vibe or at least unintentional laughs.
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I hated the way the few episodes I watched dealt with editing, zooms and all the TV gimmicks. And I hate it even more when a director tries to import it on the big screen. I hope it plays better in theaters otherwise I'm in for a headache, and a poor night at the movies.
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Have always wanted to see that as a movie. Looking forward to it.
GOGO GARRITY! -
Christians ARE nuts. You sure as shit don't need Steven King to tell you that!
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Definitely one of King's weaker efforts. It goes on way too long with poorly defined characters being sliced and diced as they engage in lamebrained projects that get them nowhere. King's monsters are overdescribed and physical, and imagined poorly (the incredibly muscular arms of a tentacled beasty, that crush bags of dogfood and drag men off into the mist can be easily severed by lowering a mechanical metal roll-down door onto them ... Spider things shoot webs that simultaneously eat flesh with acid and are so sticky they can grab and pull things). If Darabont is pulling a Garris, and unimaginatively following the story beat for beat (as he kinda did in Shawshank and Green Mile) this is going to be a stinker. Particularly if he keeps the misogynidtic "Bitch wants to sacrifice my kid, let's kill her" part of the story. King has evoked the OtherWorldly Horror from an Alernate Dimension feel MUCH better, and more subtly, in PET SEMATARY, in the walk in the woods and the sighting of the Wendigod. From the trailer, it looks like Darabont is just pulling a Garris, in a really cheapo way, and from Moriarty's article it sounds like they're dedicating themselves to try to make every bit of the short story work, including the Spiders, which don't work even in the story ... the description of them sounds cheap even in writing. The short story is an early indication of King's cocaine addled "Don't know when to stop" writing, and even includes one of his trademark apologies, when the narrator talks about his dad, and how his dad would have thought the ambiguous non-ending to the story was a "cheap shot". That's King's guilty conscience at writing a bad story, or not being able to figure out a decent conclusion coming to bear, along with his stubborn insistence that his failure is actually a deliberate artistic effect. Darabont is a hack, and he's run out of better King material to adapt, because all the good stuff has already been done. I hear he's adapting "The Monkey" next, from the Skeleton Crew collection. Now, that's kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel
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The characters only see the legs walking by. I hope that's how it's portrayed in the movie. That's what made it cool.
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I have to give the organizations that make those Christian movies credit, they are thinking proactively. They want to see good, clean wholesome movies about God and all that they know they have to make them. One of these days there might actually be a good one. Remember, a good message doesn't necessarily mean a good movie. Ironically I've seen movies that are actually bad for you that turned out to be well-made and entertaining (Crank, Last Boy Scout).
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I've never seen The Majestic. Is it worth a watch?
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...spoil it? I was just wondering. Anyway, great review, I really cannot wait to see this and I AM LEGEND towards the end of the year.
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... it’s about deep scares. Mory, did your son help you come up with that line? That's some cheddar cheese bullshit right there.
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Really. Was hyped all to hell at the time, and I fell for the hype and saw it in the theater. Terrible.
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The book it's based on is all about cheap scares. The only spooky bit is when they see the wall of mist approaching across the lake, just before they drive to the supermarket. The rest is about Star Wars type aliens dripping goo and killing people in gory ways.
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It's because of a long list of horribly King projects, where King squandered the good will that Hollywood trusted him with and wrote scripts for miniseries that were padded out piles of bullshit. Rose Red, Storm of the Century. Not to mention the ever-worsening and apathetic novels he's been writing. Hollywood is full of morons, but even they catch on when King's audience starts going "meh" at the idea of another King miniseries or movie, or novel. That's what has happened, and Mr. Darabont has to take his lumps.
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I just find it interesting how Kings readers views and books critics views completely clash on his latest projects. Lisey's Story got the best reviews King's ever gotten including the New York Times yet readers consider this an example of his decreasing quality.
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From most critics. They bought into the hype about it being "lyrical" and "literary", but it was one of the laziest, sloppiest things he's ever written. There's a huge gab between the MARKETING of a book, and what readers actually get. Most critics are mindless sheep you look to the marketing to tell them what they should think.
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... left it up until we legally couldn't.
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Just shocked that there was no note or something from you guys like you always do, the whole page just disappeared.Sorry for that post. By the way, nice review, as always.
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... it was just easier to remove based on the entire situation. I made a joke in there about someone breaking a NDA... well, sure enough... and that's actionable. So I hope you got a chance to read the INDY stuff.
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Tom Jane is...Homeless Dad.
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Not 40.
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Yet many King readers that I know count that as an example as the decreasing quality of Kings writing. To me Bag Of Bones and the vastly underrated From A Buick 8 are primo examples of Kings literary prowess. Yet readers and critics seem to disagree.
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All traces of the Indy 4 story have disappeared . . . for now. I hear that Tyler guy who spilled his guts is talking to Salman Rushdie about moving in. He'll never be able to sleep in the same place again.
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That article about the start of his career will now be forever known as "the article that ended his career... AND HIS LIFE."
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I doubt that was the spoiler, but...I want to know if (to anyone who has seen this) this keeps the scene/part where Jane's character decides to screw that one chick, even though he isn't sure that his wife was dead? I think I read that King found that the only part of the story he wished he wasn't really happy with.
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I don't even know what that means... I meant that, that was a part he wasn't happy with.
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this is gonna rule!
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... that does not happen in the movie. It would be grotesquely out of place if it did. The characters played by Jane and Holden aren't attracted to each other like that... it's more like they recognize in each other "Okay, you're not fucking insane... I think I can trust you." It plays much more realistically without a romantic subplot.
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that's because he can actually act. change personas. real acting.
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I never really got the character motivation of that. I mean, I would think grief and terror would override horniness most of the time, or the character was supposed to be a heroic nympho.
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this sounds perfect. to actually get "the mist" right... wow. what are odds of that happening in hollywood these days?
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IS that a friggin Joke? Hollywood goes out of its way not to make Muslims villians in any films made since 9/11. And if they do, like in24, they have to have stupid message about it, telling the public that they are all good americans, unlike any other group or relgion. Christians are easy targets for the liberal hollywood elites, they can kick them all they want to feel big, and they still won't be blown up, or beheaded, or have a death bounty place on their heads. For instance, just this week a Swedish cartoons had a $100,000 put on his head, for "gasp!" a friggin cartoon again. Wake up drones.
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Never understood the guy's take on adaptations of his own stuff. Hates The Shining, but likes the TV remake starring Wings. Not even Wings Hauser, Wings of the pedantic blogs on HuffingtonPost.
I just find it weird that he identifies with depictions of his stories told clumsily in broad strokes.
As a writer, the dude was awesome. He lost me at Tommyknockers and never really won me back, but all the shit before that ranges from good to classic. But as a critic of films of his stuff, he's pretty worthless.
I will definitely see The Mist. I have high hopes. -
And Mori's right...it's the suffocating sense of disassociation and claustrophobia that really make The Mist one of King's best short stories. There's a great line where a character says "I would do anything, risk anything, just to see the sun again", and *that's* the film's eerie allure in a nutshell. The 50's monster movie stuff is fine and scary (I hope to hell they don't fuck up the Norm the Bag Boy scene...that scared the SHIT out of me at age 15, and that *will* rely on good F/X to work), but it's the terror of being trapped beween the rock of the mist and the monsters within and the hard place of a group of emotionally-shattered people so desperate to believe in anything that could return them to a sense of normalcy that they'll push themselves even to the phychotic extremes suggested by Miss Carmody (yeah, Marcia Gay Hardin is too young for the role, but she's a great actress, so I can overlook that). It's the same message as George Romero's Dead movies...that the "monsters" are simply animals driven by mindless instinct, and the human beings end up destroying themselves by not banding together and keeping their heads on straight. I can't wait to see The Mist, and if Darabont is doing The Long Walk, I'll be thrilled.
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You are slightly off on King's sense of cinema regarding his works. He believes Stand By Me superior to his version, and thinks highly of Darabont's work as well, as well as he reconsidered his outlook on Kubrick's Shining. Although, I must admit that he seems to like Garris a bit too much.
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There was no prowess there. That's the hype. King deliberately shoved lumps of "literateness" in there, like all the references to Melvill and Bradbury, but it was dissociated stuff, designed to point at the story and say "See, Literary! Give me good reviews!" Critics may see this stuff, feel their educational backgrounds have been flattered, because the "get" the references, and laud it for that. Real readers notice, however, that it was a crappy story this was all hung on. It's significant that the book was about a writer, tired of writing, and he ends the story by having this guy talk about how much like a bad novel the whole thing has been. King's guilty conscience made part of the fiction so people can't accuse him of failing. "Oh, I failed on purpose to make a point about bad novels. I'll take my place in literary history now!"
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I'm sorry, NoDiggity, but the writing in that novel was superb--easily his best writing in more than a decade.
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But I do agree the story itself sucked, lol.
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Christianity plays a strong (and positive) role in the novels Desperation and The Green Mile, so I would have to disagree with you that King is anti-Christian or anti-Christianity.
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Do you mean the many times he repeated the phrase "Does her cunt suck" and "shit in the same pit" OVER, and OVER and OVER ? Or that fantastic ADD sidebar about washing your hands after shitting in a bus station ?
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I'm sure we could pluck an asinine line or two that sound bizarre when made to stand alone from any King novel, but there are many, many extremely well-written passages in that book that read like prose. Most afficionados agree, whether you do or not.
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That's why it's so frustrating when he'll suddenly take a dump in the middle of it, and go all sloppy and stupid. I just don't know why this novel is the one everyone decided to suddenly notice was "well written". Nice turns of phrase don't matter much if they don't support the story, as you pointed out.
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I guess what really throws me is his involvement and enthusiasm for shitty TV versions of his stronger work. Non-horror things like The Body or Shawshank seem well suited for mainstream film translation. I could definitely see some potential for The Walk. But the stuff I've seen on TV is just dreadful. But since I really haven't loved anything he's written in 20 years, I am an asshole for grousing about it. Why should I expect good TV or movies from a guy whose books I've given up on.
It's just he really is an icon. He was the first author I really loved. When I was in Jr High and High School I read those short story collections and some of the novels over and over.
I never would have guessed the day would come when I wouldn't know or care when a new book came out. Ah, well. Even the worst haters have to admit he had an amazing run. -
You meant "like poetry, right? But there are so many that don't read like poetry.
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I read a lot of those short stories and novels (pre-Tommyknockers) over and over. Then he started to publish "broken novels" as he himself called them, and I got tired of feeling burned. Tommyknockers destroyed my faith in him, even when he came back in spots. (as he did with Misery).
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If you have an issue with the cursing in King's work, say so up front. King's characters curse, like folks in real life curse. They often have statements that they will repeat, or inside jokes (some foul), but they say them out loud and with no shame. If you, the reader, are ashamed for them, stop moralizing.
There are a thousand great works of art out there that don't pull any punches when it comes to the vulgarity. Most recent things I watched - GlenGary GlenRoss and The Big Lebowski. Lebowski had "fuck" in it 267 times, according to the Lebowski Fest organizers. Yet, the movie has moments of transcendant awesomeness (much like King or any other writer for that matter). -
You meant "of beauty," right?
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You meant "there ARE always moments," right? See, it's not so easy to write elegantly, is it?
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But your idea that King threw references to classic books in "Bag of Bones" really got my goat. As a writer, and a fiction writer, I know that readers will take what they want from a book. But King's not a calculating sort of writer. Read "On Writing," and you'll understand what his mindset is. You can't get the impression that he plotted to become "literary" by throwing in homages and references to classic novels. It doesn't fit. He might have done because, I dunno, he liked the idea, or felt inspired too. The man writes 10,000 words a day for 3 months straight on each book. There's no time for sifting through novels, thinking, "Yeah - I will hijack that Easter Egg and put it in mine so critics will like me!"
Also, if you read his later-life responses to the fact that critics have largely ignored him, he finds it amusing. A person who laughs at critical response isn't exactly a person who will bend over backwards to placate them. -
Publishers, that is. He'd asked for more money with his old publisher, Viking, and they had refused. So he took the book to this new publisher. You don't think their massive marketing campaign touting King as "literary" had no input from King? I read a Wall Street Journal article about King's break with Viking, and apparently Viking made it's decision due to falling sales of King's books. Women readers in particular were falling away because "King was just about horror now", in their perception. And you can see Bag of Bones was, at least resentfully, written to please women, with that horridly fake parody of a child, and the "love story", a "Love story" the King viciously blew up, and peppered with pornographic dream sequences (can you look at the rape of Sara Laughs as anything but a resentful "fuck you" to the female writers he was trying to woo back?). Also, you can see that Bag of Bones was apathetically imitative of an older novel, to please the "readers who had fallen away", that novel being Salem's Lot. The structure is almost exactly the same (Widowed writer returns to small town in Maine where he gets hot new love interest, meets a kid he's connected to magically/psychically, love interest bites it, guy and kid end up together, evil in town is destroyed by finding it's resting body, and it's bones movie and click as they are destroyed). The novel was DEFINITELY made with consciousness of what would be thought of it, and in a conscious attempt to influence what was thought of it in a positive direction. And King was definitely involved in that, while writing, and probably in designing the marketing campaign.
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and besides, even discounting the obvious absurdity of the bible (and yes, I've read it) the mocking of religion and the reference of Christianity as evil in entertainment isn't against actually religion. It's synechode for disappointment with society. After all, what is more representative of "the man" than G-d?
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Christianity is responsible or complacent in: the holocaust, the Native American holocaust, the pogroms, slavery, the crusades, the children's crusades, societal homophobia that is responsible for LGBTQI youths being the highest suicide rate in the nation, the subjugation of women, most forms of racism, and I could go on for another hour or two.----------------It's also okay to treat the mass religion with distain but not minority religion for the same reason a black comic can mock white society while a white comic cannot do the same with minority groups. White privilege. Discrimination is defined as "the unfair or uneven distribution of good or services based upon one's race, gender, sexual preference, culture, ect." If you are not in a position of power, it is impossible for you to discriminate because you don't have the ability to disperse things unevenly. Now, I'm guessing you're a middle class, white, male Christian. You have lived in a position of privilege for your entire life. You haven't had to worry about, "will I be in danger for wearing my religious symbols out in public." you haven't had to worry about getting fair treatment in a restaurant, much less the court of law. You are part of the mainstream, and thus treated with a certain level of what you consider "basic kindness" that other groups never get to taste. I've had several hate crimes committed against me. So, until you've had someone call you a "Kike" and throw a glass bottle at your head from a moving car, or had a gun shoved in your mouth and been beaten with brass knuckles, kindly shut up about feeling persecuted for believing in your stupid fucking imaginary friend.
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...is that the death threat the Swedish cartoonist received was from a representative of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that Muslim organisations in Sweden jointly, publically and very strongly condemned the death threat.
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Absolute horseshit.
By your reasoning, it's either impossible for, say, a black man in America to be a racist or perfectly ok for him to be a racist. -
With the grown up Loser's Club flashbacking to thier childhoods while trying to figure out what's happening in Derry again. They can expand on some elements of the story and trim down others (like leaving out Mike remembering everything, so they have to peace together the story from their loose memories), maybe let some of the Dark Tower lore bleed into it and you have great two or three seasons.
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quit hatin'.
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bullshit, man, utter bullshit- discrimination can take place when both classes (the discriminator and the discriminee- heh) have no power at all.
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fucking scandanavians- all the same. (This is a joke- albeit a pretty unsubtle one, for all you pedants that pick up on it to flame me)And on King- whoever above said that King lost him with The Tommyknockers is kind of right. He certainly was in decline, but the absolute unforgivable sins are the Last 2 books of The Dark Tower. He really lost me with the patronisng "constant reader" shite that polluted the end of that deeply anticlimatic bunch of shite. It made Bag of Bones look masterful.
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...will you read the words, "Buttfuck, I know you feel" in a talkback conversation...without blinking an eye.
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Actually, it was Danish cartoons last year. This year a Swedish artist drew one. So you weren't exactly wrong.
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In BAG OF BONES ? I mean, give me a fucking break. Was it Sara getting fucked in all orifices at once? Or the sarcastic poetic description of a sunset that looked like a nosebleed? PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME as to where these transcendent moments were.
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I didn't know it had happened again. Did Bassy get banned?
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I really have no problem with extremists being portrayed as villainous. And there are plenty of films with non-christian cultists that are the villains- Now I think about it for every christian extremist villain you give I bet I can give a non-christian one,
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I'll start you off- The Wicker Man (Original and Remake)
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Sep 19, 2007 4:56:43 AM CDT
This movie won't just scare you .......
by nomoredirtyjokespleaseweareyanks
It will Fuck you up for LIFE. Man I love this story.pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease be good.
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I've read the mist. Don't get me wrong. This is my favorite sub-genre of horror. Hell, it's basically two of my favorite sub-genres sinve it fuses Cthulhu style horror with the good old end of the world/people turning against people yarn. But it's nothing terribly brutal, or something that will "fuck you up for life". The ending, where they escapse the supermarket and discover that the mist seems to have spread over the rest of the country and they we're left to wonder if they ever get to safety, if cool but it's nothing groundbreaking or astounding. I feel that Mori's review and some of the comments here are really laying on the hyperbole too thick. That said, I'm really looking forward to the movie. Including 1408, it looks like we might have two decent Stephen King movies this year.
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I really enjoyed your previous one. Do some more, please! Oh, and 1408 was a decent scare at the movies - nothing great, but an entertaining 100 minutes.
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...with the world of Buick 8, so don't talk to me about some towers!
By the way, this film sounds like a typical King adaptation - average. I wish Cronenberg took it - he made the best King adaptation in movie history. And 40 million is a small budget? Well, then, look what Tommy Lee Wallace could do with an actual tiny budget, about 1000 times less than Darabont's. Not much, only the best TV adaptation of King, and the best TV horror ever produced. -
I will. I just snuck out to see 3:10 TO YUMA yesterday, and I'll be reviewing that and JESSE JAMES later today.
GravyLeg... don't assume that just because Darabont is very true to the structure of King's work that he's decided to end his film the same way. Darabont's got his own signature to put on the material, and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that he's playing dirty pool here. He's going to fucking upset people. And it's a big part of what I think is going to make the film stick. -
... this film didn't cost anywhere near $40 million. It didn't cost even half of that. Maybe it's not "microbudget" as someone up above complained, but considering what kind of film this is, it was made for basically nothing.
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Sounds good. I love a brutal ending.
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I already know he's gonna annoy me.
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Still smarting from "Superman Returns."
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By trying to say all types of threats made against people who make cartoons our comments they can't understand or take to the time to read (like the pope's quote from the 14th century) is confined to small terrorist group in Iraq. The were world wide burings and some shootings. For example, when Cameron came out and said he found the grave of Christ, and it proved he was just human and was married, just about every Christian laughed it off. Now put on your thinking cap and image if he say the same about the prophet Mohammed. If your honest, I think you know what the result will be. s0nicdeathmonkey, i find it very interesting you blame the Christians for the holocaust. While the pope at the time may have been silent on the subject (not good), he wasn't getting tours of the concentration camps from Adolph. That would be higher ranking Muslims from the middle east, thank you very much. By the way, since you bring up the holocaust, how come you are silent about government officials from islamic countries (Iran) having conferences to prove the holocaust didn't happen? Didn't see Pope John Paul doing that now, did you?
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By trying to say all types of threats made against people who make cartoons our comments they can't understand or take to the time to read (like the pope's quote from the 14th century) is confined to small terrorist group in Iraq. The were world wide burings and some shootings. For example, when Cameron came out and said he found the grave of Christ, and it proved he was just human and was married, just about every Christian laughed it off. Now put on your thinking cap and image if he say the same about the prophet Mohammed. If your honest, I think you know what the result will be. s0nicdeathmonkey, i find it very interesting you blame the Christians for the holocaust. While the pope at the time may have been silent on the subject (not good), he wasn't getting tours of the concentration camps from Adolph. That would be higher ranking Muslims from the middle east, thank you very much. By the way, since you bring up the holocaust, how come you are silent about government officials from islamic countries (Iran) having conferences to prove the holocaust didn't happen? Didn't see Pope John Paul doing that now, did you?
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I think you need a few points of clarification. Firstly, I think you are (as I did) confusing the two cartoon jihad incidents. The danish one was the one that provoked the widespread outcry- the more recent (swedish) one has prompted a threat from, as Doc Pazuzu said The head of Al Qaeda. http://tinyurl.com/2bvy89. It also seems you are confusing extremism and the mainstream. The death threats were issued by a small and vocal minority. A christian point of comparison would be the abortion extremists that threaten clinical staff and are routinely condemned by most church figures. You would not, surely, try to state that the pro-life christian lunatics represent every christian out there, would you?The Cameron christ discovery is an asinine comparison- there has been plenty of speculation on Jesus the man before. Furthermore, Cameron is white and, presumably, christian. I will bet my bottom dollar though that there are some fundamentalists out there that have condemned him in the strongest possible language. Sonic, said Complacent- but he meant complicit, and all the examples he listed are historical fact. In his post he said they were either complicit or responsible, and although not responsible for the Holocaust- were complicit. Most religions do not come out well from this period of history. Picking this example does not actually help your argument as it deflects from you conveniently ignoring the other atrocities (and he didn't even list all of them) that can be directly attributed to christianity.It is naive to say that the current Holocaust denial conferences are wholly islamic affairs- there are plenty of western holocaust deny-ers. And are you seriously suggesting that there is no political motive for the conference?All I'm really trying to say is that both islam and christianity have periods of history that they can be ashamed of, and extremists line up on both sides of the aisle. Believe in god- allah or Mr. Fucking Peanut for all I care, but I wish that people would use reason when sounding, rather than prejudice.
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Sep 19, 2007 8:15:08 AM CDT
I would've loved to see you fuckers in the "Dogma" TB
by rickey henderson
Enough already. I, for one, am still very excited for this flick. Did you know that the guys from Valve said that "The Mist" was their primary inspiration while making Half-Life?
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cos that's a fuck sight more interesting than arguing over and over again with no hope of resolution
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Without arguing, we would have to actually take the time to write original and articulate observations rather than spending 200 posts arguing about whether or not Paul Haggis does or does not suck.
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Uh...Yeah, don't get so sensitive non-practicing types...However, if you're gonna start speaking on 'extremism' and 'Christianity' and make it seem 'out there' as a concept:David Khoresh...There you go. One lone 'Christian' nut. He wasn't reading the Koran, but the Bible in his tarpaper and flammable oily rag-based compound in the desert.Have you listened to Pat Robertson...like EVER? Probably not, because his brain and mouth is like a softly chuckling insanity factory, and most people switch off after his 'faith' causes him to say things like : 'Katrina was God's Wrath against the Homosexuals'. I can buy a Christian going a little psycho, many of the fundamentalists out there are already waiting with baited breath for the destruction of the planet so they can point to their book filled with millenia old gibberish written by nomads who didn't understand most types of basic science and screech 'TOLD YA SO!!'Krazy Khristians! LOL! *sigh*
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Best part about that whacko Pat Robertson was last year when he claimed to have broken the all-time leg weightlifting record and then used that to promote his new energy drink. It's true, look it up, lol. That fucker is a loon.
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Cameron is "white", White = Christinan....therefore Cameron must be Christian.....yeah ok. All the fancy hollywood types are know for their strong religious convictions....(laughs loudly). If we are going to start listing atrocities, can we keep them in the past 100 years? Its not like there Nasa techs today that believe the earth is flat. Can I list on the atrocities committed in the name of Islam? How about atrocities in the name of Islam vs fellow muslims? In say, the past 25 years? What is the character limit on these posts by the way?
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King short stories have KICKED ASS as movies..and not just 'Stand By Me' and 'Shawshank'...I mean come ON..Who can forget...RUNNING MAN?! Yes, I know there's almost NOTHING of the real Bachman short story there, but it still kicks ass...Big ol' fatass Neon Opera Man...SUB-ZERO..."I'll Be Back.." "Only in a rerun."One word as to why NO ONE trusts Stephen King's flicks: Sleepwalkers. That movie smelled like a mustardy mephitic fart of a dying hobo. (Props to the bindle carrying hobos, because y'all STANK.)
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since you bring up the David Khoresh example...all things being equal, Khoresh would have to become the most popular name among christians, like Jolly old Osma did with the Muslims after 9/11, if your comparison was true. I don't recall seeing Khoresh's image on cell phones and on posters at rallies, or his followers celebrated as the "Magnificent 19"
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I can only take so many of these posts before I snap. And it's Koresh, not Khoresh. Instead of Christianity vs the Muslim faith and their depiction in film maybe we should have a discussion on spelling and grammar. Also, for the record, I am tired of seeing "Scorcese" and "Tarrantino" on this site. Can't motherfuckers learn how to spell a name before typing? Fuck.
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I was trying to be reasonable and point out that to make the cameron comparison ignores the inherent difference between a white christian (strong convictions or otherwise) person finding the rotting corpse of his supposed lord, and finding the rotting corpse of another religions prophet- and therefore is a false comparison. However, if you are determined to be a cunt then so be it. The point I was making- was not about the automatic leap from white to christian, it was that it is dramatically less offensive for a member of one faith (again, as you seem to be slow, regardless of current convictions) to find evidence pertaining to his own religion than another. I couldn't give a fuck whether the finder of Christ's (supposed) body was white, black, yellow, tangerine, or fucking electric blue with bright green spots. Nice way to ignore- once again everything in the post that you feel you can't argue against. Secondly, shut up about listing atrocities- is there a time limit on when something ceases to be an atrocity? so after 25 years "atrocity" is downgraded to "tragedy", after 50 becomes "disgrace" and after 150 becomes "irrelevant". THe fact they happened at al makes them as valid for the argument as those in the last 25 years.Christ, I was asking for a bit of tolerance and clarity of thought, but that was clearly too much for you.
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can misanthropy become a religion? I loooove the running man. Fat opera dude is hysterical.
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Next time "Koresh" shows up in national spelling, I can thank you for your help! Every 10 year should know that fucker's name.
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"Every 10 year should know..." WTF?
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It's Blassie, not Blassy. Ugh.
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Yo man, I get you, I understand that you don't want people messin' with the Jeebus, and maligning the name of those who worship him without lighting themselves or other people on fire, but the facts ain't with you partner.
Christians invented the Auto da Fe...Um, the Spanish Inquisition, the Church's Blind Eye to the Holocaust, Burning free thinking women for having 'moles', 'consorting with old splitfoot', or 'knowing math' during the Salem Witch Trials (Again, those were extremist Christians behaving like morons.) In fact, based on THAT alone, you could say the most special kind of scapegoating Christian nonsense is WHOLLY American in nature.Extremists in the Muslim culture are just as whacky, in fact they'll go hog-wild about something as idiotic as a woman being able to drive.But the argument I thought was: It's 'ridiculous' or 'nonsense' to think Christians could behave this way. Hey, Judas was a Christian, right?James Cameron's faith escapes me, but, as far as I know big Hollywood Mel Gibson is a 'Christian' who got hammered and sprayed invective about the world-running Jews, yeah? He also kind of painted them as the classic seething hissing bastards of those old timey Passion Plays. -
Sorry, all y'all Branch Davidians out there...I thought it was 'Khoresh' not 'Koresh' both seem pretty whacky and made up...Maybe I was thinking of 'khopesh'...you know, the sword? I don't know...But please, don't let my spelling mistake equate a flaw in my logic. And it's spelled Scorceesanesntino...Right?
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you self-righteous twit. The point of limiting atrocities to more recent times should be obvious to a swamp donkey like you.
What the fuck is the point in rehashing shit that happened 500 years ago? Does this really effect you in anyway today?
Your thread about Cameron has to been one the most moronic leaps of logic posted on here. It is dramatically less offensive for a member of one faith to find evidence pertaining to his own religion than another? Please, tell me where did Cameron say he was Christian? Again, you are just putting in out here there with no proof, so you can avoid the conclusion. So if a guy claiming to be a Muslim said he found proof Mohammed didn't ascent to heaven, they would be ok with that? No riots or bounties or call for beheadings, right?.......Liberals bend over fucking backwards to protect and make excuses for Islam, while they can't wait to throw rocks at any thing Judea-christian. That puzzling, since in a country ruled by sharia law, you guys would be the first to be killed. -
Damn, dude. First, the type of rhetoric you're using is called 'ad hominem attack'. Quite the favorite these days among the authoritarians and the ones who don't mind authoritarians. It's where someone with an argument attacks the person refuting the argument (their intelligence, etc.), rather than debate the argument itself.Most Islamic folks I know (I can count them on one hand) don't throw rocks at anyone, and roll their eyes and shake their heads at the weirdos who do that crap. Most Christians I know, my family included, shake their heads in sadness at the weirdos like that dude who pickets gays' funerals and the like.You know, I challenge you to make your point without calling the person arguing with you names. Try it, you'd garner a LOT more respect from folks who consider themselves 'reasoned' folks.
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Valve admitted to drawing heavily from "The Mist" when they were making Half-Life.
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How does it make it less relevant? Death threats to swedish cartoonists are utterly irrelvant to me, fucking conferences held thousands of fucking miles away arguing about an event that took place 60 YEARS AGO have no relevance for me. None of the shit that happened 20 years ago committed be a muslim, christian, jew, or fucking scientologist has any relevance for me. You are clearly a cretin of the highest order as you seem to believe that the passage of time makes an atrocity "irrelevant". Which is utterly, utterly wrong. BTW, simpleton, Swamp Donkey= ugly, whereas from the context you clearly meant stupid. So, plankton, got any more pearls of wisdom for me?The reason you are struggling with the cameron example is that you, personally, find it offensive. Let me ask you this, can you honestly not see why it is more likely to cause offense for someone outside of your faith to find "evidence" (Geniune or otherwise) that questions one of the founding tenets of your beliefs, than a member of your faith (in name only or whatever) finding the same thing. It looks (even if it isn't) like an assault on your religion by others, and that is why it is more offensive.
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It isn't about "people messin' with the Jeebus".
Think what you want. I don't give a fuck.
It is about what's worse. Pat on the 700 club saying he hurt his leg squatting 1200 pounds?
Strange and loony, yes. Three people getting their throats cut for printing bibles in Islamic country( happened 2 months ago)?
Way worse. Jesus shows up a South Park with a chain saw. Some people don't like it. But Comedy Central wasn't burned to the ground, and Trey and Matt didn't have to go into hiding. So go ahead and put loony christians in films, and you don't even need a disclaimer like 24 did, and you don't need CIAR sitting next to you in the editing booth like they did with Ridley Scott. It is easy, low hang fruit you can pick that won't bite you back, so it will make you feel intellectual and enlightened in doing so. -
For somebody on a movie/tv/comic talkback you sure don't know your pop culture references.
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I'm not saying that Islam is peachy, I'm not saying that Christianity is peachy, and I am certain that if a muslim claimed to have found mohammed's corpse then he would be in a world of hurt. I was attempting to clarify things you missed the point on, not start a flame war. Interesting that you have ignored all the clarifications and focused on one aspect that is an irrelevance to the argument. More to the point, shitbag, you bought up the Cameron "discovery". As I said before, believe in God, Allah, Budda, or Mr. Fucking Peanut- I couldn't give less of a toss, but come over self righteous. Most, if not all, (I'm not too clued up on shit like Hinduism, so I don't know) religions have aspects that can be considered shameful, so try removing the blinkers. Rickey, that has to be the coolest thing I've heard in days
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PWND- The character in Shrek was just "Donkey"- not swamp donkey. http://tinyurl.com/2hrheh- definition of Swamp Donkey.For an obnoxious, self-righteous twat you sure don't know you're pop- culture references/ slang.
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To make about how the two religions currently differ when presented with things that are an assault on their validity.
The point you tried to make about who was make the case (white, christian, or what ever) makes has no relevance what so ever.
As a matter of fact, people that claim to muslim and go against the strictest interpretation of Islam are considered the lowest of the low, apostates, in places were folks like jolly Talibian rule, and sentences to death immediately. So no I don't think it would matter who made the case. Hell, a friggin' GOVERNMENT official from Indonesia said he would understand if their were suicide bombings because....England knighted someone who wrote a book they don't like. That right folks, literary honor=death -
I also forgot to say- how does comparing me to a character in shrek help your argument? just admit you misused the slang- It's a much smaller climb down.
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Man, you take all this really personally, you are probably either a devout believer, or someone who sees the pummeling of (in my opinion) centuries old dirt worship as hurtful to the fabric of society. I'm not saying your belief system is in question, or in fact placing a value, good or bad on the way you feel you need to spend your non-working hours.But, I'll say that because I don't believe in that stuff, I can objectively say that believers are a little kooky at times, and behave badly at others, and such behavior is PERFECTLY acceptable as a target for satire, commentary, etc.I don't feel bad for Christians who get their throats cut in a Muslim country who've basically got a monopoly on who does what where...and they TELL you they'll cut your head off if you do that there, and you do it anyway...very brave, and hopefully worth it to you. I don't feel one way or another for people taking the completely calculated risk of worshipping in nations where said worship could result in your own death.Do you feel bad for David Padillo? The so-called 'dirty bomber'? He was speaking to Muslims about terrorism, hell, maybe even plotting extremist acts that would have been perfectly acceptable in the nation that slits the throats of Christians, but here, we've pretty much said we will ship your ass out and torture you if you deal in such extremist behavior. Fact is, the guy wasn't charged with anything for a LONG time, and was found innocent of what they did arrest him for. If I'm to be asked to be outraged by Muslims behaving like morons against innocent Christians, I implore YOU to be outraged when our own country behaves that way.Making this again about me calling you foolish for your beliefs is really not what I wanted to discuss, or even argue about, because nobody wins when you just say that the person's an idiot. I may come off as pompous or snobbish or whatever, but you know what? I'm going to use my vocab words, I'm going to even use critical thinking and reason to determine what's real and what's phony. Jesus, and most of the tall tales in the Holly Bibble are um, outlandish and difficult to believe for me.You do have a valid point about Muslims as villains recently...However, you may not have seen the second season of 24, I guess. Uh, South Park also made it look like Osama had a one inch dick. (Hilarious, by the way.) Yeah, nobody went and burned down Comedy Central then, either.
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for being dull and turgid. A bloody awful book. It wasn't even offensive.
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Shrek lived in swamp. Donkey wanted to stay in the swamp when he was forced out of the forest.Hence "swamp donkey". The fact that you are dwelling on it is proof you are a tool. Plus, anyone that uses the term "PWND" is a total fag-hag.
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The Mist was the reason I got into old-school horror table top gaming. It was the first Stephen King story that was 'realistic' to me, because similar types of weather phenomena happened in Newport News sometimes. Man, I can't wait for this flick.
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Those people were indigenous to Turkey, not missionaries They predate the muslims that live there. Much like the Coptic Christians that were blown up in Egypt celebrating easter.
So you don't feel bad about native people being brutalized in a country were they are a minority? WOW! How liberal of you! -
I hate spoilers, but Moriarty, your comments leed me to believe they all die at the end, or maybe Billy dies at the end.
I'm cool with a new ending - often what works in a book doesn't work in a movie. EG: The Shining. Imagine if the movie had ended with the hedge animals coming to life ?!!
But, if remember correctly, the Mist ending was ambiguous, which mighty work in the movie. Whatever, I'm looking forward to this. -
Midnight's Children, nobody liked that, right?
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The character was called Donkey. Not Swamp Donkey. He intended to insult me, fucked up and then attempted to dodge the fuck up. I'm not dwelling on it as proof.I do regret the pwnd thing though (sorry Fred). That was childish, and I hang my head in shame.
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I never said he was a hack. It was a fecetious remark about the Satanic Verses specifically. Not too bright are you?
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typo, typo, typo.
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Yeah, man. I don't. So there. None of the facts you claim are important to your justification happened 'in the past' right? You yourself called the past irrelevant. Predating the Muslims there? Irrelevant. 'Now' is what matters, right? Dude, liberal isn't an insult, and I stand on what I said. If the law says, 'We behead Christians' and a Christian waves his dick at them singing 'Jesus Loves Me' at the top of his lungs and gets beheaded, I feel about as bad as I do when I see a dad get whacked in the nuts on America's Funniest Home Videos by his nearsighted Nerf bat wielding son. Oof! Says, I, but hell, we ALL saw it coming.Try saying a Hindu prayer in Congress, man, you'll get some whackadoo screaming for Jeebus at the top of his lungs, and while I can say 'Shame! Shame on you for your intolerance, Krazy Khristian!' deep down it would be disingenuous because I saw it coming.Again, to you, calling me a liberal or maligning 'liberal values' or the stereotype is still namecalling. Bring the facts, bro, and stick to your guns...Is the past 'irrelevant'? or is it 'irrelevant when it doesn't fit into this myopic argument'?
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Ron Perlman get's stabbed w/ an ear of corn in it. I mean, come on . . .
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Doesn't equal=cut throat. sorry it doesn't.
Oh and South Park doing Osama equal what they do with Jesus? Just the fact you make the comparison shows you don't know shit.
Even Trey and Matt said they wanted to do something about the Mohammed cartoons, and were told to back off by Comedy Central.
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They should know better, right micturatingbenjamin? They got what they had coming to him, in your mind any way.
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Wow You cant stand his works can you.
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Yes. If one could choose being black, and the sign said 'no blacks', yep. Pretty much, but for your sake, I'll type this slowly: First, one doesn't choose to be black, yellow, white, red, or green. One DOES choose to worship the flying spaghetti monster, the multi-armed blue guy, or cows. So, your argument, while volitile and meant to equate religion with race, doesn't. So, BZZZT. Try again.Second, Freddy, you don't need the word 'equal' if you're going to use the equal sign. Now, who doesn't 'know shit'? I know that. And I didn't intend to equate shouting down that poor Hindi to getting one's throat slit, I was equating doing things a person knows will cause outrage, and then playing pretend that someone rebuffing you is a shock. Both situations? The guy involved should have seen it coming. You didn't, I'll point out, mention the David Padillo case. Good for you, because that does HURT the equation doesn't it?Is yelling at a guy the same as slitting his throat? Nah, but it is a tad hypocritical to say that we're a nation of 'Freedom of Religion' and we do that kind of thing to fellow whackadoos.Trey and Matt, as you call them, would also be poking fun at a group that's notorious for setting shit ablaze with homemade bombs. Probably best not to go ahead and give them a reason to, eh? That's not 'cowing to terrorism' that's 'recognizing a crazy person with flammable chemicals as dangerous'. But now, Christians, their belief system is based on forgiveness, and trust that God's justice prevails over Man's. Or, isn't that enough? Practice, practice, practice what you preach, preach, preach. I couldn't and so therefore, left the religion foisted on me at a young age. Forgive, Freddy, no?I've, as I stated above, read the Bible a few times. All the way through. Begat by begat, and found nothing touted as 'God's Will' that couldn't be disputed by simply investigating the context of the single-sentence moral equivalency most Christians endeavor in.Yawn. Anything else? My point is: Christians can be whackanuts, and it's okay to portray that in film. Muslim extremists are whackanuts, and it's perfectly fine to mock them, too. All religions are equally strange and arcane ways of controlling thought, no matter what the so-called benefits might be."Think for yourself and question authority." - Doctor Timothy LearyIrony was intended, there.
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What does that mean?
Also, I have to say its good to see Darabont has done what I expected he would. I hope the guy performs miracles at the box office with this film.... and is given Jackson-esque control over a Dark Tower series of films... with or without Abrams.
One more thing. Anyone who doesn't like Stephen King, totally misses the point of it - and could probably do with reading more of his work. -
Hurry up!
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...one doesn't "choose" a belief. You either believe something or you don't. This is the problem religious nutjobs have with atheists; they think they've "chosen" not to believe in God (thereby believing in him in secret), which makes them evil.
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...not feeling bad for perfectly innocent people gettting their heads cut off just because they have the guts to oppose oppressive laws in certain backwards societies is some cold, cold shit.
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We are nation of 'Freedom of Religion'? Sorry man, but as whole the diversity of religions living side by side with each with little or no violence it pretty unequalled. If you aren't plotting to kill people, you are pretty much left alone.
Check out this gem, hot off the newswire "An explosion struck a Christian neighborhood in east Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday, killing four people, according to Red Cross officials and Lebanese internal security forces. The blast happened near the Librairie Antoine, a bookstore". You don't see this shit happening in the US. -
It is ok for gays in Islamic countries to be killed, because, after all, they choose to be gay.
Swamp donkey, indeed. -
Not really a good comparison, bringing up Lebanon. The Christian falangists are just as nutty over there. Sabra and Shatila in 1982 are just one (well-known) example.
Better to use examples of Muslims blowing up bookstores in America.
Oh, wait...
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Freedom of religion, were it works, were it doesn't. assboningbenjim thinks we don't have in the US.
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AICN = pussies!
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...pointing to nutbags in Muslim countries in this debate and holding them up as symptoms of a religion more twisted than any other doesn't really hold water, which is more or less proven by a lack of domestic U.S. sectarian violence on any scale worth mentioning.
The nutbag quotient in Muslim countries is so high because many of the countries themselves are so fucked up and corrupt, where social progress stopped somewhere around the 1600's and then regressed to the Middle Ages. Add to that the double whammy of colonialism followed by a victimization culture where EVERYTHING is blamed on colonialism, and you have a seething pot of ripe radicalization material.
There was actually an article in the New Republic a few years ago where they talked about radical Christian sects in Africa taking over the role Islamists have today over the next century -- and pretty much due to the same factors. -
I just reread "The Mist" and didn't like it (again). But then I reread "Mrs. Todd's shortcut" and loved it.
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(Hey Doc, love the tag...and your mother sews socks that smell, bro..or sis...Broads can be doctors too.)Maybe. Yeah, probably, actually. I might have a slight disassociation streak. But if I'm a Christian in a fundamentalist lunatic Muslim country, I'm hardly 'innocent' at that point. My grandfather on my father's side, his extended family by marriage, fine upstanding German citizens, were found by their neighbors to be half-Jewish or nearly so. They had the good sense to get the fuck out of Germany, because they weren't soldiers, but innkeepers and bread-makers. If they stayed to 'make a point', or to 'make a stand' more power to them, but this would be a situation where they made a sacrifice with their eyes WIDE open, and a decision for themselves. They weren't 'innocent' of the knowledge of the consequences. They were, guilty of nothing, to be sure, but surely not unaware of the danger or the likely result of staying. If this were like, the first time a religious crackpot attacked another religious person for their beliefs, it would be shocking and garner a response from me a little more than 'Damn, that's some fucked up shit.', and then I get on with my life. But Doc, would you REALLY have me pretend to give a shit about people that I really don't see myself feeling bad for? Talk about hypocrisy on my part. I won't go into the fact that Bloop said 'Gays Choose Gayness', because nothing I say to refute it will be heard, I'm sure. The conversation, if this quacking can even be called that, is about is it okay to portray extreme Christians as villains, or something.Bloop, you're great, man. Just keep thinking that insults = equal (sic) winning an argument, pal. Your Retard of the Year trophy is...RIGHT BEHIND YOU! LOOK OUT! (Nine bucks says the fucker fell off his chair whipping around to dodge the imaginary trophy.) Bloop, learn to spell, and perhaps learn too the difference between they're, there, and their while you're at it. Until then, adults are speaking, so you should pipe down, pipsqueak.It's okay to make a Christian whackjob a villain, it's okay to make a Zen Buddhist a villain, it's just fine to make a Muslim cleric or Shintoist a villain, because it's fiction, and not reality, though it may paint an uncomfortable picture for those who watch it. Reason wins: FATALITY.
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the deeper you find yourself in shit. My diagnosis, diarrhea of the mouth. A Christian in a fundamentalist lunatic Muslim country, I'm hardly 'innocent' at that point.?
WTF. Newsflash, Christians lived in those areas about 1500 years before there were any Muslims. I guess the American Indians were at fault for not "getting the fuck out of the country". -
Uh, I re-read what you posted, and after sifting through the crazy I've boiled your point down to this:
Because I said that Christians understand the dangers and die defending their right to worship, and I'm not surprised at that in the least, and neither should they or anyone else be surprised, you think that I think it's okay to kill a gay person in an Islamic country.
Okay, no. It's not okay to kill anyone, nor do I condone killing of gays, again, nice potboiler hot-button argument, but even if I did hate gays, would that change the logic of my argument? No.If we both used ANY logic, much less my own logic, you'd equate the deaths of OPENLY gay people protesting outside of a Mosque in Iran with me not being wholly surprised, or feeling all that bad for people making a stand and sacrificing themselves because they know the risks.
*sigh* I hope that clarifies it, though I know how you guys love your broad strokes and primary colors. Life is nuanced, purchase a helmet. -
...that is some cold, cold shit. Keep hitting that bong.
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For you "24" fans out there, the producers just confirmed that Tony Almeida lives and is coming back in January!
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If they bring back soul patch, I would give season seven a chance. No explanation is even needed for how he's still alive.
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I am a cold motherfucker, I suppose. I don't imbibe in the sticky-icky...I do tie one on on occasion.
For Bloop: Yeah. You're not 'innocent' in the sense that you're just minding your own business, silently worshiping under a bed or in your prayer closet (The way the Christ recommends), they MUST be readily aware that their actions have repercussions. They are innocent in that they have the right to live in whatever way they want, but once they do make that decision (a noble one, to be sure) they definitely understand the risks of living that way when all others intend on killing you. Our own country was founded on the fact that the men who rebelled KNEW that to fail meant death.What are you trying to get me to say? The indians should have moved? That's for them to decide for themselves. (history says that after a lopsided protracted battle, they decided to move, by the way) Are YOU suggesting we give them the country back? That would be fair, no? Or shall we call a spade a spade, and say that while there are things worth fighting and dying for, there are things worth taking a stand on, that when one takes a stand one KNOWS there are consequences. The end. Invoke gays, blacks, indians, all you like however you want to inflame or galvanize your argument. I'm saying, you stand up to a nation of crazies, don't be surprised when they do some crazy shit. -
Badly. Um, so how about those Metsies? I feel like crying.
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Im looking forward to this. I like the king films that don't rely on tons of budget and are more character driven like Stand By Me or Mysery and although I thought the trailer contained some ropy bat things it didn't bother me because they wrung a nice amount of tension from not showing anything but mist rolling in for most of it and had a decent cast who were realistically reacting to the situation and a reliable front man in Thomas Jane who was excellent in Stander and decent in the Punisher. Not sure I'd agree he's quite the chamelion you concider him but I'll watch him in anything with interest as he's definately a solid lead. Also reasuring that the effects are Cafe FX because I bought the stuff done by them in Pans Labrynth so if they are responsible then this interests me a lot! + it's Frank Darabont doing King! What could possibly go wrong!?
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Okay, Bloop. Okay, Freddy. We can all agree on one thing: Batman and Robin was fucking terrible. No more politics or religious debate, please. I implore you. I grow weary, as I'm sure you do as well. Movies are rad, and I'd invite the both of you over to my place for a back to back viewing of 'Syriana' and 'Michael Moore is a Fat Bitch' or whatever flick is a Right Winger's flick...How about Rambo III? It's cool cause it's Rambo, and it's funny cause Rambo's helping the Taliban.
I love you guys. ;) -
because.....you knew it was going to suck going into it. Fantastic Four, before it came out, there was atleast hope. And Godzilla '98 (us version) was worse as well.
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Someone asked what the phrase meant...it means that it's a little 'inside joke' or likening it to baseball staticians talking about anomalies or streaks or whatever with a layman, most people won't get whatever it is, but fans of baseball will.
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Which was the worst Steven King Movie? Sleepwalkers? Graveyard Shift, Silver Bullet? I vote for Dreamcatcher, because of the A list talent involved. How did they screw that up?
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King himself has said that he always assumed that the Arrowhead Project punched a hole into one of those "thinnies" mentioned in "Wizard & Glass" and the creatures are the nameless denizens of the Prim. And of course, there's this passage from the "The Mist" itself which is heavily laced with imagery from the "Dark Tower" saga: "Terror is he widening of perspective and erception. The horror was in nowing I was swimming down to a lace most of us leave when we get ut of diapers and into training pants. I could see it on Ollie's face, too. When rationality begins to break down, the circuits of the human brain can overload. Axons grow bright and feverish. Hallucinations turn real: the quicksilver puddle at the point where perspective makes parallel lines seem to intersect is really there; the dead walk and talk; a rose begins to sing."
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Steven King's worst? Probably the adaptation of 'Sometimes They Come Back' or 'Sleepwalkers'. SILVER BULLET was fucking wicked. MAN FUCK YES, BUSEY! And, since Cycle of the Werewolf was only an 'okay' novella, in my opinion, Silver Bullet leaps ahead of it in streamlining the storytelling, and cementing that weird looking dude that played the Preacher as 'the bad guy' no matter what movie you see him in. Worst translation from book to movie, however, The Shining. A kickass horror/thriller, but only vaguely resembling the orig. Man, I want to see Firestarter again, now. I loved that one too. I even had an idea for a series of The Shop novels, about the different agents and all...
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Someone up there touched on this, too, but I always thought that one of the absolutely coolest things of the story was the fact that the beast was so massively big that, try as they might, all they could see was its leg and hear the footfalls, and that even contemplating something so enormous could about drive you to insanity. Your review seems to suggest that we're going to be treated to a really cool Bernie Wrightson designed creature; if that is the case, cool as that would be to see, in my mind it sort of destroys the power of that scene, no? So do we get the reveal or is it truer to the story? thanks for the review, i've been waiting for this movie for 23 years!
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la-la-la-la-la...everything is fine, that's what Willie told me....la-la-la-la...
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I'm not gonna play 'which shit smells worse' with you, man. Jessica Alba as a blonde, making that taking a shit face when using her powers...versus day-glo Robin fighting extras from Cats...Both reek of awfulness.
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Was the "Dark Tower" painting that Quint mentioned in his on-set visits in the version you saw? Was it wickedly cool?
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"Particularly if he keeps the misogynidtic "Bitch wants to sacrifice my kid, let's kill her" part of the story." First, that wasn't actually in the story. The grocery store manager killed Carmondy, not the boy's father. Drayton was actually surprised when she was shot. But even if he had killed her, it's apparently your position that when someone tries to attack your child and clearly intends to kill him, it's misogynistic to use force to defend against that attack? That's perhaps the most bizarre thing I've read on the internet this week-- and that's saying something.
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Had the worst Werewolf design...ever.
Looked like the NC State Football Mascot, minus the red sweater. Terrible. Salems Lot, the orignal TV Movie, kicked ass. Sure the ending was different from the book, but it captured the tone of the novel like no other film had. -
The same could be said for drive-by message board wisdom, I suppose. A for effort, man, and here's your medal and a hug. *squeeze* :)
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Did you ever see that? WTF? And yeah, Bullet had some lame ass special effects, but tell me that fucking bottle rocket to the eye wasn't big swinging tits. It was, and if it's true that Drew Struzan painted a Dark Tower poster...*drool* I'd pay cash for that. Or, for you Robocop fans, "I would purchase that for a dollar." Wait...that's not right.
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"I made a joke in there about someone breaking a NDA... well, sure enough... and that's actionable." Yes, it is indeed actionable-- against the person who broke it. But it's not actionable against anyone else who repeats it. You have to be in privity of contract with the company to be bound by their NDAs. I'm sure these movie studios would like to think that they can bind all of humanity to their secrecy agreements but there's no legal basis for holding third parties liable for someone else's failure to live up to their contractual obligations.
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...for a set visit. That's why THEY took it down, but it's still at Latino Review, Dark Horizons, and a host of other sites.
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Thank you. That's correct, but I can think of a film that did that sort of unreality coloring well, 'The Matrix'. By enhancing the green tones of the Matrix and making the real world in rich color, it was used to good effect, but most directors, etc. seem to focus on the stylistic elements within the Matrix portion of the movie, instead of the project as a whole.
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First of all, the father in the story THANKS the guy who shoots her, for shooting her. And you need to expand your definition of "misogynistic" to authorial manipulation. Just because an author creates a situation in which a raving lunatic bitch asks to get shot, and then does get shot, doesn't mean that the author suddenly stopped being the creator of that situation. He still designed a situation in which he, and his readers, could get off on a crazy bitch, who deserves to get shot, gets shot. Guess what, in a real life situation there are plenty of ways to defuse the ravings of a lunatic lady like that without shooting her, but King wasn't interested in that, he was interested in the satisfaction of watching the bitch get shot. King, the author, is misogynstic, and that situation was misogynistic. Sure, there were "good" women in the story, like that lady who has fuck time with the father, and that old lady with her shopping bag full of Raid, but they aren't exactly the focus the way THAT BITCH was, art they? Again, King created the situation, it didn't actually happen so that he could merely write it down. Thus ... misogyny, because since he created it, it could have gone down a million different ways than it did.
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That was great! I can't wait to see the movie. I love it when you write a good review.
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"AICN likes to use things like a NDA excuse as an "out" so they remove the material and make it seem like they had to, not that they wanted to." That may or may not be true-- I don't visit this site enough to know one way or the other-- but many of these studios and record labels (along with the MPAA and RIAA) treat the DMCA as their own personal little bludgeoning tool and fire off take-down notices (regardless of whether they have any legal basis or not) in the hope of intimidating people into doing what they can't legally require them to do. What's ironic is that the DMCA actually imposes rather harsh penalties for anyone caught abusing its provisions. One of these days, these folks are gonna mess with the wrong person and find themselves facing criminal charges. All that's a long way of saying that perhaps AICN takes stuff down (even when they're not legally required to) as a way of avoiding costly litigation where even if they win, they lose. In any event, it's a legal no-brainer that they aren't bound by their source's NDA with Paramount Pictures.
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...does not a misogynist make. If King had created the exact same character, except it made it a man instead of a woman, would that mean that King hates men? Or is it a one-way street with you? Every story has to have an antagonist or it's just boring. And since the antagonist has to be either male or female, then I guess every author is either a misogynist or a misandrist, huh?
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Discrimination and racism are different.
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AICN = Pussies
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And discrimination is not only a matter of the distribution of goods or services. According to Random House it's:
"treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit."
And according to the American Heritage Dictionary it's:
"Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice."
As you can see, the lines between discrimination and racism are fluid at best and can easily be bent to relativize and justify racism -- arguments which I have heard first hand from several people. -
Not that extremist Christians aren't a staple of left-leaning Hollywood, but my real complaint there is the extremist Christian baddy--very often female, very often fat--makes an appearance in so many of King's novels, that character gets boring. If I were to write a Stephen King novel, I would make it about monsters that attack a town, which provokes a crazed Christian fat woman to want to sacrifice all the children, but she and the monsters are both defeated by the mysterious powers of a dying child who can also read minds and see the future. Fortunately, a moderate succesful novelist with red hair so you know he's nothing like Stephen King will step up to show the other good, non-hyper-religious townspeople the truth about this magically powerful kid.
But, the Mist doesn't sound all that bad. Probably wait for DVD. -
...acting like this dancing Russian thing is something weird invented by Spielucas? Haven't you seen footage of Soviet soldiers celebrating winning battles against Nazi troops in WWII? How about from the celebration when Soviet and American soldiers met in Germany during the last stage of the war? It was nothing but wall-to-wall dancing Russians, vodka flowing like water and guys playing those weird little Slavic accordions.
Is this all you've got? That is some weak fucking hate-fu. Indy is going to own your asses next year.
Line up, bitches. -
...to your regular programming.
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Making the main antagonist a woman (if you are a man) is the definition of misogyny. Not by itself, of course. It could be a sympathetic antagonist, who one sees as a human being. But if the antagonist is a screeching loon, who is constantly slapped, told to shut up, and finally SHOT, that's misogyny. Sure, King may have other stories where this streak isn't evident. Many stories of his have loved characters who are female. Even Misery mixes the misogyny with affection for the female loony antagonist. But not in THE MIST. One key to my having any admiration for Darabont is whether or not he makes that woman a cartoon, or does something more with her than the novella did.
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The rumors indicate that it's unimaginatively retreading the basic plot for RAIDERS. Indy is after some magic artifact, and so are the Russians. Like someone has cut and pasted "Russians" over "Nazis". There's a real possibility this will be a heavy remake of RAIDERS in the same way ALIENS was a heavy remake of ALIEN. What worries me is that this Indy script will justify the viciousness of the U.S. Cold War behavior vs. the Soviets (with Indy as the U.S. stand-in) trying to amp up the popular WWII Nazis as all-purpose-baddies formula and applying it to a different era.
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Fiction means pretend, which means, what you like to "pretend" indicates what kind of person you are. "Pretending" to hate women means you probably actually do, since you like it so much. Stephen King likes "vagina"? Hey, he can like it all he wants, and still hate the person who owns it. King's misogyny likely is rooted in his fight with addiction to cocaine and alcohol. As he tried to quit (and failed) the woman in his life who was nagging him to quit became the enemy.
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This is what Indy does - he goes after artifacts which might have supernatural powers in order to bring them to museums but also for "fortune and glory, kid". In the process he finds himself battling the forces of darkness, which so far have been Nazis and religious cultists, and tends to make him see loftier goals in keeping the artifacts out of their hands. In this instance it's Soviet Communists he has to battle. In case you hadn't noticed, Communist regimes were responsible for tens of millions of deaths in the last century. They make perfect villains for Indy.
Again, weak hate-fu. -
Er, no, not in the slightest, actually. They're two VERY different films.
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There was this horrible show starring Tia Carrere called "Relic Hunter" which basically ripped off the plot for RAIDERS every week. It was weak. An exact, unimaginative retread will be weak. "That's what Indy does" is a very weak defense, almost as if you are the sort of person who reads Star Wars novels and think it's great that they pepper the story with dialogue like "I've got a bad feeling about this" and ends each novel with some space station blowing up. I've already seen RAIDERS. I don't need to see a cheap pulpification of the Cold War.
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Why not? You saw a cheap pulpification of Nazis in Raiders. Seriously, complaining about "pulpification" in an Indy film says a lot about where you're coming from - your own ass.
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And no, the slight differences (like the sexes of the characters) don't make it a totally different film, nor does the fact that most of the characters are military, instead of miners, make it a totally different film. Nor does replacing the cat with a little girl. Nor does making the Robot good, and a human the evil jerk who consider the crew expendable. Nor does Ripley's strapping on a huge Load Lifter suit before blowing the alien out the airlock make it totally different from her strapping on a spacesuit and blowing the alien out the airlock.
It looks like you'll be just fine with a Remake of RAIDERS. -
If that's all you saw in Alien and Aliens, which I have no doubt of, then you've pretty much invalidated all your feeble posturing in this talkback regarding King.
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There's a "panicky" guy, a sex reversal of the "panicky girl" (Lambert) in Alien. There's a tough remale Hispanic ethnic Marine with a skinny sidekick (Parker and Brett in the original) The evil corporate guy arranges for a dead face hugger to fall on one of the other characters (Ripley again, wasn't it?) Before Ripleys' final confrontation with the Big Momma Alien, she has to escape from a soon-to-explode area, only to find the Alien has hitched a ride and is with her. Totally different.
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...if that's all you saw in those films, then your comparisons mean shit. Even said comparisons are tenuous and ridiculous at best (Vasquez's "skinny sidekick"? WTF?)
I'm still laughing at your worries about Indy having a measure of "pulpification". -
The PaZooZ (TM bodet) is right, the two movies are nearly polar opposites in terms of atmosphere and story. And who is afraid of the pulpification of Indy? Is this TBer 12 years old? Does he even know what Indy is based on? BTW, I'd take a loony Christian over a loony Muslim anyday. At least the original Christ preached peace. The religion of Allah & Moe has very little in the way of tolerance.
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So it's okay to do an Indy style movie where Indy goes against evil moustache twirling Al Quaeda, or evil moustache twirling Democrats, or evil moustache twirling Environmentalists, or whoever you want to make a political statement against? Indy vs. Nazis was all right (unless you are German, in which case I think you might be reasonably upset) because for most of us that war is in the deep past ... like it happened on another planet, and it really doesn't impel us to start sharpening our sticks for whatever current war our government wants us to sharpen our stick for. (or maybe it does, but I like RAIDERS so I'll give it a pass for now). But the closer to our time such a story approaches, the more likely it will be for it to serve as propaganda, if the villains in the pulp story have real world counterparts (and Russia, as a power, still exists). Who knows, the Russians in this new movie may be bumbling good guys who help Indy defeat an evil Arabic supervillain. That won't be any better, though.
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Do the math. How long was it between the events in Raiders and 1981? 46 years. How long was it between the events of Indy 4 and 2008? 51 years.
Oh, and last I heard, raiders was a HUGE hit in Germany. It may come as a shock to you, but the overwhelming majority of Germans are not Nazis and can enjoy watching them getting their asses handed to them by Indiana Jones. -
It was only 18.5 million that got you ALIENS back in 1985/86. 18 million is all THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was budgeted for also. Hard to believe how shitty the films costing 175 million are these days.
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...in any movie is not okay. However, "pulpification" in a fucking pulp movie is.
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Look at the scene in ALIENS where the salvage team enters Ripley's escape ship. The shots of helmets reflecting viewscreens are directly lifted from the resuscitation scene at the beginning of ALIEN. The troop ship is pretty gritty and grimy (in line with the work space of the crew when landing the Nostromo in the first film). And 90% of the movie takes place on the same planet that the first one did, inside Alien encrusted corridors copying the same basic construction design of the first movie. The only major mood change is in the Marines yelling and shouting a lot from the get-go, instead of the quiet building panic of the original crew. And there's lots more gunfire and aliens going splat, but wtf... they DID have to change it up a bit.
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Most Germans did not participate willingly in the regime. Every German (as in real German, not G-American) I've ever known has been among the nicest people around.
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Since you find pulpy Communist villains in pulpy movies objectionable due to non-Communist Russia being a real-life power, would it have been okay to make said pulpy movie if Russian power had declined to third or fourth tier on the world's stage?
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She's the tough non-white character. Just like Parker was, the tough non-white character. Cameron did try to make it look like it wasn't a remake (and to give him credit, worked hard) but he worked off the ALIEN template, deliberately. So the "tough non-white" character is changed from black to hispanic, from male ot female. I already pointed out that The panicky guy (Hudson?) is a sex reversal of Lambert from the original. The panicky girl is turned into a panicky guy.
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Okay... so Parker, a big black guy, and Brett, a skinny, middle-aged white guy, both engineer/mechanics are totally the same people as machinegun-toting marines Vasquez, a short, muscular Hispanic woman, and Drake, a huge blonde lug.
Yep, I totally see your point. -
You forgot at least one other tough, non-white character in ALIENS -- Apone. But since everything in ALIENS was the same as ALIEN, only bigger and more, I guess two non-white toughies equates one tough non-white in the first movie, right?
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They were still Nazis, but except for Toht (sp?) the SS torturer, they mostly seemed like human beings. That helped make the movie work. And the fact that Germans loved RAIDERS (which I'm not surprised at at all) is just proof that the Nazis are distant enough in time for people to enjoy as villains without feeling personally smeared by them. Modern Germans probably felt no fear that the movie was trying to stir up Americans to attack Germany. Stalinist Russia may be distant enough in time for this movie to work the same way as the first one did (we'll have to wait and see). So, Point To You. (However, the Nazis were defeated, they are gone as a world power. Russia still exists, so it's not as pure a fantasy as the Nazis were in RAIDERS) However, the concern that it's uncreative, to just replace Nazis with Commies, is a valid one.
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They were both shot on film!!!
I see the light, thank you! -
Are you shitting me? They're perfectly cardboard characters, as befits a movie filled with "pulpification".
Russia still exists as a power, but nowhere near the level it had when it was part of the Soviet Union. Communist regimes were among the most murderous of the 20th century, along with the Nazis, which makes them fair game in a movie of this sort. Of any sort, actually, but maybe with less "pulpification" in other ones. -
Shocking I know. Plus the only thing "alien" had in common with Carter is that they were both in the dark alot. Carter's way of dealing with a savage Alien would be to sit there in a sweater at tell you to stay out of its way. Give me Rambo's way of dealing with the bitch any day over Peanut Head.
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In the 1950s, who the fuck else should Indy fight over artifacts which could change the course of history or shift the balance of power? In the 1930s and 1940s, it was Nazis and Fascists. In the 1950s the ONLY candidates worth considering are Soviet Communists.
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And I'm not saying it was a SHOT FOR SHOT remake, just that they took the basic template, including the character types, and changed them up, but you can still see the original character and plot elements they were working from. For instance, the Android in this one is Good (changed it up) but he still ends up dismembered and spitting white goo (just like in the original). The evil guy who considers them all expendable is human (changed it up) but he acts just like the Android from the first movie. So stop going on about the superficial (or even significant) differences. The point is that the differences were made by looking at the original and saying "How can we remake this and disguise it at the same time ... make it feel like ALIEN only different" And it's done mainly by making some elements bigger, some action scenes longer, more Aliens, a bigger suit for Ripley to fight the final Alien, and sex reversals for many of the crew to create "different" characters. Now, I'm not saying it didn't WORK, just that it wasn't extremely creative.
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because it has the Alien involved. Nothing Cameron could do about that. And that was a nice stretch comparing Velazquez to Lambert. I'm sure the Bruthas always appreciate being compared to a Latina.
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Every single one of them is dumber and more cartoony than the original characters in the original Alien.
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...(or even significant) differences.
Sure, as soon as you stop going on about the superficial similarities. -
Sep 19, 2007 7:02:08 PM CDT
No way Diggity. Aliens characters were all very well
by bringingsexyback
developed. You got to know them all, even Gorman's minor character (inexperienced desk jockey leader making the ultimate sacrifice) was more fleshed out than most of the characters in Alien. In many ways, it was a better ensemble movie than the first (certainly not a better movie overall, though).
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They were deliberate. Cameron wanted to make a hit. He needed to be as much like the original as he could, while adding more frenetic action and gunfire in the mode of his previous successful film "The Terminator".
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for those who care!!!!!
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You know this to be true. Or Guatemalans.
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I'll give them that much.
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That's another apt analogy.
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If Frank Darabont unimaginatively adapts King's novella beat for beat, it will be bad.
Aliens was, largely, a beat for beat remake of Alien.
If "Crystal Skull" is a beat for beat remake of RAIDERS, largely, (perhaps because of Darabont's script?) it will be disappointing (for me). I wait to see what he accomplishes with THE MIST. -
No one escapes the White Man. Not even white men.
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Word of advice: STOP.Just stop. You're making a fool out of yourself. Anyone clueless enough to claim that ALIENS is a remake of ALIEN or wants to bitch about the "pulpification" of Indiana Jones has NO credibility whatsoever. Zippy. "NoDiggity"? Yeah, no shit. For someone who just flat-out doesn't get it, your TB handle couldn't be more appropriate.FYI - from this moment forward, nothing you say will ever be taken seriously or be usable in a court of law ever again. EVER.
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Just like Brett was the white-guy sidekick to Parker (in ALIEN) Drake is the white-guy sidekick to Velazquez. And in both movies, guess who dies first? Right.
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I've been largely respectful of other posters (except for my joke about someone being an ignorant slut... that WAS just a joke) and I've been trying to explain my position. And your first contribution is to call me a "fool". Also, you seem to be threatening me with re-using Mr. Pazuzu's objections, which selectively ignore any points I make in order to highlight a phrase or two as "ridiculous" in future talkbacks? What kind of conversation are you promising? Endless harassment because I made some points to make, and because Pazuzu misses Memories Of Murder and needs a new obsession? Cut it out.
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That is all.
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But he seems really famous.
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Aren't they military mechanics of a sort? Isn't their job to rig demolition in their fight/flight at the colony? My memory is hazy, but if true, that's another parallel. Changed up, but based on the originals.
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Soylent who misses Memories of Murder, not you. Got you both mixed up.
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I'm just trying to do you a favor...before you bloom into a full-on ranting Troll.
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... then you could have had a sequel with all of them, or a TV series, or whatever, and they'd have different adventures and get chased by different aliens. But since almost all of them died, the kosher thing is to create new ones, not rehash the old ones. That's my point. Evil Commies aren't much different from Evil Nazis. I suppose if I complain about the new Indy movie, if it's similar to the hack-work used to create ALIENS, I'll be hit with the same objection "THE COMMIES AND THE NAZIS ARE DIFFERENT! COMMIES FOUGHT THE NAZIS YOU IDIOT!" I'm talking about plot structure and how the characters fit into it. Is it a law in talkbacks that no one can say "Hey, nice point, never thought of it that way before!" Jeez.
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Joking about me being a retard.
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????
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Of course ALIENS is a sequel. It's just that it's a sequel that's made in the way that many out-and-out remakes are, by copying as much as they can from the original, so they can be assured of retaining what made the original popular, and changing it up, disguising the ripoffs a bit. The word should be "requel" eh? How's that?
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Why WOULDN'T a sequel have some similarities? I guess ALIENS could have been a romantic comedy. Would that have been different enough for you?
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Aren't you even slightly annoyed that the end has Ripley escaping a place set to blow up (to destroy the aliens) only to find that an Alien has hitched a ride, and that she has to strap on a suit and blow the alien out of an airlock? That's not just a simple similarity, it's a point for point ripoff. Oh, don't forget that Ripley rescues the cat/little girl before she escapes the place about to go boom.
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In ALIENS, when they are waiting to be attacked, they suddenly realize the Aliens are underneath and above the floor they are on? Just like Tom Skerrit realizes that the alien is on a different level than what his instruments were telling him. They just transplanted the "Alien on different level than we expected" bit to involve more characters.
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I definitely see what you're saying. At least as far as the structure/story elements. But ALIENS has lots and lots of new and original things also, so the word "rehash" just doesn't apply.
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"Making the main antagonist a woman (if you are a man) is the definition of misogyny." Not according to any definition of the word that the rest of the English-speaking world uses. Merely creating a female antagonist doesn't make King a misogynist any more than creating male antagonists make J.K. Rowling or Anne Rice misandrists.
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ZOMG they really are the same movie!!!
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Please discuss ...
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Who's the racist now?
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What's your problem ...
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It makes sense, the man is sheer genius. And I think he's on to something more. In fact every movie is a loose remake of the Bible, how Apocalypse Now = Noah's Ark and Aliens = David and Goliath.
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Your refreshingly new and different views on cinema could be as groundbreaking as the Cahiers du Cinema writers were back in the 50s! Andre Bazin, eat your heart out! Here comes NoDiggity, a new and refreshing voice of reason (giggle). No shit, NoDiggity, you really should write this shit down for (pre-)posterity.
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I put my trust in you, Frank!
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Not "definition. Sorry for the confusion.
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Like the good MNG said, your credibility in talkbacks just went right out the window.
You're here debating ALIEN and ALIENS as if you are on familiar terms with the films, yet you don't know who Apone is?
Would you like me to fetch your slippers for you? -
You obviously don't want to discuss anything, just wait until your "opponent" (which I wasn't trying to be) admits to not knowing a detail about a movie, no matter what other points that person might make? There were two characters in ALIENS. One stood in for Tom Skerrit's character DALLAS (I think he was the Sergeant... Apone?) and the other was the second in command, a kinda military version of Ripley, who is the only one who listens to Ripley. (is that Gorman?) Anyway, while the original film let Ripley have feelings for Dallas, in this film she doesn't get along with the first in command at all, but the first in command ignores her, just as Dallas ignored her in the original. The second in command (Gorman?) is both the counterpart for Ripley and possibly the love interest (it's been a while since I've seen it). This Ripley counterpart is also the only person other than Ripley and Newt/Jones to survive. Or am I misremembering? He may have been the last to die. If you like you can help me out and share information (if you have it) instead of playing your insult game.
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Could you try it? Instead of yelling "Hah! You don't know whether Gorman died or not? No one can take anything you say seriously any more! I shall taunt you forever!" you could be polite, and volunteer any information you happen to have. Go on, be a mensch. You know you want to be good, not evil.
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As long as I'm getting the names right, for ALIENS, they took the characters of Dallas, made him into the Sarge (Apone?) who ignored Ripley's advice. They changed it up a bit by making him a total ass, who Ripley didn't like. They also created a new character as a counterpart for Ripley, who she liked, (Gorman?) who is second in command to Dallas/Apone, and succeeds him when he dies, just as Ripley did in the original film. He may or may not have survived the film,(I forget) but if he does, it parallels Ripley's own survival.
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Every time you type something, NoDiggity, God kills a kitten.
Just take five hours out of your busy schedule and rewatch ALIEN and ALIENS. This TB will still be here when you get back, I promise. -
You haven't watched either in a long time either, have you. Which is why you have nothing to contribute. Nice dodge. You are dismissed. I'll wait for someone else to reply, or watch "Aliens" some other day. I certainly am not going to run out and purchase it and watch it just to impress you.
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THE 1ST IN COMMAND: Dallas, the captain of the Nostromo, is
replaced by Lt. Gorman, the marine leader. Both are slipshod, ineffective
leaders whose bad decisions are partly responsible for deaths among their
men. Both ignore Ripley's good advice. Both mean well, but cannot handle
pressure, and panic at critical moments. Both are killed or KOed during
the 2nd monitored mission, leaving Ripley effectively in command.
THE SECOND IN COMMAND: As alien host, Kane is replaced by the
colonists (see above), but as second in command he is replaced by Sargeant
Apone, who holds this position among the marines. Apone, like Kane, is
the first significant character to die (Some non-descript marines die with
him, but they had no lines). Apone also becomes an alien host, but this
occurs off screen.
THE THIRD IN COMMAND: In Alien, Ripley was 3rd in command, and
took charge after Kane and Dallas died. For continuity reasons, Ripley
cannot hold this capacity among a squad of marines, so she is replaced in
this capacity by Corporal Hicks, who assumes command when his superiors
are KOed. Hicks functions as Ripley's marine shadow. He agrees with
everything she says and follows all her advice, making her the de facto
leader at this point. Interestingly, Hicks is the only marine to survive
to the end of the film. -
I guess you are good for something. But couldn't you have been nicer? You came into this conversation with "idiot" right from the beginning. Why was that necessary?
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...I'll take that bait. I bought the Quadrilogy set the same day it came out and watch all of them quite regularly. The reason I'm finding it difficult to debate this with you is that your conclusions are so inane that I can't really take them seriously. Seeing as how I actually debated Equinas last week and took up a contrary position to his favorable stance on horsefucking, you can see in what regard I hold your comparing of standard, superficial similarities between the two films, especially since by doing so, you have chosen to ignore huge thematic differences between ALIEN and ALIENS, not to mention how differently -- and brilliantly -- they mirror the times in which they were created, something which also holds true for ALIEN 3 and, to a certain extent, Alien Resurrection.
The fact is, you use - for example - ethnicity when it suits you (Brett/Parker vis-á-vis Vasquez/Drake) but ignore it when you're looking for other pedantic shit (Dallas vis-á-vis Apone/Gorman) to hang your tiny hat on.
Again, do yourself a favor and rewatch them before coming back. -
...is I can't take you seriously since you're still the guy who fears too much "pulpification" in Indiana Jones.
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You are objecting because, when I point out that similar characters sometimes have their ethnicity or sex changed to disguise them, that I can only be right if they change ALL of them in the same way? Why would Cameron want to change them all in the same way if he were rewriting the original script? And you don't find it significant that Dallas/Gorman is first in command, Kane/Apone is second in command AND FIRST SIGNIFICANT CHARACTER TO DIE(The anonymous grunts don't count), and Ripley/Hicks are third in command, AND HICKS SURVIVES THE FILM, just like Ripley?
Is all you have left the "pulpification" of Indiana Jones? It was the pulpification of the Cold War I didn't like, as I said. But I suppose that's going to be your mantra from now, if we run across eachother "Pay no mind to NoDiggity, he doesn't like pulpification in Indiana Jones! What a maroon!" I really don't like you. Was that your intent? To be unliked? -
Who is "Equinas" and how does your debate with him about "horsefucking" have anything to do with this conversation?
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Do I know you? Do you dislike me for some reason? What is it?
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It is really funny how far left liberals throw the term "Nazi" around for just about everything they don't like or understand, when truth be told if they were calling the shots back in WW2 the Nazis
would have pretty much taken over the world. But instead, they were just to blame for oh, about 30 million deaths for not acting soon enough. Sleep better with that knowledge, moonbats. -
I don't know about Aliens/Alien, but Superman Returns was definitely a remake of something ... I just can't place it ...
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that the President who led the US into WWII, and to victory, was a Democrat. Shhhh ... don't say anything, just let him sink in his own stupidity.
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Uwe Boll would be world leader right now and there would never have been any Indiana Jones and Woody Allen movies.
Thank God for the Democrats. -
I didn't give a shit about what you were saying until that Aliens shit.....I hope all of your children have very small penises, especially the girls! Fuckwit.
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Sep 20, 2007 7:23:58 AM CDT
If Bush was President he would let millions of Africans
by bringingsexyback
die in a needless genocide. Oh wait!!!!
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Sep 20, 2007 7:33:23 AM CDT
Jesse Jackson says the march in Jena is like the march
by bringingsexyback
in Selma. Jesse Jackson attended the same class on logic as NoDiggity.
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complete with Ernie Hudson as Token Black Guy.
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and just as ugly.
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Okay... I've been watching this one for a couple of days --and though late to the game-- I must comment.
People keep bringing up the "pulpification" comment because of the depth of it's stupidity. No, I'm not calling Nodiggity stupid, but the comment was awfully goddamn dumb. Like complaining that a superhero movie was too "comic-bookish". One comment can indeed nullify other opinions... some would probably accuse me of this, for sticking up for a horsefucker.... no, I can't let that one go either... best talkback ever.
Nodiggity: I get your point on Aliens being a remake of the first movie --I think your very very wrong-- but I get it. I guess it's the extent of your dismissal of the second movie that turns people against you. I love Alien, but I LOVE Aliens. I see some of the similarities you have pointed out, but I think the ones that I agree with, were intentional. The entire point of the movie was, "What? No fucking way, this is happening again?" Which I might add, is done in most sequels. Cheap? Maybe, but I think it's the nature of beast. It's the way you seem offended by it on a personal level that is confusing people. I think. But again, I stood up for the horse fucker.
Also, I might add, I think anytime someone starts throwing around the word misogynistic, people's eyes start to glaze over... To play that particular card, you've got to have a good defense for it... and I think yours was pretty weak. King made her a woman so he's a misogynist. Uh, okay.... I just hope using that shit gets you laid by a couple of the "gals" in you Woman's Studies class down at the community college. I know it worked pretty well back in the day. -
with today's far-left, moveon.org moonbats as Martin Luther King does with Louis Farrakhan. A big hand for BringingSexyBack, once again demonstrating little or no nuance in his thought process. Be sure to tip your waitress on the way out folks!
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while surmising Jimmy Carter's approach to non-existent terrorism as akin to a "sweater-knitter". That's a big WTF right there. And then topping it off by calling him Peanut Head. Not classy.
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I thought Peanut Head was little rough, but i recall he grew them on a farm, so i thought, what the hell, go for it.
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Kathy Bates has mustard on her vagina and it is a lure for small third world kids, so she can eat them. FTB bitches. BTW The Mist is going to fucking rule
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Then I can rest assured that anything he doesn't like, I probably will. Takes all kinds. If he ends up liking The Mist, I'll be sure to avoid it. ;)
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Short Circuit is the greatest film ever made! Fuck you very much.
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You can't handle the truth, trolls.
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I came in here to talk about "The Mist." It's one of my favorite short stories by Stephen King. I hope Frank knocks it out of the park. Um...uh...why does everyone look so pissed? Man, would you look at the time? I gotta go.
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Nodiggity lives inside of it with remake aliens that pulpify his woman-hating indy-hole
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The powerloader in Aliens was Parker's fork in Alien. It was just an upgrade. In fact, that first baby alien wanted to eat Frank's salad, that's why he whispers "get away from her you bitch" (You can read his lips). O and Jonesy was upgraded to Newt. Twat.
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Fuck you.
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The most you can hope to get out of a horror film is that it can make you jump, but for the most part you forget about it the minute you leave the theater. I can't remember the last horror film I actually thought about late at night after seeing the film. They're instantly disposable. Hopefully Mist will change this trend.
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its really sad that you can't just make a homeless dad reference and leave it at that. why the fuck didn't anybody watch that show...or maybe more people watched it than you think.
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did you know that 9 out of 10 muslims prefer yellow cake as oposed to chocolate and 4 out of 5 muslims use crest?
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Sadly the last movie the scared me, and stayed with me after I left the theatre was The Exorcist, and that was how many years ago??
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When I was a little kid, Hitchcocks The Birds freaked me out, and I wanted to sleep with a light on that night. My brother said, don't you remember, didn't they say they thought the birds were attracted to light? Evil little bastard.
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And just because I see that one is based upon the other, doesn't mean that I don't recognize that Cameron took some effort to create a different character, just that he was so afraid to mess with the success of the original movie that he made sure almost EVERY element was based on an original element. In creating Newt, he first looked at the original film, noted that the film had a small creature that Ripley loved and went out of her way to rescue before the Nostromo is blown up, and decided that having another cat would be too OBVIOUS a ripoff. So he created Newt, another small person that Ripley love and goes out of her way to rescue. Newt even acts like the cat did ... as you remember the cat was spooked and ran away initially, and Newt was similarly scared and had to be chased in order to rescue her. If your argument is A LITTLE GIRL AND A CAT ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT, YOU MORON, you are being a moron. I never said they were different, just that Newt was created by a boring insistence on the writer(s) part that something like the cat had to be in there, for Ripley to feel about in the same way, and for her to rescue before the nuke-attempt to destroy the Alien(s)
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Hey! You're back! Yes, sequels inevitably invite the "familiar but different" comparison, but your insistence that Aliens is a creative remake of Alien stretches credibility. I understand your finale reference...the countdown timer, the stowaway alien, the airlock..but, the devils in the details, as the old saying goes. For instance your Jones/Newt comparison. In Alien, Jones was a device to create tension, and a "gotcha" shock effect. Much like the red herring scare in a haunted house movie. Newt, on the other hand was created to illustrate that despite the mass destruction on the outpost, someone was able to outthink the aliens. Her character also brought out not only a protective, but a maternal side in Ripley. Up to this point in the series, she was the hard ass, who could be as tough as any male character. Newt brought out the feminine aspects in Ripleys character, as their sweet little scene in the infirmary confirms. Its not by coincidence that the battle at the finale is between the alien QUEEN revenging the death of her offspring, and Ripley protecting her "offspring". I know it wasn't in the theatrical release, but there was a scene in the extended version with Ripley viewing a photo of her own daughter, who died long before her rescue. I see what you're trying to do, I just think you are splitting hairs. Thematically the two couldn't be farther apart. Alien was a haunted house in outer space (I think Scott even referred to it as much), whereas Aliens was a war picture, akin to the Vietnam era. The marines thinking they are going on an easy bug hunt, outmanned and outmanuveured by their enemy, unprepared for the slaughter they encounter.
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It had a beautiful beginning, but once the monsters showed up it was tedious. There were supposed to be 60 or so people in the supermarket, but you got the feeling that there were only 5 or six. The story had all the earmarks of King-gone-bad. When King stories go bad, they lose sympathy for the characters in them, and you get the feeling that the author is on the side of the monsters, not the people. "Look at these stupid repulsive idiots, now watch them die." The whole story is a repeat of the Horror movie cliche about characters stupidly walking into the maw of the monster(s). King leans too heavily on the Lovecraftian idea of Horrors that Drive Men Mad, and has most of his characters drinking, or suiciding, or stupidly refusing to believe the existence of the monsters, because their minds won't accept the intrusion into normal reality. That gets old really fast, and if it's filmed faithfully will be really irritating, unless Darabont gets creative with the monsters and the kills, in a super shlock gore-fest, (for those fans who appreciate such). I for one, can't imagine a movie based faithfully on this story that will be able to outdo John Carpenter's THE THING. In fact, why not go out and rent John Carpenter's THE THING? I guarantee you Carpenter has already blown Darabont's attempt away. And Carpenter is a humanist, not a Hater, the way King was when his stories were bad (paradoxically, when he was good he could be the most loving writer, regarding his characters). Carpenter would never create a Mrs. Carmody, let alone spend effort bringing her to life, because Mrs. Carmody is a cartoon repulsive bitch created merely to get off on killing her. How badly the story fails is that it focuses more on hating Mrs. Carmody than in fearing the monsters outside. And Moriarty's comparison of this story to the "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" does a disservice to that Twilight Zone episode. A good story would make the reader understand how he/she might succumb to insanity in the face of fear. THE MIST doesn't reach for that, it just arouses contempt for other people who succumb to insanity in the face of fear.
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Well I was. I thought of the most stupid unequivalent pair of elements and yet you actually went on and tried to sell us that crap. Skimm said it all, though. If Newt and the cat are the same to you, then fuck it. I give up. Good luck enjoying movies, man.
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A little girl is not the same as a cat. However, the creation of the little girl was based on the cat. They both serve the same role in their relationship to Ripley.
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As for Newt "bringing out the feminine qualities in Ripley", for God's sake, that's what Jonesey did in the original film. It's only "maternal" because they changed it up to make Jones into a little girl, and then felt the need to give a few whacks at Ripley and the kid interacting. Regarding Newt's survival in the alien infested colony, the movie never satisfactorily explains HOW she survived. It remains utterly implausible. What does that tell me? It tells me that Newt's presence in the film is because she MUST be there, as a replacement for the cat in the first movie, not because her existence makes any sense. In the first movie Jones exists because he's a pet. He survives because the Alien is too busy attacking the crew. No such explanation exists for Newt's survival until she's rescued. Thus, her existence in the movie is far more likely to be, first and foremost, the necessity for another Cat, because the first one had it. If the first movie had had no cat, I bet you there would have been NO Newt, or any need to establish a "motherhood" theme around Newt's character. I agree that the biggest change-up Cameron introduced was all the shouting and machinegunning, but for me, when I walked out of ALIENS I felt cheated. I wanted a continuing story, not a movie that told me the same story as before, with dumber characters and dumber dialogue.
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... the grownups are talking.
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For making me do this while I should 0be working. Jonesy plays not the same function as Newt you dumbass. Tell me where is Jonesy the only survivor of a previous attack that let everybody know what to do. Tell me where is Jonesy a great element to establish tension and character. (Paxton "Then let's put her in charge!") Tell me where the hell does Ripley decide to go back into a fucking nest to rescue Jonesy, and where does Jonesy play the key element between the clash of two "mothers" protecting their offspring. And for the love of God tell me where the fuck are my tears when Jonesy calls Ripley "mom". Quit reading Syd Field and pretend you know how to analyse movies. I think even if you were talking about DESPERADO or fucking EVIL DEAD 2, we could still beat the living shit out of you in an argument. Even the HORSEFUCKER had some people on his side, for chrissake.
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Yeah, I had tears in my eyes when the Mother alien paused over her fried offspring, and bellowed a mournful alien weeping sound. Give me a break. (hint: No such scene exists.) The Mother Alien existed simply to provide a Big Bad for the end of the movie, so Ripley could fight a Bigger Alien, while wearing a Bigger Suit, next to a Bigger open Airlock. Her "nest" existed so we could have a repeat of the alien egg field scene from the original movie. God damn.
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Thanks for that. You're absolutely right, of course. Also, on the excellent documentary on the ALIENS DVD James Cameron himself states he used an original screenplay he had as the basis for ALIENS. Said script was called MOTHER and yes, it had pretty much everything you and me see in Aliens, and the idiot Nodiggity fails to acknowledge. Because Newt is Jonesy. Go figure. Oh and Nodiggty, yes, I had tears in my eyes. But when Newt (previously Jonesy) wraps her arms around Ripley and says "Mommy!". Although she might have said "Meeaow" now that I've read your arguments.
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set it like The Stand but elements of the fog mixed in with the Mist and Maximum Overdrive
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At first I thought it said Unicron, so obviously I was thinking Orson Welles, then I wondered if it would be the same size as the planet Jupitor, and then I realized Alien 3 was a remake of Ben Hur.
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First of all, there is no way Cameron's "original" script was done without his watching the original Alien movie over and over so he could get all the beats from it into his own "original" movie. There's too many point for point parallels. And who says Cameron isn't intelligent? It took a certain amount of intelligence to do a point for point ripoff like that and manage to fool so many people into thinking it was a new movie. As for his predeliction for Woman Warrior figures, of course. That's probably why he took on this project, because he liked Women Warriors. He gets no points for originality for having woman warrior Ripley show up in a sequel to Alien. And, sure, it's Cameron's affinity for women warriors that lends to a child being the cat replacement instead of a dog, and he could have made the cat replacement a small boy, but went with small girl (another woman warrior) instead. Absolutely, Cameron's taste is all over ALIENS. But it's still a ripoff in it's plotting, and timid in it's character designs.
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He wouldn't.
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I love me some Stephen King, I've been reading his books since I was 11 and watching his movies even earlier.
I also haven't seen a decent horror movie in ages.
Also SK299 I can't believe it but I did read every word of your comment. Interesting view but IMO good directors/writers will break through. It might be easier now for mediocre ppl to get involved, and there might be fewer ppl with true original voices but there'll always be some decent talent in movies. -
I feel sad.
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I was originally just going to scan the first paragraph or two but found myself drawn into reading the whole review, and I enjoyed it very much. BTW, I too am a longtime Wrightson fan. I can't wait to see how they bring to life his illustrations. I can tell very clearly from your review that THE MIST genuinely got you excited, and that makes me feel excited to see it.
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...that NoDiggity has never seen the director's cut of ALIENS. He's completely ignoring the aspect of the story where Ripley finds out that while she was asleep in space for almost 60 years her daughter had grown up and died on Earth. Yes, Newt is a surrogate, but for Ripley's dead daughter -- not the fucking cat from the first movie. Unless of course NoDiggity would have us believe that Ripley missed her daughter so much in ALIEN that she treated Jones like her offspring.
Christ, what a load of desperate, pedantic and inaccurate horseshit. -
to James Cameron, why did he cut it out of the theatrical version? It obviously was NOT that important to him, was it. Pazuzu, I wasn't saying the Newt was a cat-surrogate for Ripley-the-character, I'm saying Newt was the cat-surrogate for Cameron the writer. I know all about the director's cut scene. It makes no difference to the origins of the character, which was to fit into the gap in the script where Jonesey was. Because Newt, no matter you much you try to bend over backwards worshipping Cameron's "originality" still is shoved into that hole in the script where Jonesey was.
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Whatever you say about Newt being her own character, the script for the original ALIEN came first. Thus, Cameron looked at the script first, and then made changes. Sure, the kinds of changes he made were his own, Cameron-type changes, but Newt being in the story (instead of the cat) works even if we don't know about Ripley's daughter. Why? Because Ripley's daughter is learned about in the small part of the movie that's original, prior to the return to Acheron, which is where the script is an almost complete copy. The need for a cat-replacement was concieved first, as Cameron worked over the original script and copied it, THEN came the idea to replace the cat with a little girl, THEN the idea of Ripley's daughter, which was put into the beginning of the movie to add an extra dimension to it, but which wasn't really important enough for the theater.
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1) If you knew anything about the gestation of ALIENS and why certain cuts were made before theatrical release and why the director's cut is considered by virtually everyone as the definitive version of the film, you wouldn't even ask that question.
2) If you don't consider a reinstated scene as relevant to this discussion, then why did you mention Apone's (still) off-screen "impregnation" as a factor?
You've got nothing, NoDiggity.
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... it just is irrelevant to the origins of the character. Just because, AFTER the need to create a Jonesey replacement was fulfilled, a backstory was created to add poignancy to Ripley's relationship with Newt was created, has no relevance. You and others pretend that Cameron started with this, and wrote a script that only coincidentally puts this surrogate daughter for Ripley into the script in the exact same place Jonesey the cat was. That's ridiculous. The similarities in the script indicate that the ALIENS script started with the script for ALIEN and worked those elements into it, not the reverse. He didn't say "I want it to be about Ripley and her daugher and a little girl ... what? You mean we can put that in the place where Jones the cat was in the script? Wow, smack me with a giant Carrot, how convenient!"
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Later.
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I assume you're very pleased with the screenwriting course you're currently enrolled in, but you're not getting your money's worth.
I will bet you virtually anything that you can name any film and its immediate sequel -- no matter how different they are -- and I will be able to gaze into my navel long enough until I pick out just as many "similarities" as you have regarding ALIEN and ALIENS. It doesn't, however, mean that they are real enough to prove what you're claiming, or that they invalidate everything else that makes the films very different in fundamental ways. -
Hopefully the last word on this subject. I'm totally suprised you did not share screen credit with Cameron, since you were supposedly over his shoulder while he wrote the screenplay. Good night and good luck.
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I know this is late, and therefore likely to not be read- butYOU'RE TALKING UTTER SHITE. HOW CAN YOU NOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN A SEQUEL AND A REMAKE? ARE YOU STUPID?
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