I’m rereading The Stand, which I haven’t read in about 17 years, and had forgotten how good it is and how much I remembered. The scene with Frannie and her mother in the calendar? Instantly remembered the clock ticking and the rose-patterned carpet. Incredible the things that stick with you, but that scene is great.
― hyds (gyac), Tuesday, 18 February 2020 08:11 (four years ago) link
The Outsider is feeling a lot like The Dark Half 2
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 01:48 (four years ago) link
i watched the whole thing even though it felt pretty dumb. it's almost pulled off by the strong cast. but the whole show is so incredibly dark (visually) and then they have the entire climax take place in a cave, good luck figuring out what's happening.
― na (NA), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:06 (four years ago) link
every new HBO drama is required to have a climactic sequence take place in near-complete blackness. budgetary restrictions, what can you do?
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:07 (four years ago) link
i thought mare winningham in particular was excellent in it, plus a lot of the supporting cast was interesting (i particularly liked the private detective with the mustache). too bad about the plot and pace.
― na (NA), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:10 (four years ago) link
IMO, this was the closest an adaptation has come to replicating the pacing of a King novel. Ten hours seems about right, just enough time to let the thing breathe and to let the audience live with the characters and situations before the carnage begins in earnest.
― Waifu-ed Around and Fell in Love (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:11 (four years ago) link
I kinda think that may be a key element missing from many of the less successful King adaptations. You don't really get time for the low-key domestic texture which is imo one of his strong suits.
― Waifu-ed Around and Fell in Love (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:13 (four years ago) link
I was very into the vibe of the descent into the cave, it felt like how the endings of the two It movies might have felt if muschietti was good not bad
― Garu you just posted flange (wins), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 14:37 (four years ago) link
Xpost
Yeah, in 11-22-63 the low-key hangout parts are really enjoyable. It’s a bit like Better Call Saul - you don’t want the plot to move forward because you know something bad will happen as a result
I thought this was (mostly) a pretty excellent adaptation - like you say, I don’t think I’ve seen another adaptation do King’s trademark “slow descent into weirdness” quite so effectively
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 15:02 (four years ago) link
Though admittedly some of it has been very silly (which is also very King)
― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 15:03 (four years ago) link
A play in three acts. pic.twitter.com/5hs3n1Kyfc— Dr. Jennie Bujold🌹🏳️🌈 (@JennieBujold) June 28, 2020
― calzino, Sunday, 28 June 2020 23:54 (three years ago) link
author of Insomnia is woke go figure
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, 29 June 2020 18:36 (three years ago) link
Enormous list of every book king has blurbed, but I seriously doubt each blurb is for every individual book, most are probably general praise for the writer or for previous books? I'm certainly not reading each one to find out.https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4816194-debra?shelf=sai-king-recommends
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 17 July 2020 22:51 (three years ago) link
ha. I know James Ellroy says he never actually read any of the books he blurbed, but King mentions so many other writers in his books and interviews that I believe he reads all this stuff.
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Friday, 17 July 2020 23:12 (three years ago) link
A friend of mine wrote a book King blurbed, and King not only follows him on Twitter but replies to him and occasionally quotes or RTs him, so that makes me think he's honest about what he claims to like.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 18 July 2020 00:46 (three years ago) link
Even more impressive is that those "reviews" aren't all blurbs, a lot of them are just books he's mentioned in tweets and in Danse Macabre. Unless his tweets get used on books?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 18 July 2020 00:54 (three years ago) link
From what I have always understood, Stephen King has always been a voracious reader.
― earlnash, Saturday, 18 July 2020 01:42 (three years ago) link
When you're on day 3 of a coke bender, you've got to do something to fill the time.
― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, 18 July 2020 01:44 (three years ago) link
Reading _The Institute_. Some of the Holocaust refs are a bit heavy handed, but I never expected Walter Rauff’s name to get dropped.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rauff
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Sunday, 22 August 2021 03:52 (two years ago) link
Also took me quite a bit to realize that Mrs Sigsby is a ref to Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Sunday, 22 August 2021 03:57 (two years ago) link
i havent read that one - let me know if it’s any goodi just started Billy Summers, supposedly a crime novel… i like the premise so far, we’ll see!though it is set in Red Bluff, which is v funny to me bc it is literally like northern california’s own “nowhere usa” (though ok fine that describes a lot of northern california)
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 22 August 2021 05:57 (two years ago) link
nobody watching the jerusalem lot teevee show?
― think “Gypsy-Pixie” and misspelled. (We are a white family.) (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 22 August 2021 17:46 (two years ago) link
what channel/service is it on?
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 22 August 2021 18:46 (two years ago) link
epix, lolhttps://www.syfy.com/syfywire/chapelwaite-stephen-king-epix-series-interview
― think “Gypsy-Pixie” and misspelled. (We are a white family.) (forksclovetofu), Sunday, 22 August 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link
I promise I will eventually watch all Stephen king shite, not up for series rn tho (there is also a prestigey liseys story show by pablo larraín with a great cast but man that book is so bad) Billy summers is v down-the-line, I enjoyed it quite a bit with the usual set of peeves. Reminded me of wizard & glass & 11/22/63, king is quite good at “dude with a secret mission insinuates himself into a community” - there is a big plot turn I don’t really like, also a shining reference that is the laziest fucking pandering even by the increasingly low standards of king “Easter eggs”Also wow this guy can let his imagination run riot for half a century and yet will never conceive of the possibility that fat people are human beings huh
― siffleur’s mom (wins), Sunday, 22 August 2021 20:26 (two years ago) link
Hi I’m new to this thread. Anyone watching the show in Apple TV+?
― Hitsville Ukase (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 22 August 2021 20:37 (two years ago) link
I am not.
I did watch both seasons of Castle Rock, enjoyed the pastiche stuff in the beginning, but S2 was a lot less fun and just kinda bizarre/disappointing at the end
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Monday, 23 August 2021 05:56 (two years ago) link
Yeah I haven’t watched the Annie season of that yet. Liked the first arc a lot.
― covidsbundlertanze op. 6 (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 24 August 2021 14:14 (two years ago) link
Molly, aka the Thing of Evil, joins the Children of the Corn. pic.twitter.com/STvcGIzXcl— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 27, 2021
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Saturday, 28 August 2021 09:57 (two years ago) link
ugh ok Billy Summers was a dud for meenjoyed the first third, but after the dumb wtf plot twist with the girl i hate-read the rest of it
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 30 August 2021 03:42 (two years ago) link
Jamie Lee Curtis connects Halloween and Stand By Me
https://www.fangoria.com/podcasts/the-kingcast/86-stand-by-me-with-jamie-lee-curtis/
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Thursday, 7 October 2021 00:46 (two years ago) link
So who's been watching Midnight Mass?
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Thursday, 7 October 2021 07:41 (two years ago) link
I’m 4 episodes in. Feels so much like a King adaptation that I came here looking for discussion. It’s schlocky, low-cal, and overwrought, like pretty much everything King has written. Also like King, it’s oddly effective even as you roll your eyes at the B-movie monsters in rubber suits. All that wordy heart-to-heart stuff in the middle of a small town possessed by a Nameless Evil.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Sunday, 28 November 2021 06:50 (two years ago) link
Unlike King (but, alas, very like most King movies), it doesn’t succeed in sucking you into the horror. Riley & Erin feel like they’re living alongside, not within, the scary part. King at his best can make the most mundane everyday stuff seem fraught with dread. I actually kinda feel like I’d like this better if it was just a miniseries about these ordinary people in this dying community and the 2 youngish ones coming back to come to terms with their tragic backstories and the place that spawned them — leaving all the boogeyman stuff out of it.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Sunday, 28 November 2021 07:00 (two years ago) link
Have thought that about king tv adaptations for a while!
The Outsider was excellent as a mystery with a hint of supernatural and somewhat humdrum in plot (still excellently cast, played, shot tbh) once we had found out what the cause was (wont spoiler just in case but its as lazily predictably done as anything king has written in his career, they practically look it up in a library and say "wow thats absolutely implausible but it could be this" and it is and thats that)
― fix up luke shawp (darraghmac), Sunday, 28 November 2021 14:38 (two years ago) link
Fourth Dark Tower book is a bit of a drag, could do without King describing a teenager masturbating ever again.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 20 January 2022 18:43 (two years ago) link
Just wait until you read the next three. You’ll look back fondly on this oneS
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 20 January 2022 18:49 (two years ago) link
I am 100% out after this one, if I don’t abandon ship early.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:02 (two years ago) link
― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:11 (two years ago) link
My only direct IT experience is the detour in the Kennedy book.
The existence of… that scene is impossible for me to comprehend.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:16 (two years ago) link
could do without King describing any sex act ever again
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:19 (two years ago) link
Fair. The demon sex scene in the third book was even worse in its own way.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:20 (two years ago) link
The teenage masturbation content of It is great (also horrific and homophobic, what’s great about that novel is also what’s terrible about it)
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:21 (two years ago) link
xp that scene is the worst imo
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:23 (two years ago) link
Isn't "Steven King" just a collective at this point?
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:24 (two years ago) link
James Patterson is a load of writers hooked up to those matrix pods, king’s books seem consistently the product of the same weirdo
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:29 (two years ago) link
FFS "Stephen"
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:30 (two years ago) link
yeah, there have been SK imitators over the years but no one could quite bring the crazy like he does
― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:37 (two years ago) link
aside from wtf sex stuff, on a purely supernatural/horror level he’s still one of the best at creating tension & getting a reader to suspend disbelief - something about the familiarity of his characters & their lives, he’s v good at putting the reader in a time/place & giving plenty of room for you to get to know characters. incredibly patient with his pacing imo
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 20 January 2022 19:46 (two years ago) link
― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 20 January 2022 20:01 (two years ago) link