the original is bad. like tim curry is amazing. it's interesting for me to watch because it was filmed in vancouver including a shot on a street i walked every day for a year or so that was like a half a block from my old apartment. that's about it.
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:29 (seven years ago) link
but terrible adaptation of a great, scary book
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:30 (seven years ago) link
i think the first half of the miniseries is pretty good. second half is woof
― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson), Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:30 (seven years ago) link
Ugh yes. I also saw as a kid (for some weird reason) and its resonance is entirely down to the kids + curry
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:32 (seven years ago) link
many xposts!
Young Henry bowers felt genuinely menacing when I first watched although he's just a mean tiny 11 year old with funny hair/music cues, even at the time I thought his adult counterpart was a joke
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:36 (seven years ago) link
Nothing beats the chapter in which he describes all the people who were immune to the superflu but died via their own misfortune or through terrible accidents.
I think I said this here or in another SK thread but I love his writing about shit hitting the fan and society falling apart and going to hell, he does that really well. This part of the Stand was great as it was just piling on the chaos and misery.
I also want to know what experience he had as a child with a homeless person - there are crazed hobos who accost people in It and 11/22/63 and the whole murdering-and-burying homeless people thing in Apt Pupil.
― joygoat, Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:55 (seven years ago) link
Prominent quote on back of IT calls it the Moby-Dick of horror. Seems about right.
― The Thnig, Thursday, 30 March 2017 19:57 (seven years ago) link
It's definitely a novel that is trying to put everything in. Idk about Melville but it seems like the ultimate 80s maximalist horror, cocaine and AIDS and the 1950s and a nightmare on elm st
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:01 (seven years ago) link
ctrl-f "wtf with that gangbang" not found
― kurt schwitterz, Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:05 (seven years ago) link
it's been covered
me I'm still holding out for a film version
Bev: guys I have an ideaDISCREET CUT OR MAYBE DISSOLVE (Awkward zipping up scene)
Everyone: *doesnt speak for 30 years*
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:11 (seven years ago) link
I'm a big fan of It because it seemed a marvellous Moby Dick type epic when I was 13, and it scared the shit out of me. But I've never had this coulrophobia thing, more scared of giant spiders, pan-dimensional ancient aliens and Henry Bowers types. I went to school with a Henry Bowers type who is doing life for multiple murders.
Lol! I read that post of Wins; that his viewing of the 90's It mini-series was enhanced by having a Jalfrezi while watching it!
This movie does look ok so far, but they should have done a mini-series with the adults as well, and at least try and do it justice this time.
― calzino, Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:26 (seven years ago) link
I went to school with a Henry Bowers type who is doing life for multiple murders.
Yargh.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:27 (seven years ago) link
do a ctrl-f for "magic punani"
― Rachel Luther Queen (DJP), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:29 (seven years ago) link
DJP's adaptation is clearly the one that needs to happen.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:31 (seven years ago) link
ani get your pun
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:42 (seven years ago) link
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, March 30, 2017 1:11 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
wikipedia so eloquently describes this beautiful passage:
After the battle, the victorious but badly shaken Losers begin to lose cohesion and get lost in the sewers, until Beverly has sex with all the boys to bring unity back to the group.[2] The Losers then swear a blood oath to return to Derry should It return in the future.
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:44 (seven years ago) link
Salem's Lot is definitely King's best book, and I love The Stand (the original 70s version, not the bloated reissue); I don't really like his coked-up 80s books, It included. Some of his recent work - Duma Key, Under the Dome, and 11/22/63 - is really solid, too.
― Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Violent J (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:51 (seven years ago) link
We have a couple of really good king poll threads and tbh I'd need to read them to even be sure which of his books I'd put top 5
The one that dare not speak it's name: hearts in Atlantis. Ya i said it. And i liked insomnia.
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:55 (seven years ago) link
Duma Key gets legit scary in the middle; Under The Dome is great for about 3/4 but holy shit he whiffs the ending HARD
― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:57 (seven years ago) link
apropos of nothing I just really need to say
beep beep richie
Oh, and Revival was good, too. I read Mr. Mercedes but didn't like it enough to read either of the two(!) sequels.
― Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Violent J (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, 30 March 2017 20:59 (seven years ago) link
I thought Hearts in Atlantis had a few moments, but yeah it ultimately seemed like what it was: some discarded attempts retrieved and stitched together.
I recently finished (finally) Dreamcatcher, discussed on another thread. That one's wretched.
― You're going to see a lot of love. Okay? Thank you. (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 30 March 2017 21:01 (seven years ago) link
I read Salem's Lot recently and was bit let down. The way he constructs this panoramic view of the town is fantastically executed, but it just wasn't as creepy as I had hoped.
― Moodles, Thursday, 30 March 2017 21:03 (seven years ago) link
spoilers for under the dome
Under the dome is his bleakest darkest comedy, like a better needful things, and I love the extreme deployment of the standard king "everything blows up" ending and wish he hadn't already played his one-time metatextual copout card with the dark tower because that would have been an amazing and dark substitute for the standard interdimensional lovecraftian copout card
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Thursday, 30 March 2017 21:04 (seven years ago) link
the stand is his best, overall, though it falters toward the end when it becomes super obvious where everything is leading but king insists on dragging every parallel plotline out foreeeeevveeerrrr. it is great too, but i'd put the long walk in 2nd for the reasons mentioned by old lunch. burned a hole in my brain as a teen. hasn't been mentioned much, but the shining ranks up there with it, misery and salem's lot.
gonna get around the catching up w/ the dark tower series one of these days. dug the first book. more streamlined and self-consciously "literary" than anything else he's published under his own name. understand that the later installments are closer to his typical style tho...
― Balðy Daudrs (contenderizer), Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:25 (seven years ago) link
Dark Tower is dope, flaws be damned
― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:31 (seven years ago) link
And i liked insomnia.re-read that one last year and was surprised how much I enjoyed it this time. The first Mr. Mercedes sequel is really good, more like his better Bachman work. The plot is kicked into motion by a guy stealing, at gunpoint, all the unpublished works of a reclusive Salinger-esque author.
― Lauren Schumer Donor (Phil D.), Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:40 (seven years ago) link
i spent some time with stephen king a few months ago. my coworker and i drove a bunch of books over to his dressing room before a reading so he could sign them and then like handed him the books one by one in an assembly line fashion. extremely aloof guy.
― Treeship, Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:46 (seven years ago) link
nice though. nothing like his character IT.
― Treeship, Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:47 (seven years ago) link
Kind of afraid to read King's other novels because IT was a hugely disappointing colossal trainwreck (despite having some very powerful moments), but I still want to read Salem's Lot, Pet Semetery and Dark Tower.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:52 (seven years ago) link
You guys really love some awful, awful books
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Thursday, 30 March 2017 22:54 (seven years ago) link
Awful is a relative term
― virginity simple (darraghmac), Thursday, 30 March 2017 23:04 (seven years ago) link
James, if you know of another author beyond Stephen King and that dude who wrote the bible, I'd love to check 'em out sometime.
― Ambling Shambling Man (Old Lunch), Thursday, 30 March 2017 23:37 (seven years ago) link
You know who written the bible?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 31 March 2017 00:25 (seven years ago) link
it was that guy with the tablets. robert moses.
― Treeship, Friday, 31 March 2017 00:29 (seven years ago) link
Come over to ILB, old lunch
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Friday, 31 March 2017 06:19 (seven years ago) link
I thought I'd read a fair amount of King but then I look at his bibliography and holy shit he puts out a lot of books
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 31 March 2017 07:13 (seven years ago) link
Gwendy's Button Box sounds like steampunk porn
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 31 March 2017 07:15 (seven years ago) link
lol, that's a King & son joint right
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Friday, 31 March 2017 07:24 (seven years ago) link
Richard Chizmar (I have no idea who that is, tbh)
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 31 March 2017 07:25 (seven years ago) link
Right, I was thinking of the upcoming novel sleeping beauties, insane synopsis:
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place...
The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?
Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women's prison, SLEEPING BEAUTIES is a wildly provocative, gloriously absorbing father/son collaboration between Stephen King and Owen King.
― a Brazilian professional footballer (wins), Friday, 31 March 2017 08:24 (seven years ago) link
Is there a more boring expression of aesthetic values than, "Actually, this thing you like is bad?"
― Lauren Schumer Donor (Phil D.), Friday, 31 March 2017 12:21 (seven years ago) link
I don't know about you, but I always appreciate when someone steps into a thread and corrects the posters for mistakenly enjoying the subject under discussion. How else would I know what I'm supposed to like?
― Ambling Shambling Man (Old Lunch), Friday, 31 March 2017 12:27 (seven years ago) link
Haven't read any King since I was a teenager, but the one I remember the most fondly which kinda gets brushed passed (likely because of the movie) is The Shining. Totally sucked me in and scared the crap out of me, even though I'd seen the movie beforehand. I liked IT a lot, but even then I was kinda "Man, this could use some tightening up".
― circa1916, Friday, 31 March 2017 12:34 (seven years ago) link
I didn't know Owen was an author too. Joe Hill actually became quite successful before most people knew he was King's son.
Sleeping Beauties could go down a really bad road but it still sounds appealingly crazy.
Some people say Robert McCammon is like a tighter King but I've also heard one of his books completely rips off The Stand.
I think IT is possibly most successful in it's depiction of bullies and the overbearing mother. There are a couple of successful supernatural bits but the more mundane horror was genuinely oppressive at times. Like the horrible father who says "I see no reason that I shouldn't live forever". Some of the sentimental parts really worked on me too but the book is just so drowning in its flaws that I could never recommend it.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 31 March 2017 13:30 (seven years ago) link
I've also heard one of his books completely rips off The Stand
Swan Song I assume. Yeah it is very similar but I liked it a lot (20+ years ago). I've not read anything else by him.
― nate woolls, Friday, 31 March 2017 13:44 (seven years ago) link
That's generally considered his best book too.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 31 March 2017 13:53 (seven years ago) link
I think King is often judged harshly because his flaws as a writer are so obvious and so persistent but also because he takes readers places that are much more unpredictable and harrowing than one expects from a genre novelist. Hence the tendency to judge him as if he were offering defective literary fiction. In spite of decades of enormous sales and continuous media attention, I think he's more under- than over-rated, both on the merits of his body of work and on his influence.
― Brad C., Friday, 31 March 2017 14:12 (seven years ago) link
His continued productivity is the biggest stumbling block wrt the likelihood of critical reappraisal in his lifetime. It's difficult to argue for the underratedness of a bestselling author.
― Ambling Shambling Man (Old Lunch), Friday, 31 March 2017 14:25 (seven years ago) link