stephen king c/d?

The ending of Needful Things put me off Stephen King for almost 2 decades. I didn't even give him a second chance (excepting for Wizard and Glass and On Writing, both Christmas presents as Needful Things had been). I had loved everything else he'd written up until that point and I don't know, there's some ridiculous shit in his early catalog, but something about the guy turning into a goblin and driving away in a car just put me over the edge.

What should I turn to next from his 1990s-2000s output?

I haven't read Rose Madder but I have a hard time believing it's worse than Gerald's Game, which was so bad that I have refused to pick up a Stephen King book ever since

lol

Of that trilogy, Dolores Claiborne >>> Gerald's Game >>>>>>>>>> Rose Madder.

Full Dark, No Stars, btw, is amazing. It feels like the work of a much younger King.

i will rep for insomnia and hearts in atlantis, beat that.

I remember liking Hearts In Atlantis, though i've never read any Dark Tower books so all that stuff was kind of annoying

oh shit you came hardcore I am not prepared to deal with this

a highly selective stephen king poll

Don't think I've read anything post Green Mile (which I liked at the time but now am pretty sure is total irredeemable hokum).

claiborne- steven, you've let me down

Geralds's game- steven, you've let the school down

Rose madder- Steven, put the fucking pen down

claiborne- steven, you've let me down

gtfo

Claiborne is top 10 King easily.

I like The Green Mile for the devastatingly nihilistic ending - "Won't God just please let me die already?"

xp yes, it is

i think yr letting kathy bates intidate ye

Sometimes being a challops is all a woman has to hold on to.

I was interested in the idea of The Green Mile as a serial novel but when I found out that it explicitly had a literal magic negro in it, I figured that my decision to avoid/abandon King post-Gerald's Game was a wise one

full disclosure i was just riffing off phils list of the three there i liked claiborne. In fact, he hasn't used half enough > tbh

FWIW the magic negro straight up basically kills one guy and drives another one permanently insane.

In the movie those two people were Sam Rockwell and that weirdo from LOST who married that 16 year old girl last year.

aw cmon dan it worked for the shining

There is also a mouse that does circus tricks so really there's something for everyone in The Green Mile.

yeah, I know what happens; it's still kind of "what the hell" that this celebrated story is basically a well-known racially-questionable literary device turned into a plot engine

aw cmon dan it worked for the shining

haha

Green Mile was pretty shitty. A lot of '90s King put me off King for a while, and I don't think I've read anything he's done since.

Full Dark, No Stars, btw, is amazing. It feels like the work of a much younger King.

Agreed, this was great. I feel like King almost always does better work on short stories/novellas than he does with the longer form stuff though.

that's almost a given i think!

explicitly had a literal magic negro in it

I was genuinely surprised at how uncritically this was embraced. Not surprised that King created this character.

I got off the bus around Needful Things and didn't really get back on until Duma Key ... since then I've gone back a bit and found some books in between that I enjoyed. He's always been inconsistent and willing to publish some awful crap, but he's been on a good roll the last few years.

[xp] you're talking about a critical engine that gave "The Legend of Bagger Vance" mixed reviews so I'm not sure where your surprise is coming from

I mean, here's a quote from Ebert about "Bagger Vance":

It handles a sports movie the way Billie Holiday handled a trashy song, by finding the love and pain beneath the story.

and this is from someone writing in Kalamazoo and is hilarious:

Robert Redford's beguiling drama reminds us even the most hopeless causes can be turned around through the power of positive thinking and perserverance, if we're willing to embrace the possibility of success instead of the probability of failure.

obviously questioning the concept of the magic negro archetype is not the at the forefront of the filters of the people reviewing these movies

Never watched bagger vance 'cause it was supposed to be some inspirational movie about golf.

wikipedia says the term/concept didn't enter the mainstream until spike lee used it to describe bagger vance and the green mile.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/38/Kazaam_poster.jpg/220px-Kazaam_poster.jpg

So would any of you recommend 11.22.63? I was iffy on reading it because King can be so hit or miss and time travel always has the potential to be terrible, but I've been hearing some good things about it.

thread revive was two or three saying it's good

100% recommended

I gave up on the Dark Towers after Wolves of the Calla, should i bother with the final 2? And can i skip Song of Susannah... it sounds lame.

Those last two get SUPER SUPER meta, like enough to make you suspect King was back on coke at the time, but I think they're worth it. They contain two of the most heartbreaking scenes I've ever read, if nothing else.

he'll just keep making more: http://www.avclub.com/articles/stephen-king-the-wind-through-the-keyhole,73144/

sigh. i'm going to read it

don't

I can quit dark tower any time

I dunno, I enjoyed them a ton. Also: crying. lots of crying.

that vulture article is some garbage

Huh: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stephen-kings-be-adapted-by-334899

Warner Bros’ adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel It has a director and writer.

Cary Fukunaga, the hot-shot filmmaker behind last year’s adaptation of Jane Eyre, is boarding the project as director and will co-write the script with Chase Palmer, who previously adapted Frank Herbert’s Dune for Paramount.

. . . A best-selling book when it was published in1986, It, like The Stand, is one of King’s biggest and most dense tomes, and the plan is for Fukunaga and Palmer to adapt the work into two films.

"who previously adapted Frank Herbert’s Dune for Paramount" = "do not get your hopes up, that was nearly 30 years ago and also terrible"

Also, creepy paedo gangbang scene this time or I want my money back.

I imagine they're talking about the new Dune adaptation

According to his imdb, it was

(2010) Unused screenplay for a new adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune, for director Pierre Morel and Paramount Pictures.

Everything else he's been involved with has been short film.

There's a NEW Dune adaptation? Wait, you mean that one for Syfy a few years back?

http://vimeo.com/8898869

it seems to have been shelved but there was a new movie on the cards for a while

11/22/63 - worth reading?