11. Dolores Claiborne
(Taylor Hackford, 1995)
Forget All That - How's the Movie?
Heavy on the melodrama at times (watch out for that orchestra), Dolores Claiborne isn't the most exciting King adaptation out there. It's short on exploitable elements and tall on character, which puts pressure on the cast. Credit goes to David Strathairn's greasy downturned shame, and, hey, there's a young John C. Reilly reachin' and hitten' that Nor'eastahn ah-ccent. But Dolores Claiborne is Kathy Bates, and Kathy Bates is Dolores Claiborne. She has to play two arcs in the film, past and present. In the former, she builds up her resolve, and in the latter, she breaks the facade enough to reconnect with her daughter. Bates is always immediate, always compelling. She feels urgent. Stylistically, Hackford distinguishes the two timelines with cold and warm colors, and it's fun to watch the reds and tans from the past invade the muted, blue present. It isn't a subtle technique, but, hell, this ain't a subtle flick. What mattehs is that it's a good'un.
Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?
No, dammit! Stay away! Stay far away. After Halloween, you're golden.
Kingwatch 2012
Set in Bangor, there's ample opportunity to riff on King's familiar haunts, but the only link worth noting is the re-appearance of Bob Gunton, who played Warden Norton to such frightening effect in The Shawshank Redemption.
But You Know What Sucks?
Written during the Great Stephen King Coke Binge of the Eighties, The Tommyknockers was a novel about his problems with substance abuse. Because he's Stephen King, "cocaine" became "Lovecraftian alien monsters that mutate people into similar monsters and devolve them of morality and restraint," obviously. The TV adaptation eases the gas on the mutations but drives ahead with the addiction metaphor. It also offers the dull problems that most TV movies run into. Flat lighting, unconvincing special effects, and, even at the mini-series format, a need to compact elements that require breathing space. Worst of all, unlike The Stand, which builds on one of King's greatest novels, this is based on one of his worst. You can build a crappy house on a strong foundation, but you can never build a strong house on a book in which tentacles burst out of people's genitals. At least, that's what my dad told me at graduation.
A Stephen King Halloween
01. ?
02. ?
03. ?
04. ?
05. Stand By Me / Dreamcatcher
06. The Dead Zone / The Mangler
07. Misery / Sometimes They Come Back
08. The Mist / Firestarter
09. "Battleground" / Creepshow 2
10. Creepshow / "The Road Virus Heads North"
11. Dolores Claiborne / The Tommyknockers (TV)
12. The Stand (TV) / Maximum Overdrive
13. 1408 / The Lawnmower Man
14. Christine / Silver Bullet
15. Cat's Eye / Thinner
HM. Hearts in Atlantis / The Shining (TV)
I want you to get every goddam word, startin with this: twenty-nine years ago, when Police Chief Bissette here was in the first grade and still eatin the paste off the back of his pitchers, I killed my husband, Joe St. George.
The Long and Short of It
Dolores Claiborne is a stalwart wife and mother who's had a rough go of things, but she won't let her daughter suffer any misfortunes. Not even if they come from inside the family...
Adaptation Decay
Acceptable. Stephen King's novel is a chapterless first-person narrative, complete with lovable Maine diction sneaking in constantly, as delivered by Dolores to a police officer. The film presents itself with an opening headed by Claiborne's daughter Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who travels home and becomes the audience avatar. Through her, we learn the hidden depths of Dolores, who's accused of murder now and might have a history with the act. I haven't yet read the novel. I've paged through most of King's bibliography over the years, and the few unread books feel increasingly precious. If Wikipedia is to believed (and sometimes it isn't), the original novel included a psychic connection to King's earlier novel Gerald's Game. The movie ignores that and stays grounded.
Forget All That - How's the Movie?
Heavy on the melodrama at times (watch out for that orchestra), Dolores Claiborne isn't the most exciting King adaptation out there. It's short on exploitable elements and tall on character, which puts pressure on the cast. Credit goes to David Strathairn's greasy downturned shame, and, hey, there's a young John C. Reilly reachin' and hitten' that Nor'eastahn ah-ccent. But Dolores Claiborne is Kathy Bates, and Kathy Bates is Dolores Claiborne. She has to play two arcs in the film, past and present. In the former, she builds up her resolve, and in the latter, she breaks the facade enough to reconnect with her daughter. Bates is always immediate, always compelling. She feels urgent. Stylistically, Hackford distinguishes the two timelines with cold and warm colors, and it's fun to watch the reds and tans from the past invade the muted, blue present. It isn't a subtle technique, but, hell, this ain't a subtle flick. What mattehs is that it's a good'un.
Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?
No, dammit! Stay away! Stay far away. After Halloween, you're golden.
Kingwatch 2012
Set in Bangor, there's ample opportunity to riff on King's familiar haunts, but the only link worth noting is the re-appearance of Bob Gunton, who played Warden Norton to such frightening effect in The Shawshank Redemption.
I dislike you already, and I dislike you immensely.
11. The Tommyknockers
(John Power, 1993)
Written during the Great Stephen King Coke Binge of the Eighties, The Tommyknockers was a novel about his problems with substance abuse. Because he's Stephen King, "cocaine" became "Lovecraftian alien monsters that mutate people into similar monsters and devolve them of morality and restraint," obviously. The TV adaptation eases the gas on the mutations but drives ahead with the addiction metaphor. It also offers the dull problems that most TV movies run into. Flat lighting, unconvincing special effects, and, even at the mini-series format, a need to compact elements that require breathing space. Worst of all, unlike The Stand, which builds on one of King's greatest novels, this is based on one of his worst. You can build a crappy house on a strong foundation, but you can never build a strong house on a book in which tentacles burst out of people's genitals. At least, that's what my dad told me at graduation.
A Stephen King Halloween
01. ?
02. ?
03. ?
04. ?
05. Stand By Me / Dreamcatcher
06. The Dead Zone / The Mangler
07. Misery / Sometimes They Come Back
08. The Mist / Firestarter
09. "Battleground" / Creepshow 2
10. Creepshow / "The Road Virus Heads North"
11. Dolores Claiborne / The Tommyknockers (TV)
12. The Stand (TV) / Maximum Overdrive
13. 1408 / The Lawnmower Man
14. Christine / Silver Bullet
15. Cat's Eye / Thinner
HM. Hearts in Atlantis / The Shining (TV)
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