7. Misery
(Rob Reiner, 1990)
The Long and Short of It
Paul Sheldon (James Caan), famous novelist, crashes his car during a blizzard. He wakes up the next morning in the care of a nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). Annie's his number one fan. She's also a psychopath.
Adaptation Decay
Fair. The film loses some of the more absurd horrors found in the novel. For example, in King's original, Annie stabs a victim repeatedly with a cross before finishing the job with a lawnmower. In the film? Shotgun to the chest. More importantly, King's novel places much more attention on how and why Sheldon writes, and how that writing is therapeutic, which ties into different codas for novel and film. The film, however, focuses on the psychological cat-and-mouse games. Annie Wilkes attacks with brutish, crippling emotional outbursts, and Sheldon survives by affecting Stockholm syndrome. This switch was probably unavoidable, given the differences between literature and film. Oh, and Annie uses a sledgehammer here instead of an ax, and it's up to you to decide if that's a canny callback to how Kubrick used an ax instead of a mallet in The Shining.
Forget All That - How's the Movie?
Delicious, tense film-making. On an initial viewing, it's hard to believe that Rob Reiner directed the film, given his background with comedies like This Is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally. On a second viewing, it's easier to see strains of humor creeping into Misery, with Wilkes's clean potty mouth and the chatty sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and the underlying perversity of the premise. This material could've easily fallen over the edge into parody, but Reiner's style is droll. The real pleasure of the film lies in the relationship between Wilkes and Sheldon. Kathy Bates won an Oscar, rightly, for injecting her larger-than-life bipolarisms with the precise amount of sadness. James Caan, more a reactive force than an equal to Bates, nonetheless holds his own, both as a sympathetic hero allowed a degree of ingenuity...and as an avatar for us, viewers bearing witness to this woman's depths of insanity.
Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?
It's not supernatural, if you're a stickler about such things, but there are few films based on King that carry as much dread, and forget all the CG critters and puppets you've seen - Annie Wilkes is one of his most memorable monsters.
Kingwatch 2012
Paul Sheldon is one in a vast pantheon of author avatars for King. While we're here, let's also note some other King hero-writers found in his novels and novellas:
If a book of his doesn't have a novelist, you can bet there's an English teacher in there somewhere. They say "write what you know," but it'd be nice to see King write about, like, a space plumber or something.
But You Know What Sucks?
I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said - his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice: the voice of a teenage-gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You're not so good. Hell, you can't even please one crazy overweight nurse.
The Long and Short of It
Paul Sheldon (James Caan), famous novelist, crashes his car during a blizzard. He wakes up the next morning in the care of a nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). Annie's his number one fan. She's also a psychopath.
Adaptation Decay
Fair. The film loses some of the more absurd horrors found in the novel. For example, in King's original, Annie stabs a victim repeatedly with a cross before finishing the job with a lawnmower. In the film? Shotgun to the chest. More importantly, King's novel places much more attention on how and why Sheldon writes, and how that writing is therapeutic, which ties into different codas for novel and film. The film, however, focuses on the psychological cat-and-mouse games. Annie Wilkes attacks with brutish, crippling emotional outbursts, and Sheldon survives by affecting Stockholm syndrome. This switch was probably unavoidable, given the differences between literature and film. Oh, and Annie uses a sledgehammer here instead of an ax, and it's up to you to decide if that's a canny callback to how Kubrick used an ax instead of a mallet in The Shining.
Forget All That - How's the Movie?
Delicious, tense film-making. On an initial viewing, it's hard to believe that Rob Reiner directed the film, given his background with comedies like This Is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally. On a second viewing, it's easier to see strains of humor creeping into Misery, with Wilkes's clean potty mouth and the chatty sheriff Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and the underlying perversity of the premise. This material could've easily fallen over the edge into parody, but Reiner's style is droll. The real pleasure of the film lies in the relationship between Wilkes and Sheldon. Kathy Bates won an Oscar, rightly, for injecting her larger-than-life bipolarisms with the precise amount of sadness. James Caan, more a reactive force than an equal to Bates, nonetheless holds his own, both as a sympathetic hero allowed a degree of ingenuity...and as an avatar for us, viewers bearing witness to this woman's depths of insanity.
Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?
It's not supernatural, if you're a stickler about such things, but there are few films based on King that carry as much dread, and forget all the CG critters and puppets you've seen - Annie Wilkes is one of his most memorable monsters.
Kingwatch 2012
Paul Sheldon is one in a vast pantheon of author avatars for King. While we're here, let's also note some other King hero-writers found in his novels and novellas:
Ben Mears of 'salem's Lot.
Jack Torrance of The Shining.
Gordie LaChance of The Body.
Bobbi Anderson of The Tommyknockers.
Bill Denbrough of It.
Thad Beaumont of The Dark Half.
Bob Jenkins of The Langoliers.
Mort Rainey of Secret Window, Secret Garden.
John Marinville of Desperation.
Mike Noon of Bag of Bones.
Scott Landon of Lisey's Story.
Tess of Big Driver.
If a book of his doesn't have a novelist, you can bet there's an English teacher in there somewhere. They say "write what you know," but it'd be nice to see King write about, like, a space plumber or something.
But You Know What Sucks?
7. Sometimes They Come Back
(Tom McLoughlin, 1991)
One of many turkeys served up by the late producer Dino de Laurentiis, Sometimes They Come Back follows a teacher (hey!) who's haunted by new students who eerily resembled the greasers who killed his brother years earlier. Are they the same kids? Yes. Yes, they are. But because of Hell and curses and plot stuff, they're alive again. Solidifying King's life-long hatred of greaser delinquents (you wonder how many times kids like this dumped little Stevie's books) Sometimes features sleepy performances from Tim Matheson and Brooke Adams, the latter of whom probably realized this was a step down from working with David Cronenberg on The Dead Zone. With some of the King movies that suck, there's at least a level of weirdness or camp or stupidity that makes them useful as curiosities - I've been chided by those who vouch for Silver Bullet. Truth be told, a film like that is more worthwhile than Sometimes They Come Back, which, in addition to being crappy, has the bad manners to be dull.
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)
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)
No comments:
Post a Comment