Mal ,'Safe'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
The end of the theatrical version of The Shining was so disappointing compared to the book as well. A nice creepy visual, but meh. The book, as is so often the case, was so much better.
Although the guy who played the butler was kind of perfectly cast.
Although the guy who played the butler was kind of perfectly cast.
Heh, he also played Alex's father in Clockwork Orange.
Lon Chaney
Loves!
I think I'm with Frank on The Shining. At least, I think Frank is saying what I say about The Shining. I thought the movie was much more clever than the book. Kubrick scrapped the idea of the Overlook as your standard-issue Stephen King bad place that wants you to kill, kill, kill (and, on that note, has anyone watched Garth Merengi's Dark Place on Adult Swim?) in favor of the quieter horror of the world unraveling around a frustrated domestic bully. I'm not a huge Kubrick fan, but I've long thought The Shining to be a good example of filming the truly unsetting core of some turgid source material.
I always felt that the book suffered from too much of King's standard occult-menace-ambushes-helpless-protagonist-every-five-minutes trope. While I liked the idea of it being the hotel itself that was menacing rather than a particular ghost within it, it seemed like every time Danny so much as looked at a piece of carpet lint some traumatic psychic episode occurred, and the stuff with the hedges was really just far too overt and fairy tale-magical.
Interview with Guillermo del Toro at TORN - where he apparently has been posting.
has anyone watched Garth Merengi's Dark Place on Adult Swim?Yes! Well, not on AS, but my Brit correspondent sent me the DVDs a while back. There are in-character commentaries. It's wonderful.
in-character commentaries
Awesome! Considering the in-show commentaries (such as Merengi detailing all of the appropriate uses of slow-motion to pad out the shows), having another level of in-character commentaries brings the double-meta funny.
I just watched The Holiday, and, as should surprise nobody, I really liked it.
Jack Black at his more likable, Jude Law at his more adorable. And I must say (despite feeling that this must be a controversial opinion) that I always enjoy Cameron Diaz. Kate Winslet as well, though that may be somewhat less controversial.
Anyway, I thought it was extremely cute, if extremely predictable. And it made me very happy. Especially the British kidlets, because if there's anything I love it's adorable British kidlets.
Hmm. Note to self: move to England, fall in love, make cute British kidlets.
Speaking of Jude Law, I forgot to mention I saw My Blueberry Nights this past weekend. What a trainwreck. The acting was pretty decent (except for Norah Jones, who was okay I guess, considering her experience), but the script was so bad. Like, laugh out loud bad. Literally. My friend laughed out loud at one point.