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I don't think Kings endings on the whole are that bad. With the amount he put out there's going to be some duds sure, but there's only a handful that for me that fall apart by the end.
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Apr 7, 2021 12:10
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DrVenkman posted:I don't think Kings endings on the whole are that bad. With the amount he put out there's going to be some duds sure, but there's only a handful that for me that fall apart by the end. The bad endings seems to be a relatively recent thing. I didn’t understand the trope at first, because I mostly stopped reading King after Tommyknockers. And then I started reading his newer stuff... His classics have fantastic endings. The endings of Carrie, Christine, The Shining, and The Stand are great. I still can’t read the last 50 pages of IT without choking up. I’m not sure why it started becoming difficult for King to wrap up a story.
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Apr 7, 2021 15:30
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For me it feels like he will have an idea, toy around with it a little bit, get tired and just move on. And since he is stephen king, no editor is going to say no. I would add Pet Sematary to the list of great endings. Meanwhile, Cell is a book where every single chapter is worse than the preceding one.
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Apr 7, 2021 17:54
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I was 16 when Cell came out and it was actually my first King book. I liked it at the time but it has such a horrible reputation that it makes me want to go back to it and see how bad it is.
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Apr 7, 2021 18:11
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Drewsky posted:I was 16 when Cell came out and it was actually my first King book. I liked it at the time but it has such a horrible reputation that it makes me want to go back to it and see how bad it is. My memory says it starts off pretty great as a Zombie-ish apocalypse movie, and is super good until the "zombies" start levitating and it turns out they were never zombies at all. By the end, it was just morbid curiosity to see where he went with it. I hear the movie adaptation is .. not good.
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Apr 7, 2021 18:16
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hatelull posted:My memory says it starts off pretty great as a Zombie-ish apocalypse movie, and is super good until the "zombies" start levitating and it turns out they were never zombies at all. By the end, it was just morbid curiosity to see where he went with it. The best part of the movie was Lloyd Kaufman’s three second cameo, because it had me go “now wait a god drat second, was that Lloyd Kaufman?” and the time I spent looking it up on IMDB was time I wasn’t watching the movie. E:would totally watch a Troma version of Cell though.
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Apr 8, 2021 00:05
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The Troma equivalent of Cell would probably be Poultrygeist, Night of the Chicken Dead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzEA5R0XHOQ
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Apr 8, 2021 00:25
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I'm back, I was reading The Outsider a few pages ago. I finished, the last 150 pages or so was a bit of a grind, but that may be because my brain is smooth enough to be a telescope mirror. The book probably could have been tightened up a one or two hundred pages or so. I still enjoyed it though, because it's not like the writing was bad. Re: ending chat, I thought this was a pretty good ending. Sniper shootout, characters going into the cave, and a rather funny dialogue exchange where the outsider says "that's ridiculous and offensive" at being called "just" a run of the mill pedophile. He went down like a chump though. I had to reread one paragraph a few times to make sure I didn't miss something. Probably thematically appropriate that the scariest monsters to kids (ie, pesos) aren't any danger to adults. There's enough information about the mechanics of the outsider, without getting stupidly specific like the outsider is from planet zarkxon or whatever. Either way, thematically this book isn't about that at all, and clearly the outsider represents real life pedos, some of whom can fit in just fine with the community, but secretly are monsters. Characters are obviously King's strength. Maybe one too many cops that I couldn't keep track of, but no biggie. All in all, I'll take the suggestions you guys posted a couple pages ago and pick out another book.
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Apr 8, 2021 06:31
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I just started watching this show that's streaming on Amazon Prime called Them, and it just immediately screamed 'STEPHEN KING" to me in terms of how it presents its characters, the vile and insidious nature of banal evil - stuff like that. I wasn't surprised when I found this on his twitter from yesterday: Stephen King posted:Amazon Prime Video: THEM, starting tomorrow. The first episode scared the hell out of me, and I'm hard to scare. Bonus: If you've never seen a bunch of extremely creepy white ladies in 50s dresses, here's your chance. So at the very least he enjoys and appreciates it! the influence is very clearly there, and it seems to succeed better as a 'Stephen King' show than a lot of stuff actually based on his work, lately.
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Apr 10, 2021 21:41
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There is quite the backlash to that show right now on Twitter.
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Apr 10, 2021 23:45
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Is there anything that doesn’t have a huge backlash against it on Twitter?
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Apr 11, 2021 00:39
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Apparently the violence in THEM goes way over the top and into torture porn territory. I'm not interested in watching that sort of thing so I can't speak to if they manage to stick the landing and make the violence actually facilitate the story but if the majority of reviews are anything to go by it sounds like it doesn't sound good. https://twitter.com/yayforzig/status/1380608353295028228
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Apr 11, 2021 05:11
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Like King I've only seen the first episode so far, and I can only speak to that being really well done and deeply loving menacing. Yeah, it does portray 1953 America as being a racist hellhole for these people, but that's sort of the point? My roommates have already watched all 10 episodes so I'll ask them.
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Apr 11, 2021 19:16
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Yeah I get the intent to depict the era without pulling any punches but utilizing gratuitous violence isn't necessarily a requirement to do that. That such violence is increasingly being treated as a selling point for the entertainment value of some programs is pretty disturbing. It'd be one thing if the scenes in question were referencing something specific in history but IIRC one of the writers admitted in an interview that the stuff is the 5th episode specifically was something that they literally dreamed up. The obvious comparison point is "Get Out" but whatever criticism I might have of that movie it had a much stronger vision and complex point than "isn't racism scary". I guess I just question the efficacy of the argument that people watching racist violence is going to effect some sort of tangible positive change - people in this country used to treat lynchings like wholesome outings full of fun for the whole family. We're going on two decades of racist violence by vigilantes or by the police being recorded and shared widely with no real change beyond some nebulous sense of increased awareness. Given King's challenges in dealing with race in his own work I'm somewhat dubious of his seal of approval but different strokes and all that.
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Apr 11, 2021 20:14
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Well, I never said this was going to effect any positive change. It's damned scary, and tells a good story with strong characters, though. I think King's stamp of approval has more to do with that than the politics of the show, which frankly are a bit nebulous when you get down to it. I'm not blind to the criticism, though - and I can certainly understand how a show like this could be viewed as potentially exploitative.
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Apr 11, 2021 20:24
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That's valid, my bad on that point. The "awareness" thing is often an implicit part of the defense of those sort of depictions of violence but your posts were clearly addressing it on different merits and it wasn't fair of me to assume the former. Appreciate the conversation and in any case looks like the show is getting a second season, probably in part because of the social media backlash and the accolades from folks like King. Maybe they'll see if he wants to offer some input for the next go round.
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Apr 11, 2021 20:41
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I am probably wrong about this, but the new Stand series seemed like because of the whole covid thing going on, it wanted to get past the whole pandemic part of the story too fast so to not offend people. Which is a bad choice, because that's some of the greatest stuff in the book.
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Apr 13, 2021 05:19
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Anyone who liked The Stand will probably enjoy Carrier Wave. It's a little rough in parts but another fun depiction of the world falling apart with hints of a larger mythos behind it.
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Apr 13, 2021 08:19
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Kemper Boyd posted:I am probably wrong about this, but the new Stand series seemed like because of the whole covid thing going on, it wanted to get past the whole pandemic part of the story too fast so to not offend people. Which is a bad choice, because that's some of the greatest stuff in the book. The Stand started filming in 2019 and scripts were done long before that. They actually finished filming right before everything shutdown. So the structure of the series was in place before COVID. My belief is since Lost biggest influence (per Lindelof) was The Stand, Lost became a big influence on this series with the flashback structure. Also one of the showrunners said what makes The Stand great is not the pandemic portion, but what comes after. It seems they forgot what made the rebuilding of society and the battle of good vs evil so fascinating was the journey the characters had up to that point in surviving Captain Trips. ClydeFrog posted:Anyone who liked The Stand will probably enjoy Carrier Wave. It's a little rough in parts but another fun depiction of the world falling apart with hints of a larger mythos behind it. This is in my to be read stack.
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Apr 13, 2021 12:59
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kaworu posted:
Gotta disagree with you there, Steve, based on the number of things you'll give pull quotes to about how much they scared you.
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Apr 13, 2021 17:02
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Get thee behind me you lovely adaptation.
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Apr 13, 2021 18:18
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Kemper Boyd posted:I am probably wrong about this, but the new Stand series seemed like because of the whole covid thing going on, it wanted to get past the whole pandemic part of the story too fast so to not offend people. Which is a bad choice, because that's some of the greatest stuff in the book. Right. I mean it's really loving hard to tell the story of The Stand without spending time on the super flu that sets the whole thing in motion. So much wrong with that adaptation it's hard to know where to start though.
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Apr 13, 2021 23:11
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Lisey's Story any good? I'm not recalling anyone raving about it here but I learned Apple TV is adapting it with Julianne Moore and Clive Owen and I'm a giant fan of Children of Men, so im inclined to watch it when it comes out and figured I'd read it ahead of time if it is worth the time.
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Apr 14, 2021 05:23
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Eat This Glob posted:Lisey's Story any good? I'm not recalling anyone raving about it here but I learned Apple TV is adapting it with Julianne Moore and Clive Owen and I'm a giant fan of Children of Men, so im inclined to watch it when it comes out and figured I'd read it ahead of time if it is worth the time. Lots of people don’t like it, I loved it. The present day stuff, eh, but the flashback stuff about their relationship and what’s-his-face’s past was awesome. Great casting choice there that ensures I’m gonna watch the hell out of it.
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Apr 14, 2021 06:21
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Eat This Glob posted:Lisey's Story any good? I'm not recalling anyone raving about it here but I learned Apple TV is adapting it with Julianne Moore and Clive Owen and I'm a giant fan of Children of Men, so im inclined to watch it when it comes out and figured I'd read it ahead of time if it is worth the time. it might be the worst thing king has ever written. definitely bottom five
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Apr 14, 2021 14:48
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I really loved it and thought it was fantastic It's an extremely polarizing book. It's definitely King at his most self-indulgent.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:13
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Kemper Boyd posted:I am probably wrong about this, but the new Stand series seemed like because of the whole covid thing going on, it wanted to get past the whole pandemic part of the story too fast so to not offend people. Which is a bad choice, because that's some of the greatest stuff in the book. For what it's worth, everything the people involved with the show have said indicates that it was written this way. It's a case of bad timing sure, but it didn't change any of the structure. This is just the way they wanted to do it. As for THEM I've seen the Twitter arguments about it. It's made by Black people but it's about Black trauma and there's supposed to be some horrific violence later on (a number of people seemed to stop watching after the 4th episode) and there are people who just don't want to see that. The problem, the way I see it, is that there's already barely any stories on TV told by Black creatives (of course, that's getting better now) and the only ones that are getting made are ones like THEM. So I understand that people would be tired of seeing that up on screen over and over again. That doesn't mean that THEM shouldn't get to tell the story it's telling in the way that it's telling it, even if it's ugly to watch.
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Apr 14, 2021 15:54
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Eat This Glob posted:Lisey's Story any good? I'm not recalling anyone raving about it here but I learned Apple TV is adapting it with Julianne Moore and Clive Owen and I'm a giant fan of Children of Men, so im inclined to watch it when it comes out and figured I'd read it ahead of time if it is worth the time. Liseys Story is one of his bottom 3, the others being Black House and The Regulators
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Apr 16, 2021 01:20
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oldpainless posted:Liseys Story is one of his bottom 3, the others being Black House and The Regulators I’m the weirdo that really liked Black House. Like Lisey’s story, the plot was... there, but the characters were what got me hooked. BH also had some really good scenes like when they think they have the kidnapper, but it’s the wrong guy and also there’s a mob outside waiting to kill the guy.
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Apr 16, 2021 01:32
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Thanks for the feedback on liseys story folks. Much abliged
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Apr 16, 2021 03:21
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I've been meaning to mention this kind of interesting youtube series about the Dark Tower. It starts out pretty dire and the host seems fairly clueless. I have a degree in this guys, let me explain the death of the author again (interacting with YT commenters is not a pro move), etc. But then she starts making some interesting points and connections that really escaped me because I was never looking for much from the series. She also pretty much hates the first book and has to point out that early Roland is not very likeable. I'm only in about as far as The Drawing of the Three here but she really comes around. (Not wanting her to be a fan or not but just saying.) The fact that I never thought much about TS Eliot or how Childe Roland is an Arthurian thing says some bad things about me but sometimes it's nice to have someone with a degree do some of the connect the dots stuff. https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/dtproject17
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Apr 16, 2021 03:32
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Eat This Glob posted:Lisey's Story any good? I'm not recalling anyone raving about it here but I learned Apple TV is adapting it with Julianne Moore and Clive Owen and I'm a giant fan of Children of Men, so im inclined to watch it when it comes out and figured I'd read it ahead of time if it is worth the time. It's very polarizing. I enjoyed it once I got past the whole "does Lisey even have a life or identity beyond doting on her husband" question.
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Apr 17, 2021 21:21
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Holy poo poo the horrible old boiler in the Overlook that constantly has to watched and cosseted and eventually blows up and destroys everything is also a metaphor for an alcoholic
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Apr 20, 2021 04:48
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Also, male violence, etc. (What was the name of the student whose arm Torrence broke?) Started Joe Hill's NOS4A2 last night and the first 80 pages flew by. Really enjoying it.
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Apr 20, 2021 11:24
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Teach posted:Started Joe Hill's NOS4A2 last night and the first 80 pages flew by. Really enjoying it. Yea I really liked it, highly recommend.
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Apr 20, 2021 16:36
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How is the NOS4A2 TV series? I keep seeing it pop up on Amazon video.
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Apr 21, 2021 11:45
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Canuckistan posted:How is the NOS4A2 TV series? I keep seeing it pop up on Amazon video. It got cancelled after season two. I'm not sure how good the first two seasons were, this article I read says it has a 70-something percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I never like starting an adaption after it got cancelled. It either leaves me sad that they didn't finish adapting the original or sad that the adaption was such garbage.
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Apr 21, 2021 13:08
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Yeah the show barely registered for something that was on for two seasons. Also, bring back the miniseries. Tell these stories in like 8 hours. You'll hold onto an audience before they get bored, you can lock in talent easier because no one is having to commit to anything more than a few episodes and you won't spend a fortune producing another season of something you know won't catch on before you cancel it anyway.
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Apr 21, 2021 15:08
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Soysaucebeast posted:It got cancelled after season two. I'm not sure how good the first two seasons were, this article I read says it has a 70-something percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I never like starting an adaption after it got cancelled. It either leaves me sad that they didn't finish adapting the original or sad that the adaption was such garbage. they adapted the whole thing, but they also made the last episode 90% sequel hooks to follow up on in season 3. season 2 covers the end of the novel. personally the show bored the poo poo out of me but my fiancée liked it
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Apr 21, 2021 18:49
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They hosed up by not having NOS4A2 take place in the Fast and Furious universe.
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Apr 21, 2021 18:51
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