I respect King in that he does have a tremendous imagination, and the amount of good (and bad) movies based off his short stories/novels is quite numerous and astounding.

And yeah he is prolific, but I think King at his worst at times can just job his plots and characterize people with contrived convenience so he doesn't have to waste time thinking it through and dish out another book by the Christmas market. It says something when a stilted thriller like THE MIST is "faithful." I rather have a good movie, thank you very much.

For example, lets look at THE DEAD ZONE novel of his. You have an opening with the hero as a kid getting his psychic powers, and eventual villain revealed to be a rotten ambitious son of a bitch. King goes on and on with the in-depth backstory of all these characters, relevant or not.

As David Cronenberg's terrific movie showed, you don't need all that bullshit. Indeed the best King adaptations from THE DEAD ZONE to CARRIE to SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION to CHRISTINE and GREEN MILE and yeah even Kubrick's THE SHINING....they all realize King has great ideas.

Keep them. The rest, well at your own risk sunshine.

"The Dead Zone" was a wonderful novel, Ronnie. Those backstories made you care about John and Sarah, and made you loathe Stillson. They were essential to advancing the plot. While I agree that sometimes King's novels are way too long and the backstories aren't really essential, "The Dead Zone" isn't one of them.

And you said it yourself, you're a bigger film fan than book fan, which is fine. But it leaves you with a clear bias against the written word .

Except it didn't make me care about them more. Mate, length doesn't necessarily equate better.

The only book of Stephen King i've read is IT and that was an excellent book was also a fav film of mine growing up. Im just about to read The Shining and im very much looking forward to reading it..

Yeah, but you're a sociopath .

That's not what your girlfriend told me .

Owned. You just got OWNED by a 50 year old man .

I hated the film adaptation of "The Dead Zone", despite the fact that martin Sheen was so wonderfully evil as Stillson. It was not faithful to the book and the changes seemed ridiculously arbitrary. "Christine" was pretty darned good, but the best adaptation of one of King's horror novels, IMO, is "Carrie". While some of "The Stand" is great, the casting of whiny Molly Ringwald as Fran was akin to Sofia in GF3. Just ruined it for me.

And then, of course, there is the excellent "Green Mile" and, in a class by itself, "Shawshank".

I enjoyed the screen adaptation of "Thinner" (about the guy who accidentally killed an old gypsy woman when he hit her with his car).

There's a part in the story in which the main character resorts to using a mobster for help. That character, in my mind, would have been perfectly portrayed by Joe Spinell (Willie Cicci in "The Godfather"), although the actor who portrayed him (Joe Mantegna) did a very good job.

I never knew there was a screen adaptation of "Thinner".

Yes! "Thinner" was a pretty good adaptation of a good short story. I also liked it.

Stephen King chips in to help soldiers.

Stephen King Helps Out

King seems like he would be a cool guy to hang out with, especially now that he's clean and sober. His non-fiction can be hilarious.

Pet Semetary was also very good.

The book was MUCH better than the movie.

Many of King's works didn't translate to the screen as well as they were in print. I think the best example of this was "Cujo". The book was awesome but the movie could not capture the horror experienced by the trapped woman and her child.

Fred Gwynne was a decent actor (I had seen him on Broadway in the role of Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and he did a wonderful job) but somehow seeing Herman Munster in "Pet Semetary" was a distraction.

I agree about "Pet Semetary". The book had all that backstory between the protagonist and his father-in-law.

I wasn't a big fan of "Cujo" in book form and so I never saw the film...

King did an interview with Colbert tonight. Once it's posted on the web site, I'll share it here because I think any SK fan would enjoy it - it was hilarious!

Damn! I wish I had known, Gina. King is a great interview; a naturally funny guy, with a very dry wit. He's also very political, so I assume he and Colbert had a lot of fun together. Now hurry up and post it!

We don't get to see much of King's wit because of the other Stephen acting like a goofball the whole time - this style of interview that he does is always like that, so it'd be fun to see King do the "real" interview that Colbert has at the end of the show sometime.

But The Shining fans will love this, anyway!

Here you go:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert...---stephen-king

I only got to watch the beginning, but it looked hilarious. LOVE the tricycle.

That was good. I haven't seen either Stephen in a while.

SB, continue watching and you'll see your favorite clown. He's so adorable.


TIS

That was great, Gina!!

Colbert is the funniest guy on television. When he was talking to King about the gay protagonist in "The Cell," I almost peed myself .

Like what exactly?

I just finished "Bag of Bones." Amazing, but it made me cry, so I'm kind of annoyed with Stephen right now (haha)...it's so hard to pull yourself from his fictional world when the book's over!

There is something really incredible about the way he writes that makes a story so special. And though I love the spooky themes, I've really enjoyed when he takes a soft, nostalgic, and even sad tone in his writing.

Gi, that's how I felt after finishing "Cujo".



I usually enjoy rereading King's books, because he's so descriptive and the details are so rich, but that's one I've never picked up again. The movie, thankfully, had the ending changed.

Great book, Gina. A lot of reviewers have written that "Bag of Bones" is King's most "literary" novel. Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. In the eyes of the literary eggheads that review books, so called "genre" fiction has no business being mentioned in the same breath as "literary" fiction. That's why I can't stand critics. Those who can't do . . . teach. Those who can't write . . . critique.

But back to "Bag of Bones." From the very first page, you knew it would be a tear jerker. And Max Devore was one of King's more memorable villains. But I agree that the ending was very sad. Although you do end up hopeful:

I didn't read the book, so you can call me wacky (again),BUT I liked the movie Cujo. Perhaps not the best King movie, but I thought it was pretty good.


TIS

I didn't dislike the movie at all. If you read the book, though, you'd know that they changed the ending. Some might disagree with the concept, but I was actually happy that they did. The ending of the book was emotionally painful, and thank goodness for Happy Hollywood Endings.

One, maybe lesser known film, I was disappointed in was "Sleepwalker".


TIS

Read the Shining whist in Germany,took me 4 days to read and very much enjoyed it, very different to the film but better.

SB, I've still got Cujo on my to-read list (along with many others!), so I won't read your spoiler just yet. haha And I always like doing the book version first, then movie, so hopefully it'll work out that way. But I can now prepare myself for more tears, thanks to your warning!

PB, I've never been able to understand the mind of a critic very well, so I judge books just on how I enjoy them - but I'm glad to hear I enjoyed a "literary" novel.