0:02:30-Law and Pete MC are on the scene. Pete gives details about how the gears turn in the sounder lab, and how OH HAI Denny Louie helped with the Halloween sounder that opened the show. What drinks are the boys drinking? Do you care? You fucking should. Pete talks about how The Kicks got some shows in Bah-ston in March 2017. You should hit up “The Town” (get it? Shut up) and check them out.
0:15:35-A new sounder devoted to GC aka Mr. 4 on 10. Discussion about the aforementioned watermelon guzzler continues, then more bullshit.
0:30:30-Ammon joins the fun.
0:34:51-TV ROUND UP. Law questions if he can play “Spoil the Walking Dead” in the upcoming weeks as Season 7 has recently begun. Ammon butts in with AHS and gets down on his knees, pleading with Law and Pete that they gotta watch it. Another spectacular This is Us update by Mr. Gilbert. High Life continues on with Luke Cage. Westworld of course. Black Mirror is back and those three cocksuckers couldn’t be happier. Atlanta is still great. Shift to South Park. Ash Vs. Evil Dead talk. Law moves on to Goliath which is the springboard for a major tangent, something that takes up at least an hour of recording time, if not more. The Canadian rights the course with Divorce. Nearly two hours of TV Round Up. Gotta be in the Guinness Book of World Records or something now.
2:33:03-GUUGLE VOICE. During this portion, the Halloween sounder by Pete w/ alley-oop by Denny is revisited.
3:14:25-Surprise call in!
3:31:41-MOVIE HOMEWORK: Silver Bullet
3:58:21-WHAT DID YOU WATCH? Ammon begins things off with Burying the Ex, revisits of Sleepy Hollow, original Night of the Living Dead, and American Werewolf in London. Pete went back into the Halloween move vault with Trick R’ Treat, The Shining, The Exorcist, Halloween 1 and 2 (with old show commentaries!), Monster Squad, and Toy Story of Terror. Small tangent where Pete talks about his new gig that isn’t band related. Good luck with that sir! Law checked out Bad Moms and Mr. Church. The three band together to dissect Don’t Breathe. Moreno calls in to help out with thoughts on the movie. Show’s over. That’s it. Get out of here.
With the trailer to the JJ Abrams’ produced adaptation of Stephen King’s 2011 novel 11/22/63 dropping upon us last week, I thought now would be as good a time as any to put together a list of my ten favorite King adaptations. King is a seminal author to me. I have told the story a hundred times of when I was 11 years old and found the novel Cujo on my father’s night stand. A week or so of reading later, I was hooked line & sinker into his world. I have never passed up the opportunity to read his new release or see the adaptations of his work as they premiered. Much like that Bigfoot looking guy who works for this site named Ammon Gilbert, I have been a die hard reader of the man’s work for over a quarter century.
It also so happens that I find 11/22/63, along with Mr Mercedes, to be the best stuff he’s put out this century. So as King so loves to say in his forewords, come with me, Constant Reader, and see if these choices match yours. If they don’t, let me know either here or on the Facebook page.
Honorable Mentions: Dolores Claiborne (1992), The Dark Half (1989), The Good Marriage (2014), It, Apt Pupil (1998). Silver Bullet (1985), and Salem’s Lot (1994)
10) The Shining (1980)
Ok. I sense a trolling right off the bat, so let me explain my position here. Anyone who knows me knows I am not an overt fan of director Stanley Kubrick’s work. I find the man’s films, for the most part, to be laborious wastes of two plus hours each. And honestly, if it wasn’t for the VERY ill advised attempt by King to adapt his precious novel for TV in 1997, Kubrick’s adaptation would have more than likely been left off this list. However let me tell you why I included it so low here. It is simply because if 1997’s miniseries starring Stephen Weber proved anything, it was that Kubrick’s instincts to ground the author’s original story, about a caretaker who goes crazy and attempts to kill his family, as much as possible was much to its narrative’s gain. For example, could you imagine how silly this movie would have looked had Jack Nicholson been helped by hotel hedge animals as in the novel? If you’re that curious, check out that miniseries. The results are nothing short of hilarious.
Kubrick focused almost all of his film on Torrance and his psyche coming apart at the seams. I know King likes to say that his main gripe with the picture is that we know from the get go that Jack was crazy. That may be so. But it isn’t until we see him at the bar falling off the wagon that we believe he has the capability to let the hotel influence his entire family’s demise. Like him or not, I thought Kubrick did this book right.
9) Cujo (1983)
Ahhh, the one that started it all for a young Garrett Collins. Perhaps non coincidentally, this is another film that tones down the supernatural aspect of the source material. King devotees know that originally, the huge saint bernard title character was possessed by the spirit of renowned killer Frank Dodd. The filmmakers instead start the film off with a title sequence showing this seemingly adorable dog chasing a rabbit and getting bitten by a rabid bat. The film is an odd commodity in that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. As Cujo ramsacks a broken down car containing Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro of Who’s The Boss?), he gets more and more deteriorated. This would suggest a more supernatural progression of his being than what we are told. Still, there are plenty of tense moments in Cujo, and King has always maintained that Wallace deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance. Speaking of Oscars…..
8) Misery (1990)
I can only imagine what was going through King’s mind when Kathy Bates was announced as the Oscar winner of a role he created. Director Rob Reiner -who we will speak more of later- directed this chilling tale of an author who gets stranded and rescued by a psychotic nurse who wants one thing and one thing only – her beloved character of Misery to make her grand return. The nightmares King must have had -and I can imagine the near experiences too- had to play into the novel’s writing. I remember reading it the Thanksgiving before the movie opened. I was sick as a dog, and the pages were almost turning themselves with how much I was sucked in.
Renowned screenwriter William Goldman (The Princess Bride) adapted the book to page and it was up to Reiner to pull it off onscreen. He got both an at the time unknown Bates and true Hollywood tough guy James Caan to agree to star, and all of a sudden a King adaptation had risen from the depths of Dino de Laurentiis productions and straight into the Hollywood mainstream. One famous omission from the overall mean spirited source material was instead of having antagonist Annie Wilkes cut off Paul Seldon’s foot and burn it with a torch, she would break his ankle with one swing of a sledge hammer. The change was welcomed, and the image of Bates swinging that sledge hammer is embedded in anyone who has seen it’s mind forever.
7) Pet Semetary (1989)
Has there ever been a more fitting Stephen King bit of casting than that of Fred Gwynne as lowly neighbor Jud Crandall? Just thinking of his delivery of the line ‘sometimes, dead is better’ gives me chills. Pet Semetary was a book that King admitted while in the writing process gave him nightmares. The resulting movie, if I can be honest for a second, wasn’t great in terms of filmaking. The acting is at times stiff -that’s putting it nicely- and some of the editing and unraveling family situations would fit better in any soap opera from the time.
What makes Pet Semetary work is its mood. Director Mary Lambert percolates her film with just an overall sense of dread and despair. This mood rescues the film even when it is at its worst. For example, given how it is lazily set up, of course we know that the cat is going to get run over by a truck. The maid, a character I remember playing a bigger role in the novel, is barely here, put in mostly just to say they did. Her one bit of telling little girl -and child of power- Ellie Creed that their cat Church is about to get his ‘nuts cut’ is the one smile I cracked the entire movie. And if it wasn’t for the terrifying images onscreen, Denise Crosby’s account of what happened with her dead sister Zelda would have been Pheobe Cates from Gremlins bad. Still, the movie’s final third is well done, and thanks to Jud’s death, I still check under a bed right before walking next to it barefoot.
6) Christine (1983)
What can I say? I have a soft spot for this oft forgotten gem. One, it is John Carpenter right in his prime. Two, it is Keith Gordon in a truly menacing performance as a teenager who would do anything to protect his ‘girl’ Christine. Oh, did I mention Christine wasn’t a girl, but in fact a car?
The movie made such an impact on me because I was in fact younger than Gordon’s character of Arnie Cunningham when I read the book. And that teen angst, the urge to stick it back to everyone who did me wrong, was persistent in my head. It must be said that once again, a what some King fans call very important aspect of the story that also happened to be supernatural, was left out of the film. That being the car didn’t come off the assembly line evil. It was in fact possessed by the spirit of its previous owner Roland D LeBay.
Myself, I can point to more wrong with the movie version of Christine than that. Like, why does the head bully of this film look older than anyone who works for this site NOW? Why are Alexandra Paul’s line deliveries about as wooden as the burning house from the end of Lethal Weapon 3? But there is also so much to like about Christine. Its at times brilliant use of oldies (‘you can keep on knocking but you can’t come in’), its portrayal of that teenage friendship coming apart at the seams. Yet another infectious 80s Carpenter score. All of this makes Christine well worth a ride.
Well, that does it for now. Come back in a couple days when I finish up this list of my top ten favorite Stephen King adaptations. Until then, I bid you, Constant Reader, goodbye. I’ve always wanted to say that.
There was a time way back in my life where horror films were something that I could not watch. Specifically I remember one afternoon, after I discovered what a real film was supposed to be, where I decided to conquer my fear of scary films. The plan was a three-step process:
Pick a bright, shining Summer day at noontime
Open ALL the windows in the house
Watch The Exorcist
Looking back on it, I now realize what awful conditions those were to experience a horror film under but it did the trick and snapped my fear of horror in general. After you see a film like that and then watch the documentaries, you become someone who “knows how the sausage is made”, and the film becomes just that: a film. Cut to now, some 13 years later, and now it’s just the opposite reaction. I can’t find a film that scares me at all in the horror genre. In fact, I’d say the scariest films I’ve seen have been across almost every other genre. Luckily for me, there’s one director who dipped his toes into those types of films over the years yet he is a guy who doesn’t get associated with scary films for some reason. That man is Stanley Kubrick, and there are a lot of reasons why at least one of his films should be on your watchlist this Halloween.
Part of Kubrick’s lasting power has been the immense achievement of even his smallest films. While easily his most unpopular directed feature, even the melodrama Lolita was a boundary-pushing adaptation for its depiction of a married man infatuated with an underage woman, in the early 60’s to boot. Kubrick always pushed the envelope of what an audience could handle into pretty bold territory right from the start, with his earliest films Fear & Desire, The Killing and Paths of Glory all dealing with heavy themes despite the restrictions of studio filmmaking. Even Spartacus, the Kirk Douglas starring epic was decidedly anti-establishment. Leave it to Kubrick to, in the age of Cecil B. DeMille, make a sword and sandal epic that simultaneously ignores any religious ties and features a homosexual subplot with the lead villain, again a trailblazing idea at the time. Too often, though, is Kubrick not given his due credit in terms of what he has done for horror. Where horror films live within very specific confines for the most part, Kubrick secretly injected horror into all of his films in ways that you may not have even realized.
The Shining is Kubrick’s only guaranteed “horror” film throughout his body of work. While the film has several different theories behind what my have happened within the plot and what the film is actually trying to say there is one consistent thing almost anyone who watches The Shining can take away from it. The film has a tangible, almost in-explainable sense of hopeless dread to it. Sure, there are your famous takeaways from the film with the two twin girls calling out for little Danny to “play with us”. Yes, the old woman in the bathtub rotting away is disturbing and off-putting and of course the creepy dead stare of Jack Nicholson mugging for the camera is always good for a shocker. I think underneath all the insane dread of Jack Torrance is the very real family drama at the center of the film, and Kubrick knew this too. Regardless of what Stephen King intended the story to be, I think even with all the supernatural elements that are clearly at work in this story the scariest thing about the film is the idea that despite being close to someone for years you may still have no idea who you’ve been sleeping with. That tiny little germ of an idea is at the center of why The Shining has lasted as long as it has, and why it still terrifies people today. Now granted, this film alone would quality Kubrick as a horror master to some, but it’s his work outside of this film that cements the legacy for me. For instance…
Full Metal Jacket. Possibly Kubrick’s most divisive bonafide classic, Jacket seems to continually get a bad reputation from scores of movie fans over the years. Some have called the film uneven, stating that the huge tonal shift after the first half of the film is too jarring to recover from. I couldn’t disagree more as the brilliance of R. Lee Ermey and the entire boot camp sequence are the perfect setup for the real-world that comes crashing into this film with Pvt. Pyle. The real horror attached to the film comes in Pyle’s performance. We see a naive, dimwitted man get grinded through the “system” and come out the other side as a broken and disturbed individual. There’s nothing scarier than losing your mind, and Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance of a pathetic man pushed a little too far is terrifying. Taking this element out of the conversation, you still have the sniper sequence at the end of the film where the platoon, after wasting some enemy soldiers that happen to be women, march off into the night humming the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club. The methodical, clean dehumanization of the characters in the film is what disturbs me most about Full Metal Jacket, and is oftentimes the thing that people overlook with this film. You walk away from this film feeling very off, but I think that’s part of what makes Kubrick’s skill set so special.
While it would be easy to ignore Kubrick’s classic black comedy Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb when talking about horror, it would be a shame to overlook the undercurrent of unchecked mental illness in this film, a running theme in all of Kubrick’s work. Gen. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden, is clearly insane, believing there to be a Communist plot to “sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!”. On the other side of the fence, you have the very clearly brash and headstrong Gen Buck Turgidson, played by George C. Scott, ready to plunge headfirst into all-out nuclear war, accompanied by the chiefs of staff and the President of the United States, played by Peter Sellers, in the famous War Room. While you can cast aside the very real threat of the cold war in this country at the time the film was made, almost every lead character in the film, including Maj. King Kong, are all mentally incapacitated in some way, whether it be a chemical or character imbalance. The thought that these could possibly be the people with their finger on the trigger of global doomsday is made light of in the film, but make no mistake, Kubrick’s story was nothing short of disturbing to many Americans at the time. The best way to describe the reception to this film upon release, while no one would admit it, would probably be fits of nervous laughter. Again, Kubrick, working on a subconscious level, delivers the goods.
My final exhibit is 2001: A Space Odyssey, my personal favorite Kubrick film and one of my favorite all-time films. Possibly one of the most forward-thinking science fiction stories of all time, there is a lot of hope in 2001. Hope for the future, hope that we as a species will continually evolve and discover what’s next, hope that tomorrow will be better, no matter how bad today may be. However, 2001 is anything but optimistic. While not a negative film, Odyssey clearly understands the horror and hardship of trying to survive in space. While the wonder of being able to travel to Jupiter and the spectacle of the different space stations and crafts in the film is unbelievable, especially for 1967, elements like the iconic Monolith serve as a constant reminder of the disturbing danger of space and the unknown. 2001’s conflict is solely man-made: survival in space, HAL 9000 and human emotion are all preyed upon in the story, all three of which come to a head during the fourth act Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite sequence. If I were to pick what I think is the scariest movie scene of all time, I would absolutely go for the quick, almost subliminal close-ups during the star gate sequence. The visceral, primal nature of those quick cuts is so jarring that it does something to you on a very deep level that’s not easy to shake. 2001 is a classic, and it wears its horror influence right on its sleeve.
While I chose just a few of the Kubrick films to prove my point, all of his films utilize these horror elements to help make them such classic films. I think this Halloween it would make a ton of sense adding at least one of these film classics to your horror docket because if the aim is to get the crap scared out of you, Kubrick has got the goods. Enjoy your Halloween and, as always, Binge On!
WE HAD AUDIO PROBLEMS ALL NIGHT WHILE RECORDING THE SHOW SO THE AUDIO QUALITY IS SHAKY AT BEST. WE SALVAGED AND FIXED WHAT WE COULD.
Lots to cover this week with MovieFreak, Moreno, and Law so let’s get right to it.
TV Round-Up is mostly Project Greenlight with a little Daredevil and Fargo mixed in there.
Google Voice is Eric King kicking his family out of the house and going movie crazy.
Movie Homework is a deep appreciation for THE SHINING.
What Did You Watch is SICARIO, THE GIFT, KNOCK KNOCK, THE MARTIAN, PRISONERS, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT, TRICK r TREAT, BEETLEJUICE, AN HONEST LIAR, SLEEPY HOLLOW, KING OF KONG and more.
A warning right off the bat. This article -like a lot of my articles, quite frankly- is going to make me sound bitter, old, or a combination of both. But since the Terminator Genisys full trailer reveal that John Connor was in fact that film’s main villain -something that wasn’t revealed until an hour plus into the film- I have realized something. The art of the teaser trailer has been somewhat lost in recent years. There was a time when footage was shot specifically for the trailer, and all audiences got was a peak at the look and feel of what was soon to come. Here, I have listed 15 trailers which I feel get their points across almost perfectly, and at all of their conclusions I was already begging the studio to take my money NOW. Some of these follow the template of new footage, some give flashes, but ALL have one thing in common–they did their job.
So let’s get to it, shall we?
15. Cloverfield
Spoiler alert – this is not the last time a film associated with JJ Abrams appears on this list. There was something about this trailer that just grabbed me. Right off the bat, we are introduced to characters’ faces as they are enjoying the party inside. Eventually, rumbles happen, and everyone goes outside just in time for a famous head from a symbolic New York monument to land practically at their feet. Move over Godzilla. There’s a new monster in town. Now, THERE’S a tagline.
14. The Shining
How the hell did Stanley Kubrick get THIS teaser through censors?! I could not imagine sitting in a theater and seeing this seemingly harmless shot of an elevator as the names Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall scroll on by. Then, just as Stanley Kubrick’s name disappears, blood fills the elevator, and eventually the screen. Only Kubrick would be cold enough to take this kind of strategy towards marketing.
13. The Exorcist
Readers of the novel would already know what was coming. But as the famous shot of a priest pulling up to the fog filled exterior of a house disappears, psychedelic flashes of devilish scenes involving a little girl and evil demon flash for a good minute and a half, getting more and more intense. Just as you have had enough, the flashes stop and the title The Exorcist appears in big, bold, red print. Much like the movie, this teaser does not let up once it gets going.
12. The Thing
Famously a box office dud when originally released, maybe it had to do with this jumbled piece of marketing. Only fans of the original film The Thing From Another World would recognize the big block of ice, which carried the alien in the original 1961 film. Still, watching it now, it is quite obvious that this teaser gets the mood of the film just right. It’s telling you, ‘don’t expect to laugh at this movie. Expect to be chilled to the bone.’ None of Ennio Morricone’s score is to be found either.
11. Strange Days
I remember the first time I saw this teaser like it was yesterday. I was in a theater with past Aftertaste guest Teddy Gyi and we were getting ready for Die Hard With A Vengeance to start. Suddenly, Ralph Fiennes appears on the screen after breathing heavy and gives a pitch of how he can give you the coolest dreams and fantasies you can imagine. To give you an idea of how our minds worked at the time, after it was over, I told Teddy I could not get over the size of Fiennes’ nose. He ignored me and uttered, ‘was that James Cameron’s name I just saw?’
10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
This was the oddest teaser I had ever seen. In fact, many of today’s behind the scenes intros that roll in the background while a movie theater audience sits down can trace their origins to this 1989 doozy. The teaser to Indy 3 basically doubles as a behind the scenes featurette, as actors Harrison Ford and Sean Connery flash before the screen out of character. We also see Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as well. The cap off (haha) is Harrison Ford stapling his hat on his head to keep it from blowing off, then looking at the camera and saying ‘just another day at the office.’ At 12 years old, that was all I needed to see to get excited.
9. Superman The Movie
Not much to this trailer other than the names we know of flashing in that recognizable Superman font across the screen in a continuous shot that takes place in dusk time clouds. The wonder that comes with this teaser is enough to carry it, as the only points it needed to make were made. In a year, not only will some of your favorite movie stars highlight a comic book film of all things, you will also believe a man can fly in the clouds. Fantasy fulfilled.
8. The Matrix
No doubt about it. The teaser of 1999 belongs to an upcoming film on this very list. Yet, the action movie of the year is teased here. From a flying Carrie Anne Moss to an image of Keanu’s mouth sewn shut, the teaser to the Wachowskis’ breakthrough hits all the right notes without giving away its ‘bullet time’ money shot. Well played guys. Er girls. Er, guy and girl.
7. Spiderman (2002)
Some might think the notoriety that comes with Spiderman catching these criminals’ helicopter in a web spun between the Two Towers mere weeks before 9/11 happened is what landed it on this list. But that could not be further from the truth, The thing I intro’d this piece with is what landed it here. The fact that Sam Raimi put this scene in a little under two minute spot speaks wonders about the confidence Sony Pictures had in the property. It showed that special effects were indeed up to par and Spiderman was going to be brought to the screen like you’ve never seen him. Oh, and no glimpses of the Green Goblin were to be found.
6. Super 8
A teaser in every sense of the word, JJ Abrams released this trailer even before the start of principle photography. Ever the mystery builder, the teaser showed parts of the infamous train crash and concluded with a mystery box being pounded on by a mysterious creature. Later trailers would be good at playing up the Spielberg inspired nostalgia. But as good as they were, they did not live up to this one’s startling impact.
5. Star Wars Episode 1
After sixteen years of waiting, this teaser let everyone know that George Lucas’s promise to tell the story of Darth Vader’s fall from grace was about to be fulfilled. Highlights include new creatures combined with old, and a peak at one of the most imposing villains in the franchise’s history. Fantasy and fun were in abundance in this trailer. Whether it lived up to that promise or not has been debated by some defenders but mostly naysayers in the sixteen years since.
4. Independence Day
I still remember the Super Bowl in which this teaser was run. We all took our faces out of the beer tap long enough to yell ‘holy shit’ at the screen for a minute straight. A shadow of ships overhead, a laser blast into the White House, and no signs of Will Smith talking were all I needed to get my ass in that seat opening day. Say what you will about Roland Emmerich. The man knows how to tease his films.
3. Terminator 2 Judgment Day
James Cameron had not even started filming yet when special effects maestro Stan Winston was given $500,000 to come up with a teaser for the next year’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. So without any footage to work with, what’s one to do? The end result is surprisingly not unlike what Cameron eventually came up with. In my mind, this is in every way the perfect teaser. We see an assembly line of terminators being made, and Arnold flexing in steam punk fashion, only to open his red eyes as the template Terminator 2 Judgment Day quite literally closes itself across the screen. It is a fascinating teaser in that no signs of the film’s T-1000 villain were to be seen. Only the promise, from Schwarzenegger himself, that after seven years away, he was back. THAT, my friends, is a teaser. Great score by Brad Fiedel as well.
2. Alien
There is not a more harrowing teaser in existence. An overlaying shot of an egg over a planetary surface gets us in a very calm mood. Then the egg breaks, and the greatest tagline in horror history moves across the screen. Scary science fiction was not in the offering after Star Wars. But this promised us that Alien would not only be scary. It would be the scariest film we’d ever see.
1. Star Wars The Force Awakens
Han. Star Destroyer. Artoo. Luke’s voice. Vader’s mask. Chewy. Did I mention Han? Did I also mention the tears?
There you have it. What did I miss? What do you disagree with? What DC fan is going to whine because I didn’t include the Superman V Batman teaser? Let me know below, or on our Facebook page.
I guess you could say I was a bit inspired this week as I left a voicemail for the boys on the Binge Cast about movie music. Color me obsessed but I’ve thrown together a list of ten albums you should have on your regular rotation of movie soundtracks. There’s no particular order but here they are:
I’ve heard Master and Commander referenced as some “seriously frumpy white-people shit”, and that might be true (I’m not a doctor), but I love the flick and the soundtrack for its grace and subtlety. In a film about war on the high seas, Master and Commander has a surprisingly improvisational feel, which is something that I think lends itself very well to the music selections used therein. Favorite track: J S Bach Prelude.
In the early days of my film studies, Tarantino and Rodriguez were my gods. I’ve always felt their soundtracks (Tarantino’s a little more than Rodriguez’, overall) were unique pieces of musical fusion, evoking feelings and memories of rich cultural history without nailing you in the face with the references. Desperado is a criminally underrated soundtrack, featuring some truly badass action-film riffs that immediately call back to the flick. Favorite Track: Cancion Del Mariachi.
Easily the most horrifying collection of music I’ve ever listened to, The Shining’s soundtrack is all about fucking with what you knew was normal. Fans of the movie will remember the violin shrieks, blaring horns and droning notes that send chills down your spine well, but listening to this independent of the film actually makes it a scarier movie. This Halloween, try playing this album on a loop at your house and see how many kids are brave enough to go up to your door. Favorite track: Lontano.
Out of all of Wes Anderson’s films, The Darjeeling Limited consistently comes up as his most divisive. I’ve never understood why, because I’m the oldest of three brothers and I feel like he absolutely nails the tone and feel of that experience with this film, but to each his/her own. Wes is always great at choosing songs from diverse genres that somehow all sound like the same band is playing them, and he does it here as well. The trifecta of Kinks tunes coupled with the more traditional Indian tunes and the French Les Champs Elysses are all great songs that I revisit almost monthly. Favorite track: Les Champs Elysses.
Sergio Leone knew how to make shit epic. While the Dollars trilogy showed just how well he can merge music with a moving picture, Once Upon a Time in The West proved that his previous inspiration was talent and no fluke. This is a great and criminally underrated score that deserves more love. Favorite track: Bad Orchestra.
The Departed is remembered for a lot of great reasons, but no one ever talks about how great the music was. While the main soundtrack encompassed a diverse array of pop and rock hits that worked phenomenally well, the score was great in its own rite. The way the music centered around the main theme’s tango, as if all the characters were dancing around one another, was to me a fantastic stylistic choice. Favorite track: Cops or Criminals.
I know I’m double dipping here with Wes Anderson flicks but this is another one that people just don’t seem to talk about. Seu Jorge’s Portugese covers of David Bowie are just incredibly pleasing to my ears. While some of his stuff was featured in the film, an entire album’s worth of covers is on display here. Great stuff for anyone looking to rediscover Bowie, The Life Aquatic or great, acoustic music. Favorite track: Rock N Roll Suicide.
It’s easy to overlook how brilliant the music in this movie is. After all, South Park is known for its vulgarity, not its show-tunes, yet this flick’s score was so well put together and phoenitically pleasing that it’s on my regular rotation. Plus, anyone who can make a group marathon song about farting needs to stand up and be counted. Favorite track: Kyle’s Mom Is A Bitch.
Another double dip (I love Kubrick, sue me), A Clockwork Orange excels in its strange-ness. While the high-class orchestral themes stand in stark contrast to the ultra-violence on screen, the soundtrack is actually a unique ride all on its own. The insanity/disturbing nature of Alex DeLarge comes through in musical form when the album transitions from I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper to something like the William Tell Overture. The soundtrack enhances my enjoyment of the movie, and hopefully it will for you as well. Favorite track: Singin’ in the Rain.
I mentioned it in my voicemail to the boys this week but The Last Waltz is world-class stuff. When I was younger, I didn’t like this because I couldn’t understand why this was such a big deal. This flick and especially the music have aged exceptionally well and this remains as probably my favorite concert film (probably). You get The Band, Bob Dylan, Uncle Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Neil Diamond and so many more I can’t recall them at the moment, and you know what’s wild about the lineup? They all absolutely KILL it. This is a great film and a great soundtrack. Favorite track: Up On Cripple Creek.
Boom, and just like that, I’m out! But before I go, I just want to say two things. One, Ammon is a man of honor and I respect him immensely for totally owning that shirt. Two, here’s another glorious angle he sent me:
The Lowdown: Writer Jack Torrance takes his wife Wendy and young son Danny to caretake for the Overlook Hotel during the winter. As cabin fever sets in, Jack seems to be slowly losing his sanity, while Danny discovers a hidden power with sinister consequences.
The Breakdown: Stanley Kubrick is pretty much my God, so The Shining had to show up on my list at some point. This is truly a horror film with a little bit of everything in it. You’ve got jump scares, justifiably earned, through the brilliant, chilling score. You’ve got psychological overtones about alcoholism and child abuse. You’ve got creepy old naked ladies in bathtubs. What else do you want in a horror flick?
Yes, R.P. McMurphy is a great performance, but for me this is my favorite Nicholson role. He absolutely gnaws on the scenery throughout the film, building tension using nothing but his facial expressions. The genius of his characterization is that in any given scene, you simply don’t know what Nicholson is going to do next. His commandeering of the film is a large part of why it works so well all these years later.
Kubrick’s brilliance shines brightly here, achieving what is easily the most sinister toned film I can think of. Between the absolutely chilling cinematography, employing Kubrick’s patented one-point perspective technique, to the haunting, almost operatic score, The Shining is, justifiably, one of the scariest films ever made. Scenes like the impossibly high crane shot capturing Wendy and Danny moving through the hedge maze to the elevator leaking gallons of blood emphasize an ethereal presence, subtly suggested throughout the story. The more Jack’s insanity takes over his character, Kubrick’s equally maddening filmmaking takes over the viewer, causing you to continually question and think about what really is going on.
The Comedown: The Shining is one of my favorite films, so obviously I’ve got a soft spot for it. Many have called it nonsensical, which I understand from someone wishing the film had a more linear chain of events. Truth be told, I couldn’t tell you what the fuck the ending means, or why anything happens in the film. Kubrick’s filmmaking confidence, and penchant for attracting conspiracy theorists, do wonders in deflecting the gaps in plot and logic, and in my opinion the film is richer for it. See The Shining this Halloween, you won’t regret it.
Earlier this year I reviewed Stephen King’s coming-of-age novel JOYLAND and had an absolute blast—partly because it was King doing what King does best, but also because it was one of those perfect summer reading novels. I’m a huge fan of King and everything he touches, so when I found out he was working on a sequel to his novel THE SHINING, I was beyond excited. It’s not that I’ve ever felt that there should be a sequel, because I think he handled the ending well and left no loose ends that I ever felt like needed tying up, but if he was going to go back to the world of Danny Torrence, the Overlook Hotel, or what it was like to have the shining be apart of your everyday life, I’d have no excsuse not to pick it up and give it a read. So is DOCTOR SLEEP worth it? Let’s find out.
DOCTOR SLEEP kicks off years after the ending of THE SHINING, with Danny Torrence (now just Dan or Daniel) is an adult battling the same problem his father Jack battled all those years ago: alchoholism. The guy’s a fuckin’ raging alchoholic when we first meet him, but after he hits rock bottom, he decides to clean himself up and take control of his life… or try to. Because he’s still dealing with having the shining, where he sees random dead people, or seems to have a “sixth sense” about people, places, and things. The shining shines so damn much, Dan drinks to keep it at bay.
But that’s not the meat of the story: the meat is that there is a traveling band of soul-suckers who call themselves the True Knot. The True Knot appear to be retired “normal people” who travel America in their RVs and motorhomes, seeing the sites and living life on the road. But really, they’re extremely old soul-sucking assholes who live off the “steam” of dead people with shining abilities. These are the villains of the novel and they’re pretty bad, considering they like to kill kids so that they can live forever.
Dan befriends a little girl named Abra who also has the shining and they team up to essentially take down the True Knot. Much like King’s recent novels, like JOYLAND or DUMA KEY, DOCTOR SLEEP is a relatively easy read… one could say it’s light reading, as it’s not nearly as descriptive or as thick as King’s earlier novels (like THE SHINING) but it’s still a fun and entertaining read and one that’s hard to put down once the main storyline kicks in. That said, I will say that the beginning of the novel is handled a bit on the shaky side, where it’s confusing as to what’s going on. There’s a lot of time-jumps, there’s a lot of things going on that become relavant later, but are confusing and hard to follow as fuck in the beginning. King essentially gives you bits and pieces of Dan’s life over the last 30 years until we finally hit present day, which is where the real story begins. But in getting to that point there is a lot of jumping around.
Other than the rough start though, DOCTOR SLEEP is a solid novel that’s not really a horror story, nor is it a mystery or a thriller, but somewhere in the middle. Don’t except all the crazy spooky shit that was going down in THE SHINING as you won’t really get any of that here. And also, it’s a good idea to either have read King’s original SHINING or at least know what went down in that one and not just rely on your knowledge of Stanley Kubrick’s film version—because Kubrick’s SHINING and King’s SHINING are completely different and you may find yourself scratching your head as to why certain characters are alive or what he’s talking about when he’s talking about croquet mallets, animals hedges that move by themselves, or exploding boilers and Hotels that no longer exist.
If you like the current roll of King books, including 11/22/63 and JOYLAND, then you should have a bast with DOCTOR SLEEP. It’s not THE SHINING, but it’s a solid follow up that does it’s own thing, which is kind of awesome. It’d be a drag if DOCTOR SLEEP was just a re-hash of the shit that went down in the Overlook in some other hotel (which is probably what the movie version of the sequel would look like). While it’s less haunting and spooky than its predecessor, it’s still an entertaining read that goes to some pretty dark places along the way. It’s not a perfect book (is there such a thing?), but I had zero complaints along the way, and one thing’s for sure… DOCTOR SLEEP won’t put YOU… to sleep. Oh!
I honestly didn’t see this coming, and that makes me happy. E.T. just beat THE SHINING’s ass in the final of The Epic Screencap Championship, capturing 60% of the vote and ending an incredible run throughout the tournament. I always knew Jack Torrance would be there, but was completely baffled that Elliot’s little buddy could make it to the final, let alone win the whole thing. It’s awesome, and gives me hope for the current generation of film fans (although I did get one email that was pissed off for not including a TRANSFORMERS screencap).
Congratulations, you wrinkly little bastard! Here’s a celebratory gallery.