[Cadfael]

I have always though that film adaptations of Stephen King's books were always good, but 'The Green Mile' is the best yet in my opinion, second only to 'The Shawshank Redemption'. I have noticed that it was made by Castle Rock Studios, from which I assume SK has some say in the production.

What an excellent movie! I like the visuals, special FX, acting and the atmosphere. I also enjoyed the odd moments of humour they threw in there.

Anyone else like this movie?

[Rob B]

I like the movie and the book. My only real complaint with the movie (and this is with most movies over the past few years) is that it was a little too long. Sometimes the dialogue dragged a bit, but overall a great film, and great adaptation.

Stand By Me was great too, adapted from the novella The Body

[Cadfael]

Stand By Me... ohh yes, an absolutely brilliant movie. I thought the acting for people so young was amazing, and it is (in parts)one of the funniest movies I have watched. I have noticed that King can really get into the mind of the young, however he is not too shy of giving them an horrible end... i.e. IT, scared the pants of me.

[Black Echo]

Stephen King has had some crappy book to movies from the beginning. Cujo just wasn't scary. IT was scary as hell until you found out it was a big spider that could change size and could only be killed by a magic earring... doh. Good until the last 10 minutes of the series.

Golden Years was interesting. I liked Lawn Mower Man, just because it didn't have a 'happy ending' like Hollywood wants to do with his movies.

Other movies I liked of his: Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, and Green Mile. For a while there, it got to where if it said 'a horror movie based on the novel by Stephen King', we just waited for video. I'm convinced now that if one of his 'non-horror' books is made into a movie, it will be awesome. His horror stuff kind of sucks, like Firestarter...

Man, the FX in that were the most horrifying thing in the movie, 3 Stooges bobbing fireballs on a string and a clothesline wobbling down toward the target. I figured a blast of heat and some CGI would have made it a lot better looking...

[Rob B]

Generally yes, many of SK's books are not translated well onto the screen. If you read the Lawnmower Man short story, you would have a hard time liking the film. SK did everything he could to remove his name from the movie.

Cujo wasn't bad, SK liked the translation. The Shining with Nicholson was, while a decent movie, ALOT different than the book (the book gave me nightmares, literally).

IT was one of his better books, agree with you on the TV mini-series.

The Stand was REALLY good adaptation.

Coming Soon-Hearts in Atlantis (The first and last story) with Sir Anthony Hopkins as Ted Brautigan.
an animated Eyes of the Dragon
The Talisman mini-series, Steven Spielberg is involved in that one.

[Black Echo]

I like SK's short stories; stuff like "The Mist" and "Word Processor of the Gods". Stuff like that I really enjoy. I used to work in a grocery store in high school, and my manager was the kind of super smart guy who just apparently seemed happy to be nothing more than a grocery store manager. He could discuss quantam physics, black holes, and was a SK fan. He brought me the collection of stories (can't remember the anthology) but it had the story "The Mist" and after I read it, we would often walk around the store and talk about if that ever happened, how would we defend the store against the prehistoric monsters. He would grab broom handles and take stock of the cutlery we had on the shelves, find flammable stuff, etc.

It was a riot while it lasted.

SK's short stuff is better, IMHO, than his 'novels'.

[Rob B]

My dad has an audio version of The Mist (also in development in Hollywood) that is really cool. It's one of his better shorts.

[Cadfael]

I think you have hit upon one of SK's few failings, his endings do tend to be weak.

I have read most of his books, and have found that I can be approaching the last chapter, and still the narrative is firing on all 4 cylinders. Then, the last chapter tends to be rushed to get everything out of the way.

Almost as if SK has said to himself "Christ... I got to end this, its too long". It may even be he is bored with his current work and wan't to move onto the next one... who knows. Because his work is so consistanlty good, I can forgive him this.

One thing he can do... is get in my head and start to press buttons. He is the only author who has ever really terrified me when I have been reading his books. I also like the rambling style he sometimes uses, where he will go off the main plot to tell us a 'tale within a tale', normally I would find this annoying, but he does it so well.

I also agree with the comments about the early King movies, I saw the movie Carrie before I read the book. Reading the book was like a whole new story.

But, I suppose King at this early stage did not have the clout to make demands about adaptations of his work. I strongly suspect that Castle Rock Productions, who make most of the King TV/Movie stuff now, is partly owned by him. Because of this, he can make sure adaptation of his work are kept on track... and it shows in the quality of the productions.

A good example of this is The Stand, his publishers convinced him to cut a lot out of this book, because it was too long and he was at the time a 'newish' author. Once he had the leverage, he published the full version, and we the readers ended up with a better book... maybe he is exercising this power with the movies.

Oh boy... I do go off on one at times... sorry

[Black Echo]

SK never scared me, in any of his books. They might have made me think "uggh, that would suck to have *that* happen!" but it didn't scare me.

Now Dean R. Koontz (sp), *THAT* man scared me. I was 18, read his book "Phantoms" (good book, interesting movie but poor adaptation of the book) and I had to turn the light on. I thought the "Ancient Enemy" would come gurgling out of the sink or toilet or shower to get me.

He got into my head. His books are scary. SK? Good author, but not scary.

[Erebus]

Sure, SK has some rare misses amongst his hits, but I like his style because above all, he knows how important the story is to a great novel. Many authors create great worlds and great characters then fall down severely with their story. After all, isn't that what keeps us reading?