Best King Movies

[TJCams]

Well stated T-Dog, and I do agree with your comment on Darabont as being a director that should be exclusively used for King adaptations.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Well stated T-Dog, and I do agree with your comment on Darabont as being a director that should be exclusively used for King adaptations.

Thanks TJCams, l am glad that you agree with me.

Too many Stephen King books have had the potential to make great movies, but this opportunity has been squandered by directors screwing around with the original source material. It just smacks of lazy film making and cheap production values.

[Sock Monkey]

The Shawshank Redemption is the only Stephen King adaptation where I think the movie is better than the book.

I agree with you that the movie version of Shawshank was better than the book, but I would also add The Mist in the same category. The book was good but the movie had all that plus the best ending ever!

I also agree with Darabont being the best King director. He seems to really get the essence of King's material and is able to condense the source material in way that remains true to books yet stands on it's own.

[Teriw]

I shall take this opportunity to once again express my extreme dislike for The Shining.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

I shall take this opportunity to once again express my extreme dislike for The Shining.

Because it's so different from the book? Or did you dislike the book too?

[Teriw]

No I love the book. And I didn't hate it because it was too different, I found it kind of boring. Jack's performance was fantastic and the only good thing about the whole movie. I didn't like the casting one bit or the over the top and to me weird ways kubrick went with it. I should also add that I hate stanley Kubbrick and haven't liked any of his movies that I am aware of.

[RJK1981]

No I love the book. And I didn't hate it because it was too different, I found it kind of boring. Jack's performance was fantastic and the only good thing about the whole movie. I didn't like the casting one bit or the over the top and to me weird ways kubrick went with it. I should also add that I hate stanley Kubbrick and haven't liked any of his movies that I am aware of.

I definitely agree with you about Kubrick's The Shining. Jack was great, but that was it for me. I especially hated what they did with the kid and REDRUM

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Why Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a masterpiece of film making

No I love the book. And I didn't hate it because it was too different, I found it kind of boring. Jack's performance was fantastic and the only good thing about the whole movie. I didn't like the casting one bit or the over the top and to me weird ways kubrick went with it. I should also add that I hate stanley Kubbrick and haven't liked any of his movies that I am aware of.

I am not surprised that many fans of the book hate Stanley Kubrick's movie - especially if they have read the book first, as Stephen King's version plays on completely different themes. Stephen King tells the story a man being possessed by a haunted hotel, whilst Stanley Kubrick's movie is essentially about a man slowly sinking into psychotic madness.

However, whether people prefer the book or the movie is an existential choice between preferring supernatural or psychological horror. Stephen King’s stories are all about emotion: his characters feel their way in and out of horrifying situations. However, Stephen King is not a visual thinker, he loves to tell, rather than show.

For Stanley Kubrick, if it can’t be seen, it doesn’t exist. His storytelling thrives on visual symbolism and artistic imagery. Where Stephen King likes to emotionally manipulate the reader, Stanley Kubrick likes to mess with his audience’s spatial awareness. For instance, Stanley Kubrick's use of steadicam and wide lenses has the audience moving through corridors that are too wide and at the wrong height, as Danny's tricycle rattles over wooden floors and silent rugs.

Together with some of the most memorable and iconic images of the film: The blood pouring out of the elevators, the twin girls, the claustrophobic hedge maze, the vast eerie ballroom, the woman in Room 237. Stanley Kubrick's vision unsettles the mind. Technically, there is no better film in this genre.

For myself, I love both the book and the movie equally, as they are in essence, completely different entities - One supernatural the other psychological. One thing is certain though, The TV mini series with it's laughable CGI leaf monsters is an utter joke in comparison.

Like it or loathe it, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining remains a modern masterpiece of film making.

[RJK1981]

I see what you are saying T-Dogz, but I don't think anything can fix my biggest problem with the movie, which is how they had Danny doing the REDRUM thing. That just really got irritating and annoying for me, and that has nothing to do with how it was different than book.

[srboone]

Great exposition T-Dogz. I completely agree.

Kubrick is known for his prolonged and repeated annoying sounds. There was the fork scraping across the plate in 2001; REDRUM in The Shining; Leonard Lawrence's droning voice in Full Metal Jacket; and many others. They're supposed to be annoying and grating on your nerves.

[RJK1981]

I've come to the sad conclusion that Kubrick's style just isn't for me. I might give 2001 another chance sometime, but found myself incredibly bored with it what I tried watching it before. I obviously didn't like The Shining, didn't really care for Full Metal Jacket after the basic training part, and I saw Eyes Wide Shut and wasn't impressed with that one either. If I remember correctly he died before finishing Eyes Wide Shut, and it did kinda feel like the movie had someone else finish it. Either way, I am 0/4 on enjoying his movies.

My issue with REDRUM was that it just seemed STUPID to me, which is what I found irritating, as well as finding to voice and finger movement to be annoying, but also stupid. Kinda made the character of Danny into a bad joke for me. Would have been more creepy and effective if he had done REDRUM like it was in the book and not into something so moronic. Don't remember when it was that I saw the movie, but I don't remember anything particularly grating though, and I know for sure I wouldn't now. After my time in the Army, likely mostly to blame for when I was in Iraq and some of the very loud noises I was exposed to there for the first few months I was stationed there (Both incoming and outgoing), I now have constant ringing in my ears and will never hear complete silence again. But, the constant ringing has made annoying noises that become grating into something funny for me to use for laughs. Like at one of my previous jobs I'd let the beeping of our panini grill keep going off until someone else got annoyed enough with it to turn it off themselves. I also never really noticed things like the oven going off if I wasn't actively listening for it! So maybe there was a grating quality to The Shining, but it didn't quite have that effect on me. I don't know when the droning voice in FMJ occurred, but if it was during the basic training part I didn't find it annoying or anything. Don't remember thinking anything was annoying or anything in that movie actually, I just didn't care for it after the basic training section finished.

Actually trying to annoy your viewers doesn't really seem like a good thing to me though, but he obviously had a good amount of fans, so it must have worked out alright for him, but it didn't work for me, which is fine, can't like everyone's style.

[Teriw]

Going to be honest here, I didn't read T-Dogz reply because its just too long and I'm tired, I am sure I have hear it before but to each his/her own when you get down to it.

Also didn't read RJK's(Sorry man, forgot your name) response just so ya know I am not just skipping T-Dogz because he disagrees. lol. But I find there is no middle ground with Kubricks The Shining, you either think its a materpiece or you hate it, I just hate it. Though, I will still buy it when the time comes.

[TJCams]

2001 was a little different, in that Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke wrote it together if my understanding is totally correct on that movie.

[srboone]

2001 is my favorite movie. It's not boring to me at all. I can sit down and be mesmerized by a scene I've seen a hundred times.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Why Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece of film making

2001 is my favorite movie. It's not boring to me at all. I can sit down and be mesmerized by a scene I've seen a hundred times.

For me, it could only be described as boring if you go in expecting a generic Hollywood produced action movie. 2001 A Space Odyssey has real depth and time should be taken to appreciate it's many levels - rather like enjoying a fine wine.

Like The Shining, this film's greatest strengths are in the details and artistic imagery. The beautiful expanse of space; the monoliths; the eerie use of silence and the chilling presence of the ship's computer HAL 9000. I have always been mesmerized by the sheer beauty of this film, which Arthur C Clarke's novel could never install, as it’s almost impossible to achieve this kind of sensory impact via words on a page.

Most people forget to realise that this film was released a year before the Moon landings. The sheer brilliance of Stanley Kubrick's visual imagination when making this film, is testimony to the fact why he is regarded as one of greatest movie directors of all time.

Like it or loathe it, Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey remains a modern masterpiece of film making.