“The Dark Tower” spends ninety minutes telling a story while doing almost nothing but dumping exposition on the audience. And yet, when the movie was over I knew as little about this world coming out than I did going in to it. With films like “Lord of the Rings,” and “Star Wars,” the creators manage to disseminate information and world build while also giving audiences an experience. “The Dark Tower” feels so under-developed and poorly developed, almost feeling like a truncated idea of what kind of movie series “The Dark Tower” was intended to be. I still don’t know what the Dark Tower is. I still don’t know who Roland Deschain is.
Tag Archives: Stephen King
Five Favorite Mike Flanagan Productions—So Far [Fantasia Film Festival 2024]
This year, Fantasia will be awarding their 2024 Cheval Noir career award to U.S. filmmaker Mike Flanagan. “For his imaginative and heartfelt horror visions; boundary-breaking achievements in making soulful, character-driven genre television commercially viable without compromises; and the extraordinary work he’s done in popularizing landmark authors to a new generation, While it may strike some as odd to bestow an achievement award to an artist who’s almost certainly not yet reached a mid-career place, Flanagan has been so extraordinarily prolific and consistently brilliant in his output that the filmmaker has already accomplished several lifetimes of creation.”
In honor of his stellar achievement, here are five of My Favorite Mike Flagan productions – so far. As he has a long, rewarding life of filmmaking and film curating ahead of him, I imagine this list will look different in fifteen years.
Carrie (2013): Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]
Now Available from Scream Factory.
Was Kimberly Peirce’s adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie” entirely necessary? Not really. But while Brian DePalma did set the bar high with his adaptation of the novel in 1976, Kimberly Peirce’s modern interpretation of the titular novel holds up surprisingly well. It’s not by any means what I’d call a masterpiece, but in a world where we have the 2002 TV remake, Peirce’s version is not without its charms. It doesn’t garner exactly the big emotional punch of DePalma’s but there’s a very charming and interesting sincerity to this interpretation.
Stephen King’s The Shining (1997) [Blu-Ray]
Now Available on Physical Media from Scream Factory while the Original Novel is Also Available.
It’s no surprise that Stephen King did not like Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 version of “The Shining.” He’s gone on about it. And on. And on. And on. I’m sure he even brings it up whenever someone uses the word hotel, or Jack Nicholson, or axe, or twins. In either case, in 1997 Stephen King teamed up with long time collaborator Mick Garris to deliver a faithful, more epic version of “The Shining” and well—it’s fine. It’s an okay movie. It’s not a gem like Kubrick’s version but it’s not boring. And it has its supporters, if anything. And it’s aged pretty well, all things considered.
Silver Bullet (1985): 2 Disc Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]
I have a ton of nostalgic value attached to “Silver Bullet” as it’s one of the first hardcore horror movies I ever remember sitting down to watch, and it’s one of the first werewolf movies I ever saw, too. I fondly remember watching it as a kid with my uncle who’d moved in with us for a while and brought along his Beta tape player and a bunch of his Beta tapes to watch. Along with “The Final Chapter” and “The Making of Thriller” we must have begged him to watch “Silver Bullet” a thousand times, ad nauseum.
Pennywise: The Story of IT (2021)
It’s easy to forget that once upon a time “It” was the prime example of a master class in terror. In a world that’s largely forgotten TV movies, “It” broke all kinds of barriers when it came to primetime TV movies. TV movies were mostly safe melodramas and soft thrillers that were never really about staying power. “It” came along and showed the world that not only could they be an event, but they could be as immortal as theatrical films. You’d think a documentary about a legendary TV movie wouldn’t be prime for valuable film information, but “Pennywise: the Story of IT” disproved a lot of the cynicism I had going in to it.
The Mist (2007): 4-Disc Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
Almost twenty years later, Frank Darabont’s adaptation of the Stephen King novella is still one of the most relentless and hopeless horror films ever made. “The Mist” is a merciless breakdown of humanity that shows everything from tribalism, religious fanaticism, and the extremes we’re willing to go through to make it one more day. Like Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” it all happens smack dab in the middle of a massive grocery store, where every aisle feels like a division of society that has broken off in to their own principles and moral codes. The longer the denizens of the store are stuck in the mist in this confined setting, the more the social structure and all semblance of civilization begins to break down.