Stephen King - Any films worthy of the books????

First topic message reminder :

Love this guy's books.......but the screen versions of them have been terrible......

Being honest............."It" was shocking!!!!..."The stand".. tragic!!!....Pet Semetary awful!!......even The Shining for me was a shadow on the book!!!

For me the only King film worthy of the book is MISERY.........

Although I've not seen them all...

Any films that are worthy of the books?????????

Adam D wrote:I think that Christine is the best of his adaptations.

I was looking for a mention to this film. I have a soft spot for it. Under rated.

The Langoliers was made into a tv movie.

It wasn't terrible but was very tv movie-ish and like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.

I've not read the book.

Cyril wrote:The Langoliers was made into a tv movie.

It wasn't terrible but was very tv movie-ish and like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.

I've not read the book.

Didn't they do something similar with "The Night Flier"?
"1408" with Samuel Jackson and John Cusack is also a King adaptation. Can't say I loved it.

Cyril wrote:The Langoliers was made into a tv movie.

It wasn't terrible but was very tv movie-ish and like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.

I've not read the book.

Awful and way too long...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Cyril wrote:The Langoliers was made into a tv movie.

It wasn't terrible but was very tv movie-ish and like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.

I've not read the book.

Awful and way too long...

Yeah, that's what the wife said. Arf.

I watched the Tales From the Darkside episode of King's Word Processor of the Gods today.

It's actually a decent enough adaptation of one of my favourite short-stories of his.

The tv version of Battleground (where the hitman fights the minature army in his apartment) was also pretty well done.

i just bought the stand series on dvd . boy considering the talent on the programme there some awful acting going down .dont know if its because of the badly written script which i believe Stephen king wrote . never read the book but it must be better then this . the dialogue is so bad its funny . hopefully Ben afleck film version be a lot better . M -O-O-N that spells better .

Affleck has left the project now he's got the Batman gig.

I think quite a lot of Stephen King's books have been made into good movies. Most have already been mentioned here, especially Misery, Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Running Man, Carrie and The Mist.

A couple that seemed to have been missed by the group, which I certainly enjoyed were:

Hearts in Atlantis. Anthony Hopkins, brilliant as usual. Standard King fayre in as much as the storyline concerns a sinister government agency tracking down one of its 'special people of interest' (Hopkins) who is on the run (shades of Firestarter). But this film also incorporates a 'rite of passage' theme where three young friends who befriend Hopkins find their nascent adolescent emotions affected when they try to cover for him. Adapted from the trilogy "Heart in Atlantis', of which the film version is only the first part, but it is a very touching story and well acted by the entire cast.

Dolan's Cadillac A schoolteacher attempts a rather novel way of gaining revenge on an LA Mobster and people trafficker who murders his wife. Christian Slater is quite cold-blooded as the eponymous Dolan who, it finally transpires, is not above trafficking even children, but gets his come-uppance in a manner that only Stephen King could devise. Not big budget, not even particularly well acted, but worth it to see the scumbag get what's coming to him.

DOlan's Cadillac is one of my favourite short stories and the adaptation is so diappointing I don't kow where to begin with my list of gripes.

I generally get a mental pciture of my characters and the schoolteacher is all wrong. From memory he's a middle aged paunchy man with a bald head (there's a scene late on where he suffers horrific sunburn on his pate as he's hatching his revenge plot) and we've got some handsome young dude in this role. He's as wooden as the blackboard he writes on and it's not difficult to imagine that his wife wasn't killed, she simply faked her own death to get away from this dullard

There's so much incidental stuff missed out from the book (hey, not even a book, a short story or even a novella and they've still edited it to death)

Massive disappointment of a King adaptation that ranks alongside The Stand, It, Pet Semetary and the Running Man for "what the bloody hell have you done here -ability.

Desperation started out well enough but then lost its appeal.

DAVE667 wrote:DOlan's Cadillac is one of my favourite short stories and the adaptation is so diappointing I don't kow where to begin with my list of gripes.

I generally get a mental pciture of my characters and the schoolteacher is all wrong. From memory  he's a middle aged paunchy man with a bald head (there's a scene late on where he suffers horrific sunburn on his pate as he's hatching his revenge plot) and we've got some handsome young dude in this role. He's as wooden as the blackboard he writes on and it's not difficult to imagine that his wife wasn't killed, she simply faked her own death to get away from this dullard

There's so much incidental stuff missed out from the book (hey, not even a book, a short story or even a novella and they've still edited it to death)

Massive disappointment of a King adaptation that ranks alongside The Stand, It, Pet Semetary and the Running Man for "what the bloody hell have you done here -ability.

Are you trying to say you didn't enjoy it..?

I'm one of the few guys who didn't like The shining (Along with King himself)......

Book was fantastic........

Misery was a decent portrayal but they failed in the basic premise of getting inside the Caan's character's head bringing home the despair of isolation along with the paranoia and black humor of the situation...

Very hard though to do King justice......Because no other Author flushes out his characters like King does....He explains everything in minute detail and on film it's hard to capture that !!

My issue with the Shining is having to look at his wife's face, lank hair and sticky out ears for the duration of the movie. She looked like an early incarnation of Gollum. That's the most terrifying aspect of that horror film

Very true but her biggest crime was her acting............

If I'd have had a baseball bat handy........I'd have gone after her as well.....

Because no other Author flushes out his characters like King does

Richie Tozier from "IT" was such a bland character in the film and in the book he was my favourite of all the kids.

Would have love to have seen King's version of "Running Man" but I guess using planes to blow up skyscrapers is just a step too far even for Hollywood.

I liked "The Long Walk" but can't see how it would have transferred successfully to the big screen. "What? It's just teenagers walking for a long time?"

It... was such a wonderful book......Though I started it the day I got married and finished it yesterday!!  

Genuinely frightening from the gay guy buying it at the beginning to the end......Superb.

I enjoyed the Running man as a stand alone film........It wasn't enough like the book really to call it an adaption.....

Insomnia was a great book also.......

Christine movie was appalling.

Insomnia was sleep inducing. Only bit I liked was the reference to Gage Creed and the inference that this character had been responsible for the death of characters on other King books.
 
Also enjoyed Needful Things (film sucked though)

Hated Tommyknockers (book..never bothered with film)

I do like "The Mist" (film and book) though but I think that's because Frank Darabont is at the helm and appears to be the one man who "gets" King

Needful things was a beauty of a book until the ending.......

The Mist movie was okay but the short story was much better.........

The lawnmower man was okay.......But king sued over his name being on the movie...without permission!...Apparently he hated it.

Made a fortune....

Didn't see the point in things like "Maximum Overdrive" which even Channel Five would balk at showing especially if there was a new Steven Segal suck-a-thon in the offing

Great soundtrack to the movie though..

Funny thing is MAXIMUM sucks worse than any of his other movies.......and that's the only film he directed...

Yet he disowns all the others..

DAVE667 wrote:My issue with the Shining is having to look at his wife's face, lank hair and sticky out ears for the duration of the movie. She looked like an early incarnation of Gollum. That's the most terrifying aspect of that horror film

You mean Shelley Duvall... She played the part of Olive Oyl in the movie version of Popeye, (which starred Robin Williams as the eponymous title character). She fitted the part like a hand in a glove.

Having said that, I rather like her, actually.

I remember going to see Popeye years ago. It was utterly dreadful and ranks alongside Condorman as films that people should never have bothered getting involved with.

As for fancying Shelley Duvall, Lion, you've gone right down in my estimation...you'd have been better saying you fancied Shelley Winters.

As Peter Cook said of her in The Poseiden Adventure..."I like my women all billowy"

DAVE667 wrote:I remember going to see Popeye years ago. It was utterly dreadful and ranks alongside Condorman as films that people should never have bothered getting involved with.

As for fancying Shelley Duvall, Lion, you've gone right down in my estimation...you'd have been better saying you fancied Shelley Winters.

As Peter Cook said of her in The Poseiden Adventure..."I like my women all billowy"

I didn't say I "fancied" her.... I said I like her, and by that, I mean as an actress.

Oh dear.... how a simple comment can be so easily misconstrued, eh..?

As for your comment about Popeye, yes, it was awful... I agree with you on that. In order to head off further misunderstanding, I never said I liked it, I only said that Ms Duvall was ideally cast as Olive Oyl.

I have never seen Condorman.  However, I will take your warning seriously.

The Fourth Lion wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:I remember going to see Popeye years ago. It was utterly dreadful and ranks alongside Condorman as films that people should never have bothered getting involved with.

As for fancying Shelley Duvall, Lion, you've gone right down in my estimation...you'd have been better saying you fancied Shelley Winters.

As Peter Cook said of her in The Poseiden Adventure..."I like my women all billowy"

I didn't say I "fancied" her.... I said I like her, and by that, I mean as an actress.
Oh dear.... how a simple comment can be so easily misconstrued, eh..?

As for your comment about Popeye, yes, it was awful... I agree with you on that. In order to head off further misunderstanding, I never said I liked it, I only said that Ms Duvall was ideally cast as Olive Oyl.

I have never seen Condorman.  However, I will take your warning seriously.

WHATever.....anyway, Condorman stars Michael Crawford (with an American accent). It's poor in the extreme.

DAVE667 wrote:

The Fourth Lion wrote:

DAVE667 wrote:I remember going to see Popeye years ago. It was utterly dreadful and ranks alongside Condorman as films that people should never have bothered getting involved with.

As for fancying Shelley Duvall, Lion, you've gone right down in my estimation...you'd have been better saying you fancied Shelley Winters.

As Peter Cook said of her in The Poseiden Adventure..."I like my women all billowy"

I didn't say I "fancied" her.... I said I like her, and by that, I mean as an actress.
Oh dear.... how a simple comment can be so easily misconstrued, eh..?

As for your comment about Popeye, yes, it was awful... I agree with you on that. In order to head off further misunderstanding, I never said I liked it, I only said that Ms Duvall was ideally cast as Olive Oyl.

I have never seen Condorman.  However, I will take your warning seriously.

WHATever.....anyway, Condorman stars Michael Crawford (with an American accent). It's poor in the extreme.

It sounds like Condorman really is a movie to avoid.

As for Michael Crawford going American, "Ooooh, Betty..!!"   just wouldn't sound right in a southern drawl, or Boston accent.

Nothing sounds right in a Boston accent...ask Mrs TRUSSMAN

Worth pointing out that it's exactly 40 years to the month Stephen King who was teaching at the time got a phone call from the 11th publisher he sent his breakthrough book Carrie to offering a $2500 advance.....

Apparently his Wife, also a writer, had said he couldn't write a book about Women because he didn't understand them !!........After writing the first few pages he agreed with her and tossed them in the bin only for her to retrieve them and say this is excellent keep going !!

Carrie was based on two lonely girls from his school......One was a chronic asthmatic who died of an attack a few years later and the other was a depressive who took her own life a few years later also.....