For the longest time, Gerald's Game was considered the unadaptable Stephen King novel, as it focused squarely on one character and the narrative largely took place in the character's head as she not only tried to work her way out of her predicament but also deal with some deeply repressed memories that this situation brings back. But, not only did they manage to do it, in the process they created one of the better King adaptations.
Jessie (played by Carla Gugino) and her husband Gerald (played by Bruce Greenwood) are taking a trip to their secluded vacation home for some rest and relaxation with the hope of rekindling their marriage in the process. Gerald suggests a kinky sex game that involves Jessie being handcuffed to the bedposts. Jessie decides to go along with it allows her husband to handcuff each wrist to one of the bedposts. However, when the fantasy takes a darker turn, she pushes him away and demands he take the handcuffs off. He tries again and she kicks him away and he decides to give up. Before he can get up to get the key to the handcuffs, as they are real and not the crappy public versions that break easily, Gerald suffers a major heart attack and dies right there, rolling off the bed onto the stone floor below. No matter how much she struggles, she is unable to slip out of the handcuffs and because of how she is on the bed she can't get enough leverage to break the bed posts. As hours dwindle away, Jessie has to figure out how to use the few things around her to survive and escape. This is made all the more difficult as her psyche starts to crack as she sees hallucinations of her husband alive and talking to her as well as another, stronger version of herself. She also begins to have flashbacks to a traumatic time in her childhood as her family gathered to watch an eclipse and within those memories may lie the key to her escape.
Mike Flanagan directed the film from a script he wrote with Jeff Howard and the two of them capture the novel quite well, especially given the rather lean hour and forty-three minute run time. The novel set a rather unique challenge as the bulk of the film takes place in a bedroom at a secluded vacation home with only a couple characters. Yet, they manage to create an absolutely riveting film within those confines. It does help that there is an extended flashback to when Jessie was a child and spending time with her father (played by Henry Thomas) to break things up a little. But for the bulk of the film, it is that one room and they are able to keep the film moving at a hearty pace to make up for it as Jessie works out how to get out of her situation. They also do a nice job of personifying the two warring sides of her mind in the form of her husband being the negative and herself being the positive to not only keep things interesting visually but also as a unique way to present her working out how to get out of her predicament. They also manage to keep the to a minimum until the towards the end there is a moment that is so excruciatingly gruesome that even I was cringing and looking away. I won't give specific spoilers, but I figured I'd forewarn the more squeamish of my readers.
The performances in the film are quite good with Carla Gugino being the clear stand out, giving a great performance as Jessie. She really gives it her all and really sells the agony, despair and also the strength her character has and taps into. I've always enjoyed Carla Gugino as an actress and it's nice to see her in a lead role that she can really sink her teeth into and she more than rises to the challenge. Bruce Greenwood is good as well as both her husband and as her hallucination later on in the film, subtly hinting at the unknown layers to his character. Henry Thomas also does well as Jessie's father in the flashback, not playing his role in a stereotypical way either (I'll refrain from saying more to avoid spoilers for those who have not read the book).
The film works in a few nice references to other Stephen King works with notable nods to both Cujo and The Dark Tower. However, the biggest one is to Dolores Claiborne. In my review of that film, I talked about the connection between the two novels. This film does a wonderful job of preserving that connection with Jessie talking about a dream she had that explicitly references the other film. It was a nice little easter egg for me and my fellow Stephen King fans.
Gerald's Game is a lean and gripping thriller with a unique setup that keeps the viewer's attention from beginning to end. Packed with great performances and solid direction, this was a satisfying thriller as well as a rather faithful adaptation of the source novel as well.
"Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to."
There is something about Stephen King's novel, Dolores Claiborne, and its subsequent adaptation that has grabbed me and never let go. I vividly remember reading the novel while on summer vacation with my family and just devouring it and then giving it to my mother to read during the same trip. Naturally, we eagerly awaited the film version which while being quite different than the novel in some respects, is also an incredibly good film as well as one that was tragically overlooked.
New York reporter Selena St. George (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) is drawn back to her home town, the small town of Little Tall Island in Maine, when she discovers her mother Dolores Claiborne (played by Kathy Bates) has been brought in for questioning in the suspicious death of the woman, Vera Donovan (played by Judy Parfitt), that Dolores cared for. The detective overseeing the case is Detective John Mackey (played by Christopher Plummer), who has a long history with Dolores as he over saw the investigation into the death of Dolores' husband and Selena's father Joe St. George (played by David Straithairn). The two women have a strained relationship and Selena has not visited her mother in fifteen years but the two can't help revisiting the past as soon as they get back to the old house their past memories come creeping back as the two start to settle their past issues once and for all in a house where every corner seems to trigger a memory or flashback.
The film was directed by Taylor Hackford from a script by Tony Gilroy and manage to pull off the seemingly impossible task of adapting Stephen King's novel. The reason I say this is the way the story is told in the novel is completely different than the movie. The novel is one, long stream of consciousness written statement by Delores concerning the two deaths central to the film and her role in them. Adult Selena is not even a character in the original novel but was added to the film as part of finding a new way to tell the same story. Not only is it an effective choice, I also think it makes the film a rare instance where it is better than the book. By bringing in adult Selena and seeing how the darkness of her past has impacted her as she deals with it and her mother for the first time in her life made for a more emotionally satisfying story as well. They do a fantastic job managing the numerous and lengthy flashbacks that run throughout the film by having the present look very cold, desaturated and overcast whereas the flashbacks, that mostly center around a specific summer leading up to a total eclipse, are brighter and full of color making the two segments of the story that much easier to discern, as well as fitting the thematic style of the film. They also capture small town Maine life in a way that is unlike any other Stephen King adaptation. Of course, much like King's books, there are nods to his other works notably a reference to Shawshank Prison, the setting of The Shawshank Redemption.
Part of what makes this movie so memorable is the acting in the film. This is especially true with Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who are both absolutely at the top of their game in their respective roles. Bates gives what is without a doubt her best performance, completely inhabiting the character of Dolores right down to a flawless New England accent and the character's unique colloquialisms. It's a shame this film was so ignored after it's release in the Spring of 1995 because Bates deserved a second Oscar for this role. Jennifer Jason Leigh is great as Selena, matching Kathy Bates beat for beat as the two revisit their difficult past, especially since Selena has repressed many of her memories of that time. David Straithairn doesn't hold back at all in his performance as the drunken, abusive Joe, never afraid to be totally despicable. Christopher Plummer is good as well as the driven and obsessed Detective Mackey, determined to prove Dolores guilty in the murder of Vera because he's convinced Dolores killed Joe too, even if in both cases there was not enough evidence to prove it. Judy Parfitt is great as Dolores' employer, Vera Donovan, who has very strict ideas of how her house should be run and slowly grows to not only being a confidant of Dolores' but her friend as well.
Dolores Claiborne tackles some grim and dark material but yet never felt depressing to me. The story is absolutely riveting with some great performances backing it up. Despite the subject matter, it's a story of mending relationships, looking out for one another, making peace with the past and ultimately female empowerment. It's a fantastic film that was a great adaptation of Stephen King's novel that, despite the change in narrative style, remains largely faithful to it's source material.
I had been wanting to review this film on this blog for awhile now and was searching for the right time to do it. When I heard Netflix was doing an adaptation of King's novel Gerald's Game, I realized that was the perfect time to do it since the two novels are directly connected (there is an eclipse that is a pivotal plot point in both novels, as well as in the novel Dolores has a vision during the eclipse of a woman in distress but can't make her out, who turns out to be the main character, Jessie, in Gerald's Game and likewise Jessie has a vision of Dolores in that novel as well). I figured it would be fun to review them side by side, given the connection between the two novels (apparently there is a nod to Dolores Claiborne in the Gerald's Game film as well, according to that film's director). So, that review will be coming soon.
Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the more delightful surprises of 2015, even making my best of the year list. With it's subversive sense of naughty fun, I couldn't help but love every minute of the film. Naturally, I found myself anticipating it's follow up, Kingsman: The Golden Circle with a certain degree of excitement. Does it live up to the original film? No, but it is still a great deal of fun.
Eggsy Unwin (played by Taron Egerton) has been with the Kingsman for a little over a year since we last saw him and has become a successful agent, along with fellow recruit Roxy Morton (played by Sophie Cookson). He is also trying to make his relationship with Princess Tilde (played by Hanna Alstrom) work while balancing his burgeoning career as a secret agent. Things take a sharp detour when a new baddie on the scene, Poppy (played by Julianne Moore), discovers the existence of the Kingsman and launches a simultaneous strike, taking out all but Eggsy and technical whiz Merlin (played by Mark Strong). Enacting a doomsday protocol, the two discover the existence of a similar intelligence agency called the Statesmen in the United States, operating under the cover of a distillery rather than a tailor shop. They soon meet the Statesman agents Tequila (played by Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (played by Pedro Pascal), as well as their tech whiz Ginger Ale (played by Halle Berry) and leader Champ, short for Champagne, (played by Jeff Bridges). They also discover that their thought to be dead fellow agent Harry Hart (played by Colin Firth) is in fact still very much alive. Soon enough, Poppy's grand scheme comes into focus. She is a drug kingpin who has laced all the drugs she sells with a unique virus that she alone holds the antidote hostage. The leaders of the free world have to legalize drugs or a large portion of their population is going to die.
Matthew Vaughn returns to the world of the Kingsman and sets out to craft a worthwhile follow-up with co-screenwriter Jane Goldman. The question is does it succeed as well as the original film? No, sadly it does not. The film has a fair amount of wit involved and there were some nice touches in the way it subverts the Bond formula further with this entry. But the film as a whole settles for merely good when it should have been shooting for great. They introduce the Statesmen as the U.S counterpart of the Kingsmen, with both agencies operating unaware of one another, but yet doesn't fully realize the potential team up opportunities within. Aside from Pedro Pascal as Agent Whiskey (sporting a mustache that makes him a dead ringer for a young Burt Reynolds), the entire crew of Statesmen are tragically wasted. Hot shot Channing Tatum makes an early potential and offers an opportunity for butting heads with the once loose cannon, now more settled Eggsy but instead disappears from the film for large chunks of the narrative. Fellow Kingsman Roxy is sidelined for much of the film, and presumed dead (with this series I refuse to believe they're dead until I see a body and even then...eh, maybe?), when I really wanted to see her being part of the action as a fully fledged agent working side by side with Eggsy in this outing. They also introduce Ginger Ale as a Statesman counterpart for Merlin and the two pair well but little to nothing is done with her character over the course of the film, which is a shame since she seemed like a fun character, especially when partnered with Merlin. Also, despite how much I loved Colin Firth in the first film, I can't help but feel like resurrecting his character for this film was a mistake. It's just one more plotline too many in an already overstuffed film and robs his death in the first film of the gut punch it delivered.
That's not to say it's all bad. Julianne Moore makes a fun baddie as Poppy, who is sick and tired of having to hide her operation in the middle of a South American jungle. She's built herself a little paradise, filled with 50's nostalgia and small town Americana. She's even kidnapped Elton John for nightly concerts for her amusement but none of it is working. She comes up with a devilish scheme to bring her business into the mainstream. It's an interesting choice on the part of Vaughn and Goldman with their taking on America's failing War on Drugs and making it a plot point. The characterization of the clearly insane Poppy is fun in the demented Kingsman way, especially in how she deals with minions that have become a liability. I won't dare spoil it, but it is memorable in a unique way.
The film also brings it in the action department crafting some new and imaginative sequences for Eggsy and the gang to go through including a memorable sequence where Eggsy and Whisky have to infiltrate a mountaintop lab that instantly recalled the primary setting of the great Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (and I'm sure all comparisons were intentional). Agent Whisky also gets in a few great moments of his own, including a fight sequence that involves his electric lasso (you read that right) that can cut a person in half no less. The final showdown at Poppyland is an entertaining sequence, with a few surprises I wouldn't dream of spoiling.
When I came out of Kingsman: The Golden Circle I had a feeling of mild disappointment that took me awhile to really put my finger on why. There is plenty about this movie that is very fun and very entertaining but it was missing that spark that the first film had as well as it's sharp edge. It still has it's share of edgy, bordering on tasteless, humor (or maybe goes all the way into tasteless, depending on how twisted you are), but it didn't have the same punch as the first one. Maybe it never could. As it stands, it's merely a good film with some very entertaining moments. But, dammit, it could have been great with a few tweaks.
Growing up, I was a huge fan of Stephen King and continue to read his novels today. However, if I were to rank my favorite novels of his, IT would be at the top of the list along with 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and Misery. At it's core is a potent tale of childhood fears and the power of friendship that really struck a chord with me. I had a lot of fondness for the 1990 mini-series adaptation of the novel, which I reviewed here, but I was also open to a new adaptation that could perhaps cover the book better than the original mini-series could without the constraints of network television. Boy, did they ever deliver a great film.
In the fall of 1988 in the small town of Derry, Maine, Bill Denbrough (played by Jaeden Lieberher), is sick at home. He makes a paper boat for his little brother Georgie (played by Jackson Robert Scott) to play with out in the rain. Georgie sails the boat down the rainswept gutters until it falls into one of the storm drains. There he meets Pennywise the clown (played by Bill Skarsgard), who offers to give him back his boat but winds up killing him instead. We then flash forward to Summer of 1989 where we find a distraught Bill obsessed with figuring out what happened to his brother when his friends Eddie Kasprak (played by Jack Dylan Grazer) and Richie Tozier (played by Finn Wolfhard) just want to have fun and enjoy their summer. They soon meet Ben Hanscom (played by Jeremy Ray Taylor), who is the target of school bully Henry Bowers (played by Nicholas Hamilton), and welcome him into their ranks as well as fellow classmates, the tomboy Beverly Marsh (played by Sophie Lillis) and home schooled Mike Hanlon (played by Chosen Jacobs). As they bond, they all discover they have been having visions of things they fear, things that have tried to terrify and ultimately kill them. Tying them all together has been sightings of the malicious clown Pennywise. They tie Pennywise and the other monsters they have been seeing to a rash of disappearances of children around town that started with Bill's brother Georgie and that what they see is an evil being that takes the form of whatever they fear the most. They look back into the history of the town and discover that the same thing has happened in the town over and over again every 27 years since the town was first settled. They also realize that somehow the adults are oblivious to what is going on in the town, aside from kids disappearing, and determine it's up to them to stop Pennywise once and for all.
The original novel by Stephen King told the story over the course of 27 years, first with the characters as kids and then as adults returning to Derry to face the childhood evil again. This film wisely focuses on the first half of the story with them as children, which was always the strongest part of the story anyway. Director Andy Muschietti, along with screenwriter Chase Palmer, does a good job of distilling King's expansive narrative into a thoroughly terrifying and yet surprisingly touching 2 hour and 15 minute film. Clearly not everything could be included, but they were able to figure out what was most important and translate it to the screen with style and grace while updating the story from the late 50's in the novel to the late 80's with ease.
Certain memorable sequences from the book and Mini-Series turn up here, such as the Lucky Seven looking through a photo album becomes a slide show in the remake (with a few memorably terrifying additions). Also the sequence where blood bursts out of Beverly's sink gets a gruesome update for the R-rated film, with her and the entire room getting coated in the stuff. The film also includes the subsequent scene where she shows it to the others and discovers that only the kids can see it, not the adults like her father. They subsequently help her clean it all up in a montage set to perhaps the best use of The Cure's "Six Different Ways" I've seen in a film. But even more than specific moments, they beautifully capture the spirit of the book that has left me enamored of it all these years later. The triumphant power of friendship and the discovery by these kids that they are all stronger together than they ever were apart. That more than anything is what continues to resonate with me, whether it be the novel, the 1990 mini-series or this new film.
The acting in the film is fantastic and the casting is perfectly on point as well. Aside from Jaeden Lieberher (who I knew from the fantastic Midnight Special and the not so fantastic The Book of Henry) and Finn Wolfhard (who I know from the fantastic Stranger Things), these kids were largely new to me and each beautifully captured their characters. From the tomboyish Beverly to the loudmouthed Richie to the clumsy Ben and mournful Mike and Bill, each actor really brought their characters to life in a tangible and real way. They also really sold their friendship as a group as well with a real sense on camaraderie developing between each of the characters. The film does a reasonably good job of developing each of the friends as well, with Bill dealing with his brother having gone missing, as well as his role in that since he made the boat for Georgie, Beverly dealing with her abusive father, Eddie and his issues with his ridiculously overprotective mother, Mike dealing with the tragic death of his parents in a fire which left him in the care of his uncle, and Ben dealing with the intense bullying of Henry Bowers as well as being the new kid in school. One curious change from the novel was that in the book, as well as the original mini-series, Mike was the historian of the group and tells them of the background of Derry whereas that role was passed to Ben in the new movie. While I can see why they made the change within the context of the film (Ben, having no friends, retreats to the library in his spare time and starts reading up on the town). This robs Mike of having as much of a role in the film, reduced to providing the captive bolt gun from his family's farm, which isn't really a spoiler because any halfways saavy filmgoer knows as soon as it shows up in the beginning you damn well know it's going to be part of the finale. If they were going to make this change, I wish they in turn had found more for Mike to do, especially since he is the film's lone minority character.
Still, the newest rendition of Stephen King's classic novel is damn near perfect. The direction and writing are top notch and knows how to keep itself focused on these seven kids over the course of one terrifying summer. It stands amongst the best of Stephen King's adaptations, especially at times the fantastic Stand by Me, and is a film that I expect to see rise in stature as time goes by as both a great scary movie and just a great movie period. The film is filled with frights, some great laughs and a surprising amount of genuine emotion that snuck up on me. As the end title credit states, this is just Chapter One, with a Chapter Two now all but guaranteed to follow with the child characters as adults. I can only hope the filmmakers can craft a follow-up as good, if not better, as this one.
"This is important. This means something."
There is an age old question of whether or not we are alone in the universe. This is something that has been explored time and time again in films, with the aliens usually taking the role of the villain. However, in 1977, Steven Spielberg took a different look at humankind's encounters with extra-terrestrials from a more realistic and hopeful point of view. The resulting film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, remains one of the best science fiction films and this year celebrates it's 40th anniversary with a brand new theatrical re-release.
Across the country, certain missing items are starting to turn up in places they shouldn't be. Fighter planes that had been missing for thirty years turn up in near perfect condition on the other side of the world, pilots missing. The SS Cotopaxi, missing since 1925 during a voyage from the U.S to Cuba turns up in the middle of the Gobi desert, her crew also missing. Experts, including French scientist LaCombe (played by Francois Truffaut) and his translator (played by Bob Balaban), are baffled. People across the world are encountering space ships decorated with bright lights at night, including Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) and Jillian (played by Melinda Dillon) and her young son Barry (played by Cary Guffey). Each of them find themselves with an image stuck in their heads of a shape as well as five repeating tones. This begins to become an obsession to Roy to understand what this shape he's seeing in his mind, as well as what he has seen over the last few days, eventually straining his relationship with his wife, Ronnie (played by Teri Garr), and children. Things escalate when the aliens return and take little Barry, leading Jillian on a desperate quest to get her son back as her and Roy's paths cross again leading them to the first meeting between humanity and extra-terrestrials at Devil's Tower in Wyoming.
Director Steven Spielberg, who also wrote the film, crafts an epic journey into the world of UFOs documenting what likely would happen in a covert meeting between the U.S Government and beings from another planet, showing the lengths they would take to cover it up from public view. The interesting stroke Spielberg took with the film was that this was only a one sided decision on the side of Government. The image the people saw in their heads and the tones corresponded to the meeting place. However, the government is doing everything in their power to keep the average citizens out. LaCombe even calls the people in charge on it, stating plainly that "They were invited!" to no avail. He also keeps the focus away from the bureaucrats and instead on the regular folks, like Roy and Jillian. Even thought LaCombe may be working with the Government he is more in line with Roy in just wanting to seek the truth while also dreaming of the possibilities.
The acting in the film is great, with Richard Dreyfuss leading the group as Roy Neary, giving such a sympathetic portrayal as a man slowly coming unglued as he becomes more and more obsessed with understanding what he's seen. Melinda Dillon was equally great as Jillian, who matches Roy's obsession and trumps it as well as she is pursuing the truth to try and get her son back. Francois Truffaut, a celebrated French filmmaker, makes a rare acting appearance as the scientist LaCombe and is great in the role as he helps investigate and understand what is going on. Bob Balaban also has a great turn as a cartographer who is recruited to translate for LaCombe when needed and the two make for an interesting pair.
The special effects are fantastic in the film with some genuinely unique and captivating designs for the spaceships in the film, including three small ones and then the giant mothership we see at the end of the film (that's not a spoiler, it's on the damn poster!). Filled with all sorts of lights and antenna of sorts, it's an awe inspiring sight to see it as it comes up over the peaks of Devil's Tower, especially of the big screen and surround sound. For the first time in my life I really felt the size and scope of the ships on screen and it was nothing short of awe inspiring.
The music in the film was composed by John Williams, who at the time was fresh off Star Wars and manages to bring a fantastic and dynamic score to this film as well, which includes some unique musical challenges of it's own, especially in a climactic scene in the film where the humans are trying to communicate with the aliens using musical notes built off the initial five notes they gave us. It's a fantastically unique and Williams pulled off composing it wonderfully. On top of that though, Williams created a wonderful score for the film filled with all the wonder, awe and at times suspense the film required.
The film was one that Steven Spielberg revisited a couple times in his career. Not feeling the original theatrical version was as satisfying as it could be, he went back and got the studio to allow him to shoot new scenes for the film for a Special Edition of the film. The agreed, as long as he shot scenes of the inside of the mothership, which he agreed to. The newly re-edited film premiered in 1980 and for awhile that was the only version of the film available. He then revisited the film again in 1998, delivering his definitive director's cut of the film. That version removed the Mother Ship interiors, as he considered showing that to be a mistake as he could never compete with what the audience imagined the interior of the ship to look like. Once the film hit Blu-Ray though, a box set was released that contains all three cuts of the film so each audience member can now enjoy the cut they prefer (Ahem,George Lucas could learn a thing or two from his buddy Steven).
Close Encounters of the Third Kind has been a favorite of mine ever since I was a kid and my love for it has only grown as I've gotten older. This was the first time I had ever seen it on the big screen and I have to say that somehow, I'm not sure how, but it was like seeing it for the first time. I knew what was going to happen, of course, but the awe and emotional impact of the film hit me full force for the first time in a long time. If you've seen it before, or especially if you haven't, I'd heartily recommend checking it out while it's still in theatres. Some films just need to be seen on the big screen and this is one of them.
