Change Your Image
jernie
Reviews
Bill and Coo (1948)
Enthralling
I saw this at the age of 4 and never forgot it, and for the longest time thought I had dreamed it until I heard someone discussing it at a movie one night. It's unlike anything you've ever seen before, and deserves wider screening. Think Claymation with live animals.
Pet Sematary (1989)
Faithful to the book, but...
Eminently scary-- especially if you're a parent-- perfect tension, good cinematography, macabre effects, persistent sense of foreboding, quite faithful to the book, highly effective for a low-budget production, yet...
It's all spoiled by the wooden acting and dialogue. It almost needs a subtitle: "Revenge of Pinocchio." Dale Midkiff as the father is dreadfully miscast. Both he and Denise Crosby as the mother are awkward and uncomfortable on the screen, with acting that's little better than a soap opera.
That said, it's still eerie and creepy enough to get your heart thumping. Not for the kiddies.
The Shining (1980)
What was Kubrick thinking of?
Finally got around to seeing "The Shining," and was looking forward to it with great anticipation.
What a disappointment! All the wonderful power of the book thrown away for 2 hours of Jack Nicholson mugging and overacting for the camera. Everything is overlit like a 7-Eleven.The dialogue is wooden, the music intrusive, the direction straight out of a high school play....
The cook makes the whole trip just to be killed in the hallway, instead of being the pivot point of the rescue and the key to the ending in the book. The maze is static and boring, and what happened to the malevolent topiary sculptures? The cellar is bright and clean and perky instead of the home of the heating plant from Hell that eventually destroys Jack and the hotel and releases the bound spirits. The whole history of the hotel is only referred to obliquely, and that was the heart of the story.
Stephen King must have had a near coronary if he saw it, which I sincerely hope he never did.
There is nothing worse than a purported horror movie that winds up boring and annoying. I watched it through to the end more out of disbelief than anything else. This is the same guy who made "2001"?
Anybody for a remake?