I stormed through the six part serial that was “The Green Mile” back in 1996 and when it came to the big screen in 1999 I didn’t think they would be able to carry over the story, particularly the fantastic elements. Luckily Frank Darabont got the right people in line to tell the story, and while the film doesn’t entirely have the heart of the books it does just about as good as you could hope for.
I don’t really like including recent films on top ten lists because it takes a few years for a film to truly have a lasting effect on you. For example, I loved Spider-Man 2 when I first saw it, now I loathe it… While I don’t expect that to happen with 1408, I do believe it will probably drop in my preference as the years go buy. However, for now, I really do like this film and the director’s cut on DVD is pretty cool as well.
I anticipate this will be the one shocker on this list for the true King fans. When I read “The Dark Half” I fell in love with it. I loved the battle between Thad Beaumont and his fictional alter-ego George Stark and I was completely surprised that George A. Romero was actually able to come as close as anyone possibly could to duplicating King’s story. Of course this is probably a biased opinion, but I gotta go with my gut.
As much as I have a love/hate relationship with Carrie, my love/hate relationship with Misery is far larger. Don’t get me wrong, I like this movie, but there was a change made from the book that still infuriates me.
In the movie Annie Wilkes uses a sledgehammer on Paul’s feet to hobble him so he can’t run. The scene is rather disturbing on film, but it is nowhere near as disturbing and fantastic as it could have been. In the book Annie instead uses an axe and then a blowtorch to seal the wound… Yeah, it really ramped up your hatred for Annie. She was still a bitch in the movie, but in the book it was a completely different world. And when you realize the scene was originally written with the axe and then changed to a sledgehammer by director Rob Reiner you even get a more acidic taste in your mouth.
