At the Movies...

[Chard]

Looking forward to the Conjuring

Pretty good movie. Reminded me at times of classic demonic possession themed films like The Exorcist and The Amittyville Horror. It's really good at playing up the psychological aspects of being the victim of such an ordeal, with the family being plagued looking like shell shocked refuges by the time help finally arrives. There's also a couple of jump scares that were so well timed they even made my marvelous black ass scream like a little bitch with a skinned knee. Good family film is you believe in traumatizing your younger kin.

My 10 year old is following in his dads footsteps and is hanging out to watch some horror, constantly asking when will he be able to watch Freddy Kruiger, Halloween or Chucky. I told him those were crap and sat him down to watch Ringu so he can have some culture as well as scares.

Introduce the boy to the joys of reading with old school cosmic horror like Lovecraft (Mountains of Madness still gives me the heebeejeebees) and move him along to newer authors like Koontz (this dude's consistantly good at delivering "check under the bed and hope the sun comes up soon" all night reading). I'd recommend King, but I honestly can't stand his writing (or movies based on his writing. It's all trite, trope-laden poorly paced shit).

[Rorschach]

Funny you should mention that... I can't stand Stephen King either, can't read his books, it's like trying to wade through molasses.

[Chard]

Funny you should mention that... I can't stand Stephen King either, can't read his books, it's like trying to wade through molasses.

I despise King for the same reasons I hate reading J.R.R. Tolkien and Anne Rice.

All three are great at descriptive narrative, but they tend to tell you instead of show you. They describe things at such length and detail that it drains the life right out of things, leaving me with the sense I'd read an after-action report of events instead of a narrative of events as they happen.

All three are fucking horrible at character development, with their protagonists not really learning and growing from their experiences so much as leaving them more psychologically scared than an Auschwitz survivor. Instead of reading about a person or a group that develops and grow as people, there by giving the audience a reason to actually give a shit about them, we get card-board cut-outs and Mary Sue/Marty Stu. They blunder their way from one horror to the next, suffering, but never learning,and never mind imparting any real message or subtext to the reader. They expect you to give a shit about their misunderstood bisexual male fantasy (Lestat from Rice's Vampire novels), their saint-like hard-working average Joe (Stu Redman from King's The Stand), or some whinging midget (Frodo Baggins from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings). Not sure about the rest of you, but I find their assumption that I should give a shit about their goddamn Mary Sue/Marty Stu creations more than a little insulting.

All three are terrible at plot development and flow. They over use flash backs and jumping from character viewpoints and narrative perspectives so often it forces the reader to spend more time sorting out what the hell is going on and less time enjoying the story. Tolkien was particularly bad about this with the Lord of the Rings (This link here gives you an idea of how needlessly complex Tolkien got writing a story about two midgets walking to a volcano).

/rant But yeah, Stephen King is a terrible, terrible person that should never be allowed to write a grocery list, much less a novel.

[Rorschach]

ELYSIUM

[IQS.RLOW]

I don't mind King at all or Koontz for that that matter, but King hasnt produced anything or worth for a very long time.

His short story anthologies are much easier on the 'molasses' and a regular travel companion on long haul flights even though it's dog eared after being thrashed like a 13 year old boys footy sock next to his bed.

[Chard]

ELYSIUM

I'd wait for it on netflicks, man. It's like a really big budget SyFy movie (the guys that brought us stuff like Sharknado and Sharktopus. Seriously, what the fuck is with those guys and sharks?). It's really not that good unless you like terrible plots and Matt Damon.

[Rorschach]

But I liked District 9

[IQS.RLOW]

ELYSIUM

I'd wait for it on netflicks, man. It's like a really big budget SyFy movie (the guys that brought us stuff like Sharknado and Sharktopus. Seriously, what the fuck is with those guys and sharks?). It's really not that good unless you like terrible plots and Matt Damon.

I think it's a movie done by the same guy that did District Nine and he had the same underlying socialist themes in this one. He basically dresses up sci-fi with a socialist message where bad humans in good conditions meet good humans/aliens in bad conditions and the only reason for the bad conditions is because they have been forced on the good humans/aliens by the the bad humans.

Enter hero= bad human suffering guilt complex wants to save good humans/aliens by exposing bad humans responsibility for bad conditions.

Yaddayaddayadda bad humans= rich, good humans= poor
Suffering humans/aliens only suffer because of the bad rich humans.

[Jovial_Monk]

[mellie]

Funny you should mention that... I can't stand Stephen King either, can't read his books, it's like trying to wade through molasses.

I despise King for the same reasons I hate reading J.R.R. Tolkien and Anne Rice.

All three are great at descriptive narrative, but they tend to tell you instead of show you. They describe things at such length and detail that it drains the life right out of things, leaving me with the sense I'd read an after-action report of events instead of a narrative of events as they happen.

All three are fucking horrible at character development, with their protagonists not really learning and growing from their experiences so much as leaving them more psychologically scared than an Auschwitz survivor. Instead of reading about a person or a group that develops and grow as people, there by giving the audience a reason to actually give a shit about them, we get card-board cut-outs and Mary Sue/Marty Stu. They blunder their way from one horror to the next, suffering, but never learning,and never mind imparting any real message or subtext to the reader. They expect you to give a shit about their misunderstood bisexual male fantasy (Lestat from Rice's Vampire novels), their saint-like hard-working average Joe (Stu Redman from King's The Stand), or some whinging midget (Frodo Baggins from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings). Not sure about the rest of you, but I find their assumption that I should give a shit about their goddamn Mary Sue/Marty Stu creations more than a little insulting.

All three are terrible at plot development and flow. They over use flash backs and jumping from character viewpoints and narrative perspectives so often it forces the reader to spend more time sorting out what the hell is going on and less time enjoying the story. Tolkien was particularly bad about this with the Lord of the Rings (This link here gives you an idea of how needlessly complex Tolkien got writing a story about two midgets walking to a volcano).

/rant But yeah, Stephen King is a terrible, terrible person that should never be allowed to write a grocery list, much less a novel.

I'm not a Stephen King fan either, least wasn’t past the age of around 15, when I simultaneously stopped reading Dean Koontz novels also.
I figured, I simply outgrew this genre.

How about George Orwell or Dan Brown?