Grass sculptures
Found this while playing Choose Your Own Adventure with the Net tonight.
Reminded me of The Shining. The movie adaptation (original) was not bad, but a poor, poor substitute for the creepiness of the novel. The hedge sculptures played a larger and more menacing role in the book. I think we covered this in comments before, but I really liked the casting of Nicholson and hated the casting of Olive Oyl. The kid was good but they messed up the portrayal of his “shine.” The whole “little boy who lives in my mouth” schtick was corny and nowhere near as creepy as it could have been if they’d just let him “shine” and not tried to explain it. I loved the casting of Scatman as well.
More cool grass sculptures here.
Tags: grass sculptures, the shining
Kubrick’s version scared me, because of Nicholson. But the fear went away as soon as I turned off the TV. The miniseries version with Rebecca DeMornay and Steven Weber was closer to the novel, and yes, the topiary sculptures DID have a HUGE role in that version. Truthfully, it left me freaked out for about a week.
My main problem with the miniseries version was Steven Weber. He just wasn’t Nicholson. :)
For my money, the vast majority of Stephen King translations to screen, especially mini series, have been tremendous flops. I actually had a hard time reading any more of his books after watching “It,” and then “The Stand” came along and was intolerable. Still, there’s plenty of good ones out there, too.
The sculptures made me think of Edward Scissorhands right off.
The Stand was horrible for an adaptation and so was It. Unfortunate because I loved those books. They seem to be worse off when he writes his own screenplays.
And yeah, the grass stuff made me think of Ed, too.
Love those elephants!
The Shining was the first time I liked both the book and the movie. The movie didn’t track the book exactly, but I can understand that they didn’t think it could. They kept it darn creepy. The two little girls were absolutely creepy.
I didn’t see the whole miniseries, the part I saw I liked, but I can’t be bothered to be anywhere at the same time for 3 days straight (or 2 or 4 or however many there were).
I liked both the movie and the book for It, again, they kept the level of creepiness even while changing it.
The last King book I bought was Christine, that was the first one where you could see he was writing for the movie, after that they were all intended to be movies, I thought that made them lame.
I don’t think I ever finished the Gunslinger series, did he?
He also got me mad with all his short story books, he was just printing his college stories because he wanted a new boat. Some were okay, but a lot, like The Fog, didn’t have a beginning or an ending. That’s always been his problem, he can’t begin or end a book.
I liked the first half of It. The part with the kids was pretty good and pretty close to the book. The kids they cast were great. The adult casts I didn’t care much for.
Yeah, he’s always needed an editor pretty badly. I liked several of his short stories, though. But I admit, I am a fan of short stories. And they were good material for prose readings at speech & debate competitions. :)
The Gunslinger books I could never get into. I tried. The closest I got were the books he wrote with Straub, who I like a lot. They mention the Gunslinger stuff from time to time in those.
Christine the book I liked. The movie I liked also, though it wasn’t as good as the book.
I haven’t read anything of his for ages.