Month: July 2016

EW – Dark Tower SDCC 2016 Ed. Articles

On By Lou W. SytsmaIn The Dark TowerLeave a comment

Hail King fans!

In case you live under a social media rock, there’s a Dark Tower movie on the way. It stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black, and – I suspect, soon to be a household name – Tom Taylor as Jake. Filming just wrapped in New York City mid-July and it is coming out next February! The 17th to be exact.

For the unfamiliar when they ask what kind of story The Dark Tower is, it’s easier to tell them what it’s not. King’s magnum opus has it all – horror, fantasy, SF, love story, epic questing, father / son relationships, action, adventure, gets very meta, and will drag your soul back and forth across the emotional spectrum. It truly is a magnificent piece of work.

Trust me, it IS a helluva of a ride.

Anthony Breznican, a staff writer over at Entertainment Weekly did a multi-part article on the upcoming Dark Tower movie, giving the project a much needed social awareness boost.

Check out the cover:

ewdarktowercover

This is a great series of articles because it gives a fairly clear road map of how the movie adaptations will approach the source material. King himself gave us a big clue when he tweeted this pic:

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The Horn of Eld! Which makes this adaptation a continuation of the books.

I’ll come back to explore the implications of this more in a special Stephen King podcast with Hans Lilja of the Lilja’s Library web site will be recording this week. Look for it to drop in the next week or so.

Below are the links to the articles.

Part III, V, & VI have the meaty material.

Part I: Idris Elba on breathing fire into Stephen King’s Gunslinger

Part II: Matthew McConaughey awaits the end of the world as The Man in Black

Part III: What the film changes (and keeps) from Stephen King’s books

Part IV: Exclusive first look images

Part V: How The Dark Tower movie links to Stephen King’s other books

Part VI: Eight books, one movie: What The Dark Tower draws from each novel in the saga

Part VII: How to find the hidden image in EW’s cover for The Dark Tower

Updated to add:

Charlie The Choo-Choo: SDCC Promo Book

Book Review: End Of Watch

On By Lou W. SytsmaIn BooksLeave a comment
 
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This is one of King’s smoothest books akin to a very aged Scotch.
So satisfying.
Not only is this one slick puppy it is as tightly crafted as a Swiss watch with genre conventions so seamlessly woven into the characters you never notice them until after the revealing moments.
End of Watch is the end of the Bill Hodges trilogy and in my opinion is the best of the three. It’s not just that King surprisingly brings in some fantastical elements to what has been a grounded mystery/thriller series but our affection for the characters which King is always so good at bringing to life. I still find it surprising that King went this route but am so glad he did. This is one helluva of a page turner and an excellent wrap up to the series.
He really stuck the landing with this one.
When I opened the book, I saw no words. I fell into a shared experience.

Movie Nights

On By Lou W. SytsmaIn MoviesLeave a comment

Watched a couple of flicks that are worthy of your time.

Green Room

green-room-poster

Starring the late Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart. One of the weirdest Star Trek crossings with Stewart playing a thoroughly repellent SkinHead leader and Anton as a member of a low level punk rock band. A murder occurs, the band members are a witness, and Stewart tries to cover up the murder and lay the blame on the band. A real gritty violent thriller with several tense sequences which include pit bull attack dogs. Definitely worth a watch.

Bittersweet seeing Yelchin here who died recently and suddenly in a horrific and freak car accident. He has a King connection with his role from Hearts In Atlantis.

 

Birdman

Birdman Movie Poster

Michael Keaton gives a virtuoso performance as an actor known best for a superhero role trying to prove he is capable of greater things while his inner demons tear down his ability to diffferentiate between reality and fantasy. Keaton heads a great cast with Ed Norton and Emma Stone as fellow standouts.

The direction of this movie is so fantastic that it becomes distracting because there are so many uninterrupted shots that made me focus on catching when the next cut would show up.

Love the ending as it is one that is open to interpretation.