A Stephen King FTV Trifecta Review

Seeing as this guy has so much material, I still haven't seen all of his movies, so I sought out a few titles I haven't seen.


Hearts in Atlantis (2001) - This has quite a few Stephen King tropes in it, which is never a bad thing. It's a period piece primarily set in the late 60s and deals with a lot of childhood stuff in a Connecticut suburb. David Morse plays the modern day character reflecting on this youthful self played by a tiny Anton Yelchin living with his selfish somewhat of a bitch mother. They rent out a room in their house to a gentleman named Ted, played by the hypnotic Anthony Hopkins, who befriends the boy and has a second sight about a lot of things. He tries to keep his presence hidden from certain figures, and you can take a guess as to whether that works out for him.

You don't hear a lot about this movie, but it was pretty good. It's somewhat of an innocent summer children at play story about working for pennies, saving up for bicycles, falling in love, and dealing with bullies. It's not a horror story, which is why it may be overlooked by some, but it's rather good.

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Apt Pupil (1998) - Tragic angsty teen idol Brad Renfro is a high school student in 1984 with a fixation on Nazi history. When he spots an aging ex-Nazi played by Ian McKellen in his city, he finds out where he lives and gets right into blackmailing him for horror stories about his war crimes.

Ian doesn't want to dwell on these things he isn't proud of, but the kid keeps pushing and forcing his hand until the two are regularly hanging out. They both seem to hate each other, but they spend a lot of time together. Too much time, it seems. The kid's grades suffer, forcing him to focus on school instead of old war talk, but he wont have it. He keeps on pestering the old Nazi until shit gets dark, re-awakening his Nazi sentiments and turning the kid into a real asshole.

Yesterday was an ideal time to give this one a watch because it was Ian McKellen's 81st birthday. The movie was directed by Bryan Singer and featured Bruce Davison, which makes it an interesting buildup to all three of them collaborating on the first X-Men movie two years later.

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Dolores Claiborne (1995) - Kathy Bates is mostly known for her character of Annie Wilkes in Misery, but she also did a decent job in this story about an older woman accused of killing the sickly old woman she was taking care of. She isn't arrested for it, but a joyously smug detective keeps her on a short leash while he gathers evidence to convict her as she reflects on the incident, her job as a housemaid, her strained relationship with her daughter (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and her abusive drunken husband.

What I found interesting about this is some blatant parallels to his other story Gerald's Game. Both of these novels were written in 1992 and featured eclipses that coincided with child molestation plots.

Being set in Maine, she makes mention of sending someone to Shawshank, and those little bits are always fun to look out for. Back then, Castle Rock Entertainment was kind of a big deal, but I don't see as much out of them as I used to.


None of these are quite horror, but some of them have a few of the necessary vibes to them. I think my favorite of the bunch was Hearts in Atlantis, with the other two tied.

That BITCH!

This could potentiallybe a pretty funny thread, if it takes off... I watched Bachelor Party (1984) a few days ago, and there's a great little scene where one of Tom Hanks' friends (the basket case drug addict guy who drives them away in the bus at the end) is watching TV, and he sees someone on TV who reminds him of his wife. He says something like "She was so young when we met... that bitch." I always thought that was so unexpected, how he just says it out of nowhere. I bet no one seeing the movie for the first time has ever seen that coming.

So, I am inspired by that great moment in world cinema to ask anyone reading this to please contribute one gif, one Youtube video, or even just a description of a moment in your own life, in which someone gave a memorable utterance of the line "That bitch," or even better, "That BITCH!!!!!!"

Escape Plan 3?

I'm going through Amazon Prime's list and I figured, why not? There's a reason this and the previous film didn't get theatrical releases. They're not that good and they don't have Arnold, but they were probably easy to shit out.

Stallone has a bigger role in this than he did in the last one. For some reason, they decided to give some random dude the spotlight in part 2 and Stallone was reduced to a bit part. Not sure why they thought that was a good idea, but they probably just figured this whole mess would work better as a trilogy.

The story isn't special. Devon Sawa plays the villain, trying to get revenge for his father's disappearance/death from the second movie, and surprisingly, he does a decent job. He kidnaps Stallone's girlfriend and forces his hand into a rescue mission, and once that exposition is out of the way, the rest isn't too bad. The asian guy and Batista each have some good fight scenes, and once Stallone gets pissed off, he does what he does best and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He fucks that guy up!

Not much else to say about this one. It's okay at best. Better than the second one at least.

Leviathan = The Thing + The Abyss

That pretty much sums up this movie. Peter Weller leads a team of deep sea miners to collect metals and minerals and they discover a downed Russian ship. After excavating it, they bring aboard an infected bottle of vodka that kills and mutates the crew in a Stan Winston special effects bonanza.

Where it becomes The Thing is in how the infection merges people and transforms them into weird looking monsters, and it's also in an isolated setting where they must avoid infection.

It's funny to note the similarities between this and The Abyss. They both feature underwater teams, they both have good casts, they both feature plotlines where rescue is postponed because of a storm, and they both came out in 1989. George P. Cosmatos directed this one, James Cameron directed The Abyss. James Cameron also wrote the screenplay for George's Rambo II, and they both used Stan Winston for their movies.

So if you like one, you'll probably like the other. The Abyss is ultimately better, but I can't hate on a movie with Peter Weller as the main protagonist. Plus, the women in this one were HOT.

Apparition (2019)

Watching it right now. It's free, on On Demand. Mostly a waste of time, except for some cute girls, and the fact that supposedly they filmed it in an old building that was some kind of reform school where Rory Calhoun was sent sometime back in the late 1930s or early 40s. It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6032704/trivia

Seven Dwarfs! 

Out of all the seven dwarfs who do you think you would be. I would have to say I would be dopey cause I have a lot of blonde moments, and seen out of it a lot! But close second would be happy. Can I be a new dwarf, Happily Dopey!


And bonus points if you can name all the seven dwarfs without looking it up. I sat here for a bit trying to name them. I got six and was at a blank. But I finally figured it out!

Arrow

Okay, so I know a lot of you probably aren't a fan of the cw or it's shows, but Arrow is honestly one the best shows I have ever watched. Sure it has a couple seasons, like 4, 5, and 6. I barely remember what those seasons were about.

Now I haven't always been a fan of Arrow. I watched a few episodes when it first came on, and I couldn't stand watching it. Four years later, I discover flash, who is my favorite super hero. So I binge flash, and of course this show has cross over with Arrow, because its the cw. It's alwasy been their thing. But I fell in love with the green arrow. So I binge the green arrow, and then a new show comes out. DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and then super girl, and batwoman, and now star girl. Next year brings a superman and lois show, and Arrow is getting a spin off as well called green arrow and the canaries.

Arrow spawned a whole universe, called the arrowverse. Everyone of the shows connect, and its just fun to watch. Arrow is serious, Flash is a combination of serious and funny, and Legends is so cheesy but it work. Super girl works her feminin angle which most of you probably dont like, but it works for her show. Batwoman is just crazy from what I have seen.

8 years, 8 seasons, and so many fights, deaths, and twist and turns. They even connected the DCEU to the Arrowverse. This is where DC is getting better. So if you haven't watched these amazing superhero shows, then go and watch them. Its fun to binge. And if you have watched it, I would love to hear your opinons. Even if you have only watched one season, more. And even if you hate the cw, give the universe a chance. If you love superheroes like me, then go give it a shot. All seasons are on netflix.

Suggestions?!

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing amazing. I just wanted to make a quick little post and hopefully you all can help me out!

So I decided to finally host a challenge! I'm actually hosting 2 in the next two months. I am super excited! For the most part I have my July challenge figured out, but I am stuck on the slasher challenge for next month! Now I know and I talked to Snowy and usually the slasher challenge is only for 2 weeks? I wanted to change that into a month because I really like slashers and I thought it would be fun to make it into a month. Now if ya'll want it to stay 2 weeks that's fine as well. I want to accommadate to ya'll!

I could also use some suggestions for what to add in the challenge, so if ya'll want to let me know some ideas and let me know if the month things works for ya'll please do!!

I am working on the rules and all of that fun stuff as we we speak, and I want to be able to have the rules/sign up thread posted by May 25th!

Shoutbox is Being Modified...

I'll be restructuring the damn thing to optimize it for a new feature I'm working on: the multiplayer turn-based arcade. I'm building a whole lobby/room system for it, which will also provide new shoutbox rooms for basically any page, so bear with the bugs and I'll try to make the downtime as quick and unnoticable as possible. You've been warned!

The Florida Project, 2017!

One of my go-to sources for great recommendations had mentioned this A24 indie a few weeks ago, and when I saw it was on Netflix, I couldn't pass up the chance. This is not so much a story as it is a collection of incidents with seemingly legitimate white trash Florida characters living in a motel run by the great Willem Dafoe.

Primarily, we follow a free spirit named Halley, played to perfection by Bria Vinaite, who I've never heard of before, but hope to see more of in the future. She lets her daughter Moonee run amok while Bobby (Dafoe) is the motel manager with the heart of gold who is more leniant to their derelict behaviors than he ought to be.

This is a children-at-play story, but it's also tagged as a "social issue" drama that covers controversial topics like how to raise a child and how to make ends meet at any cost. Now, I've been in places where this fucked up shit seems natural, so this film pulled my heart strings a bit. I think it has great characters and feels very real. Also, this movie made me fall in love with Bria Vinaite, but what do I know, other than how I feel about sexy broads with soulful performances?

Fans of arthouse white trash, Harmony Korine type shit, and A24 ought to check this out. It's been a while since I've wanted to watch the same movie again in the same day, but I'm a sucker for heart felt sleaze.