Happy Birthday, Stephen King!

Written by Kyle Slagley

Ask just about any group of patrons to name the most prolific author of horror novels they can think of, and more often than not the response you’ll receive is Stephen King. Like him or not, the Maine native has almost singlehandedly restructured the way the average reader thinks about the suspense novel.

King’s first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974; since then, both his bibliography and his film credits have grown at such an astounding rate it leaves you wondering if the man isn’t eerily supernatural, much like some of his stories. Indeed, King has over 50 novels, twice that many short stories, and numerous miniseries and films based on his writing.

King turns 65 today, and based on his official website he shows no sign of slowing any time soon. In fact, this week a release date (September 24, 2013) was announced for his upcoming novel Dr. Sleep, the much-anticipated sequel to The Shining.

Here are some of our favorite books and movies from the frighteningly masterful and masterfully frightening writer.

Carrie (film: 1976): A high school girl with telekinetic powers takes revenge on her classmates after being humiliated at prom.

The Green Mile (film: 1999): Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clarke Duncan tell the tale of a wrongfully convicted murderer on death row with an unusual gift for healing.

It (novel: 1986, miniseries: 1990): Inhabitants of Derry, Maine, must face an evil clown that terrorizes the town by bringing fears to life. This work is quite possibly the reason that so many of us, to this day, have an irrational fear of clowns.

The Shawshank Redemption (novella: 1982, film: 1994): An established banker is wrongfully sentenced to life in Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. During his imprisonment he expands the prison library and navigates the corruption of the guards before escaping.

Hearts in Atlantis (novella: 1999, film: 2001): Published in a collection of the same name, this story follows a boy who helps a friendly stranger with supernatural gifts escape the pursuit of the shady folks that follow him.

Carrie: The Musical (soundtrack: 2012): Debuting on Broadway in 1988, Carrie: The Musical made its mark in theatre history as the most expensive flop on Broadway at approximately $8 million to produce and closing after only five performances. On March 1 of this year, the Off-Broadway revival debuted at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, closing the following month on April 8 after 46 performances.

For a comprehensive look at King’s prolific career, SmartBrowse “Stephen King” on our website.

Page One Looks at Changing Face of Newspapers

Written by Kirk Baird

Working in newspapers most of my adult life, I acknowledge I have a soft spot for print journalism and I fear for its future. I don’t think newspapers are going away, as so many other doomsayers predict; rather, they are changing. Perhaps my fear is for the unknown of what that transformation will be.

The entertaining and engaging documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times is an admirable effort in putting faces to this mounting industry crisis, as major newspapers are losing money and shuttering or slashing staff to keep the presses going.

To examine this problem, filmmaker Andrew Rossi turned his camera to the leading light in U.S. newspapers, The New York Times, and specifically its new Media Desk, a department created to report the transformation of journalism amid the changes from the Internet and social media.

As with any newspaper, there are colourful characters at the Times, none more so than David Carr, a fair, thorough, and tough-minded media reporter and columnist who is a recovering cocaine addict. After surviving the depths of despair in his own life, it’s hardly surprising that Carr is also the most optimistic in the film about the survival of The New York Times and print journalism as a whole.

Equally fascinating to those who haven’t worked in a newsroom will be the excitement Rossi builds as Carr works to report a damaging expose of the upper-management culture and climate at the Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Orlando Sentinel, among others, and its new ownership.

As Page One: Inside the New York Times suggests, the debate about the future of journalism will rage as it has for decades. Media is an industry constantly in flux. And while experts have differing opinions on what changes new media will bring, everyone is in agreement that a world without newspapers would be a bleak one indeed.

Summer Box Office Recap

Written by Kirk Baird

The Avengers was the crown jewel of the summer movie season, while some big-budget flops such as Dark Shadows and Battleship took a toll on the overall box office. But the biggest losers this summer were the film studios, which watched ticket sales continue to slide. Attendance, according to Hollywood.com, dropped about 4 percent to 533 million overall, the lowest number in nearly two decades. Just since 2002, total ticket sales are down 100 million.

Just as alarming: box-office receipts also were down 2.84 percent — about $4.3 billion — from the same May to Labour Day period from 2011.

Of course, higher ticket prices and upcharges for 3D and IMAX help mask this serious problem in the industry: patrons are coming to the movies less often.

Marvel’s The Avengers got summer off to a massive bang with a $1.5 billion worldwide total haul, $620 million of which was from the domestic box office, according to boxofficemojo.com. The runner-up box-office king was The Dark Knight Rises, with $433 million domestically and more than a billion dollars worldwide. Rounding out the superhero triumvirate was The Amazing Spider-Man, which was also the third-highest grossing film this summer at $260 million domestically and $735 million worldwide.

On the flip side of these successes was Dark Shadows, which earned less than $80 million domestically for the Tim Burton-Johnny Depp supernatural dark comedy that cost $150 million to produce, and Battleship, which grossed only $65 million domestically for the $209 million film based on the Hasbro board game.

It was the foreign box office to the rescue, however, pushing both films to a profit with $236 million and $302 million total worldwide receipts, respectively.

The foreign box office also helped Men in Black 3 generate nearly $625 million worldwide and Snow White and the Huntsman earn $394 million around the globe. Not every film needed help from abroad, though.

The raunchy R-rated comedy smash Ted, about a teddy bear come to life, grossed $216 million domestically, more than four times the costs of the film. Even better was Magic Mike. The comedy-drama directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Channing Tatum as a Tampa stripper — the film was based on the actor’s real-life experiences — earned nearly $114 million in North America, or more than 16 times its $7 million production cost.

Small-budget films also found big audiences this summer.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel earned $131 million worldwide on a budget of $10 million. And Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom grossed nearly $60 million worldwide on a budget of $16 million.

And while no production budget was available, certainly the conservative documentary 2016: Obama’s America exceeded industry expectations with more than $20 million so far at the domestic box office after an opening haul of $31,000 in mid-July in one theatre in Houston.

Titanic Gets 15th Anniversary Rerelease

Written by Kirk Baird

Coming out on a two-disc Blu-ray, two-disc DVD set is the love story set to tragedy and drama, Titanic. Fifteen years after its release, the film remains an effective combination of a director’s unyielding vision, an audience-pleasing romance, historical curiosity, and arguably the best use of CGI in movie history with the sinking of the ship.

Written and directed by James Cameron, the 1997 Best Picture Oscar winner remains the filmmaker’s greatest triumph and, until Avatar came along, his most flawed work. Titanic is a 90-minute gripping film with a 90-minute warm-up, but given the limitations of Cameron’s workspace — he had to shoehorn a dramatic plot into a historical disaster everyone knows — his script and film succeeds.

Leonardo DiCaprio shoulders some unnecessarily harsh criticism for his role as lower-class and happy drifter Jack, while Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress for her role as upper-class beauty Rose, who’s miserable with her station in life. The unlikely couple make for a likable and, more important, believable pair, and without them Titanic’s sinking is simply an exercise in groundbreaking effects.

But this movie is less about the people on board the ship than the film’s namesake, and the spectacle and grandeur of the recreated Titanic and its historically accurate details make for a magnificent display on Blu-ray. While the commentaries with Cameron, the cast, and historians have been imported from the 2005 DVD release of the film, the Blu-ray offers two-and-a-half hours of new material, including a pair of documentaries — Reflections on Titanic and Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron — as well as 30 deleted scenes, and 60 behind-the-scenes featurettes. This is a must-have for fans of the second-biggest film of all time.

To complement the Titanic Blu-ray release is Ghosts of the Abyss 3D, Cameron’s documentary capturing his return trip to the Titanic and its resting place on the floor of the icy Atlantic Ocean. The three-disc combo Blu-ray 3-D/Blu-ray/DVD version offers the original hour-long theatrical release from 2003 and an expanded 90-minute cut. The extra half-hour provides extended trips into the rusting and deteriorating ruins of the ship, as Cameron and actor Bill Paxton, who played treasure seeker Brock Lovett in Titanic, dive in submersibles to the wreckage. More impressive is the footage from special underwater robot cameras nicknamed Jake and Elwood as the crafts negotiate ghostly dark rooms and hallways that have been silent since April 15, 1912. CGI effects provide context and ghostly visions to the often-unrecognizable remains, as the ship is slowly being reclaimed by the sea and sea life.

Ghosts of the Abyss makes a fascinating bookend to Titanic — assuming after more than three hours on the S.S. Cameron you’re up for another 90 minutes with the director and the doomed ship.

9/11, Eleven Years Later

Written by Kirk Baird

United 93 opened in theatres to critical acclaim in April, 2006. Months earlier, the trailer for the film — a white-knuckle and gut-punch re-enactment of the hijacked flight that crashed in Pennsylvania — was famously derided by audience heckles of "Too soon!"

"Too soon" seems so distant and quaint now, especially as Sept. 11 has become a cottage industry in  popular culture 11 years later.

Musicians including Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Tori Amos, and Toby Keith have flocked to the theme. Writers explored the attacks and the aftermath in an assortment of fiction (Terrorist by John Updike and Falling Man by Don DeLillo) and even non-fiction (the bestselling The 9/11 Commission Report). And, of course, filmmakers followed United 93's lead with sobering examinations of a post-9/11 world, including Reign Over Me, World Trade Center, and most recently Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

For a nation that once collectively said it was "too soon" to discuss the tragedy, we are spending a lot of time absorbing Sept. 11, 2001, reading about it, and watching it.

"Too soon?"

Hardly.

With the 11th anniversary of the attacks today, here are some Sept. 11-themed movies and documentaries:

*9/11: The Filmmakers Commemorative Edition (2002): French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet happened to be filming a documentary on NYC firefighters when the attacks happened, and their cameras captured moments of heroism, chaos, and death that are impossible to forget.

*Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore explores the Sept. 11 attacks, and the role of the Bush administration, in his controversial documentary.

United 93 (2006): Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) directed this tense recreation of the heroism of 40 strangers who stood as one against the terrorists who seized control of their plane.

*World Trade Center (2006): Oliver Stone directed this true story of the rescue of two Port Authority policemen trapped in rubble after they volunteered to help the victims of the World Trade Center attacks.

Reign Over Me (2007): Adam Sandler stars in this drama about a suicidal New Yorker who lost his family in the attacks with Don Cheadle as the friend who tries to help him.

Man on Wire (2008): This Oscar-winning documentary details the famous high-wire walk by Frenchman Philippe Petit in 1974 between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers as well as history about the buildings themselves.

Mooz-lum (2010): A moving drama that explores post-9/11 life for a black Muslim in an increasingly wary society.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011): A grieving 9-year-old boy goes on a great adventure through New York City as way to be close to his father, who died in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

*Unfortunately, these movies are out of print.

Remembering Michael Clarke Duncan

Written by Kirk Baird

Michael Clarke Duncan was a giant of a man, whose first big impression on moviegoers was as an innocent death row inmate with mysterious healing powers in 1999’s The Green Mile. His performance was nominated for an Oscar.

Duncan died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, following complications from a heart attack he suffered in July. He was 54.

A former bodyguard, the 6-foot-5-inch Duncan turned to acting in his 30s, with his breakthrough coming in 1998’s Armageddon starring Bruce Willis. Willis was impressed with Duncan – enough to work with him again a year later in Breakfast of Champions and to recommend him for the role of John Coffey in The Green Mile. The pair would also work again in 2000’s The Whole Nine Yards and 2005’s Sin City.

Duncan also appeared in the 2001 Tim Burton remake of The Planet of the Apes, 2002’s The Scorpion King, 2003’s Daredevil, and 2006’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. With his bass-like voice, he was a natural for animated films as well. Duncan provided voices to the 2003 Spider-Man TV series as the villain Kingpin (which he also played in the live-action Daredevil), the leader bear Tug in Disney’s 2003 Brother Bear and its 2006 sequel, the rhinoceros Commander Vachir in 2008’s Kung Fu Panda, and the heroic CGI Green Lantern Kilowog in the 2011 live-action Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds.

Check out:
The Green Mile
Daredevil
Kung Fu Panda
Planet of the Apes (2001)
The Scorpion King
Armageddon

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Written by Kirk Baird

The National Football League kicks off the regular season tonight at 8:30 p.m. EDT with the Dallas Cowboys taking on the defending Super Bowl champs, the New York Giants. Here are a few football films to help pad the season.

The Replacements (2000): This 2000 comedy starring Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves tackles that brief period in professional football when substitutes took over for the striking players.

Any Given Sunday (1999): A gritty behind-the-scenes examination of professional football directed and co-written by Oliver Stone, with Al Pacino chewing scenery (as only Pacino can) as the head coach, Cameron Diaz as the team’s president and co-owner, and Jamie Foxx as the promising young quarterback, a role that made Foxx a star.

Brian’s Song (1971): This made-for-TV film is the ultimate tear-jerker for grown men, chronicling the true story of teammates and friends Brian Piccolo (James Caan) and Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams).

Invincible (2006): Mark Wahlberg plays Vince Papale, a bartender turned improbable walk-on with the Philadelphia Eagles in this drama based on an incredible true story.

Friday Night Lights (2004): Texas is crazy for high school football — I know, I grew up there — and this drama based on the bestselling book by H.G. Bissinger and starring Billy Bob Thornton captures it like nothing else. Also check out the award-winning TV series (2006-2011) as well.

Rudy (1993): Sean Astin takes on the inspiring true story of a Notre Dame football player considered too small to play and who fought the odds to take the field.

Jerry Maguire (1996): A terrifically entertaining look at the money side of football through the up-and-down career and relationships of a sports agent (Tom Cruise), with an Oscar-winning performance by Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a difficult but talented wide receiver.

The Longest Yard (1974): The original drama starring Burt Reynolds is far superior to the Adam Sandler comic remake about a former pro quarterback now in prison who fields a football team of inmates to play the prison guards.