Stephen King's IT (2017)

[The Dark Knight]

I thought Stephen King was dead?

He is to me, anyway.

[Silver Nemesis]

On the topic of Rob Zombie and Halloween, yeah, he was an odd choice for director on something like a remake/reboot of Halloween. Speaking of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", I remember Zombie enjoyed alot of goodwill following "The Devils Rejects" which came across as basically Rob Zombie doing his version of "The Texas Chainsaw Masscare Part 2". i.E. Alot more comedic dialogue. Focusing more on the family of killers, a unstable Sheriff out for vengeance due to a relative getting killed by the family, ect.

I saw The Devil's Rejects for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and you weren't kidding about the TCM2 similarities. Zombie even referenced the scene where Leatherface skins the guy's face and makes the woman wear it. Still, I prefer filmmakers who reference earlier works in their own original IPs to filmmakers who flat out remake older films without adding anything original or inventive to the mix. Another good example would be Insidious, which is a far better homage to Poltergeist (1982) than the 2015 remake was.

[Silver Nemesis]

Here's a fun tie-in game for anyone who's interested. Let's see who can get the highest score.

http://game.itthemovie.com/#_=_

[riddler]

Here's a fun tie-in game for anyone who's interested. Let's see who can get the highest score.

http://game.itthemovie.com/#_=_

7900 on my one and only try.

[The Joker]

Here's a fun tie-in game for anyone who's interested. Let's see who can get the highest score.

http://game.itthemovie.com/#_=_

Haha. Thanks for posting that. 

--


Looks like the Alamo Drafthouse is really clowning around now.

Coulrophobes steer clear: Alamo Drafthouse is hosting a clown-only screening of Stephen King's 'It'

http://mashable.com/2017/08/24/stephen-king-clown-only-it-screening/#JrZWrl_hpSqL

Who's afraid of clowns? Not the Alamo Drafthouse, apparently.

Following the massive success of their women-only screenings of Wonder Woman, the theater has announced a special clown-only screening of Stephen King's It.

The event will be preceded by a pre-party at the Barrel O' Fun – Alamo Drafthouse Austin's carnival-themed bar – that includes face-painting, a photo booth, a raffle, and other cool, fun, definitely not at all terrifying activities.

As of now, the clown-only It screening is only planned for the chain's Austin location.

But hey, those all-female Wonder Woman screenings started with plans for a single showing in Austin, before widespread demand convinced the company to roll them out with other locations.

[riddler]

I saw this yesterday and was quite impressed. The child actors are enjoyable to watch, they don't come across as annoying and each of them give their characters some depth. There's definitely a vibe of Goonies meeting Stranger Things meeting A Nightmare on Elm Street. The actor playing Ritchie especially is quite fun and I liked how the chubby kid was made into a likeable character instead of another stereotype. The atmosphere and visuals are very impressive and the biggest improvement from the miniseries. The premise and overall plot is quite frightening, especially if you like psychological horror. There's enough changes to keep you on your toes if you've read the book but yet it still remains faithful.

My only complaint is Pennywise himself. I don't think he was poorly portrayed and I'm glad Bill Saasgard didn't attempt to emulate Tim Curry but ultimately this portrayal didn't have quite as much range as Curry's version. They pulled off the scary clown with aplomb but the part of the character that felt missing was the more fun, humourous aspect of the character which is what allows him to be so evil and lure children. I think the final act would have been better had they let the clown be more humorous in the earlier scenes before showing true evil in the final act. At the end of the day it felt like the original explored the mysterious clown more than this one did, this one I felt the kids stealing the scenes from the clown.

I certainly would go see a sequel but I'm skeptical whether it can be as good. The second part of the miniseries wasn't as good because of the Adult actors not coming across as strong as the children and with the bar set here, I do think we'll miss the kids in part II. I'm not saying it can't be done but the sense of childlike wonder will be a tougher presence to emulate with adult actors.

[The Joker]

First things, first. I'll say that the film is well directed, and provides good atmosphere. To me, it's good to be just familiar enough with the original story to have a sense of what might have been changed, and it was a fair bit. Not just in modifications due to the timeline change, but in a few necessary changes to story and character to help it serve as a single, self-contained story; the narrative has its escalating structure, the characters have arcs, it all works within itself. I walked out of the theater interested in "Chapter 2" featuring the adult versions of the Loser's Club, but overall, I think this alone did a great job of making IT stand alone. Having said that, this film features alot of differences from the book as well. It's something the original 1990 mini series did, and that's also carried over to this adaptation as well.

There are a number of directorial flourishes that I thought worked very well, but one that stood out to me early on was the way that it ratcheted up tension by sudden reveals that creepy music was diegetic. With the Losers, I felt their introductions were fairly good, and each played their role well. With Pennywise, I felt he was decent, but no Tim Curry. Who still reigns supreme as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in my mind. For me, the problem was the overuse of jump scares and the overabundance usage of CGI whenever he appeared on screen. Sure, you get the point of why it's being done, but unfortunately makes his performance feel somewhat flat due to all the jump scares/CGI constantly being distracting. Decent, not amazing. But I'll give him props for not trying to go Curry-lite. That was smart.

As far as Easter Eggs go, I did like how they had a specific clown doll, amongst many other dolls, that bore more than a passing resemblence to Tim Curry's Pennywise. That was cool. I liked the comment about a "turtle" during the Loser's swimming scene. The Paul Bunyan statue in the backgroud. All good stuff. There probably was more, but these come to mind first. Getting back to differences from the source material, I felt that there was something missing in not having IT taking the shape of famous movie monsters as he did in the book, and kinda did in the 1990 mini-series (Teenage Werewolf). Sure, the use of having IT take the shape of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or The Frankenstein Monster, might seem a bit out of place in a 1989 setting, but personally, I think having IT take the shape of maybe a swarm of Critters, similar to how he took the form of a swarm of leeches in the book, or perhaps a Freddy Krueger/Pennywise hybrid would have been a cool visual, and would have just added to the overall period piece asthetic. This being completely excluded, the cutting the movie monsters, I think, essentially hurts the cohesion of the kids' investigation that we get from the book itself.

Overall, good. Not spectacular. IT is not without problems and flaws, but I liked it well enough to probably buy it on Blu Ray when it comes out.

[The Joker]

Chapter 2 Teaser:

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhJ5P7Up3jA&list=FL2E_KOhE1_wJT8fltjHkXsA&index=2&t=8s

[The Laughing Fish]

I thought Stephen King was dead?

He is to me, anyway.

Let me guess...he badmouthed Trump?