| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.85 |
Now this is a movie (after Valhalla Snoozing)! I watched it on the projector with the lads again and it was fantastic. So tight, so to the point. And a very beautiful film (photographed by Jan De Bont), and not in a rush despite the conciseness. I found it very affecting and more tense and nailbiting than frightening. I'll write more later as my alloted net time is about to run out, and i'm sleepy after Valhalla Riszzzz.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I always liked "Cujo". It's a solid little effort and features one of Dee Wallace's best performances. | ||
| Matthew Fryer (Matthew_fryer) Username: Matthew_fryer Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 90.195.182.189 |
Cujo was the first Stephen King adaptation I saw, and it scared me to death as a kid. I should watch it as an adult. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.137.108.144 |
I always loved this one too and remain impressed at how scary they managed to make those gentle giants. But I can't help but laugh at the bit where Cujo is supposed to be attacking someone and his tail is wagging playfully. Clearly no one told the canine actor he was meant to act ferocious! | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I haven't seen this one since I was a kid, at which point it gave me something of the horrors. Probably worth a re-watch at some point. Shame they changed the ending, but I suppose it's handy for audiences. If you want the 'happy' ending, then go to the film; if you want something a bit grimmer, then there's always the book. Thank God we've so far avoided 'Directors Cuts' for novels. Wonder if King would ever fancy going back and changing it... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.12 |
CUJO has long been my favourite (non-Dark Tower) Stephen King book. I didn't know they'd made a film of it. Not surprising as I generaally don't watch films! But perhapss I should. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.139.52 |
Thank God we've so far avoided 'Directors Cuts' for novels. Wonder if King would ever fancy going back and changing it... Well, I guess the longer version of The Stand is a director's cut novel... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.108.59 |
Why's that, Des? I used to think it was his slightest novel. Funny thing is, the film IS slight, but feels more weighty. I keep thinking I'm daft for liking a film because of the scenery and the photography, but maybe I'm not; I noticed in this one how the houses of the two families involved were very similiar, how the families sort of echoed one another. At one point the 'poor' family's mum/wife says 'I won the lottery' and then she's gone. the rich dad basically deals in 'air' (advertising), as Billy Crystal said in City Slickers. Life is random and tragic. It all felt quite significant. Again, the projector aids all these discoveries. You could see houses in the distant horizon, really feel the sense of landscape. It's wasn't dear this thing - with the screen it's all cheaper than a medium sized telly - and the picture isn't pin sharp, but the sense of involvment is second to none. Apparently King says the kid dies after the film. I like to think it's up to us. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.108.59 |
I have to say it's been lovely revisiting some of these oldies. And King, rediscovering him. What a career. My son has a pair of shoes with the legend 'Faded Glory' on them. We both hate the name; glory is still glory no matter what way you look at it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Cujo' (1983) was a decent and affecting adaptation of a decent and affecting book but both are rather minor works imo. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Cujo is one of my favourite King books. The ending shattered me emotionally when I read it. I think it's also the only one of his books I read in one sitting - on a long car journey with my parents when I was about 18. At the end of the book my dad stopped the car so my mam could ask me why I was crying... That one line in the book that pulls the rug completely out from under the reader... We're heading rapidly for the uplifting finale, she 's managed to get out of the car and kill the dog, the husband has raced cross country and found them... then... "How long has he been dead?" Who says exposition in dialogue is a bad thing? That one line of dialogue plunged my emotional state from the excited high that they'd escaped to complete grief in 6 words... It's a fantastic book. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Another great thing about the book is that, no matter how threatened we feel for the woman and her son, we always feel full sympathy for Cujo himself. The death of the dog is simultaneously tragic and a victory... and that's a difficult trick to pull off. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
"Thank God we've so far avoided 'Directors Cuts' for novels." Not in the case of some of mine. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Can I rewrite that sentence to either 'Simultaneously tragic and victorious' or 'simultaneously a tragedy and a victory.' Either way sits better grammatically than the hash I just made of it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I'm with you, Weber - Cujo is far from being a minor work. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.24.131 |
>>>I didn't know they'd made a film of it. Jesus Christ, Des. You make me look like Barry Norman. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
No, Gary, I think you'll find the combination of genes and bad wardrobe consultants achieved that. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Cujo is a better novel than its storyline would suggest – it's very unified and emotionally connected. I loved the low-key scene where the couple talk about the wife's affair – there are real human beings on the page, not just delivery devices for a plot. The film is adequate apart from the cack-handed ending, which contrasts with King's carefully timed and resonant conclusion. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 217.20.16.180 |
Well, I guess the longer version of The Stand is a director's cut novel... Not in the case of some of mine. Fair points, both. Didn't really think that through, did I?  Indeed, The Stand could probably do with a new ending... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.24.131 |
Joel:  | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Actually, the ending of the Stand doesn't seem anywhere near as long in the extended version of the book. It seems just a touch too long in the origial but just right when the rest of the book is so much longer. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.165.39.12 |
Tony, can't exactly recall why CUJO affected me so much, but it was the one novel I chose to get signed by Stephen King when I met him. Gary, I make you seem like Barry Norman? Sorry, mate. I used to like films when you could go into a rolling cinema *during* a film and then watch it till the point when you arrived. Too much snogging and smoking however in those days. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
>>Too much snogging and smoking however in those days.<< You should've watched the film instead, Des!  (ahem ... sorry ... just couldn't resist saying that. I'm naughty. I'll get me coat ...) |