Summer of Stephen
Title: Stand By Me
Release Date: 1986 Length: 1 hour 28 minutes Start Date: January 6, 2019 End Date: January 6, 2019 Director: Rob Reiner Starring: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of those rare cases where I prefer the movie to the book. Don’t get me wrong, The Body is a great book. But the cast of Stand By Me is absolutely perfect. It’s even more impressive when you consider that the four main boys were only 12-16 years old when they starred in this. The plot of the movie follows the book pretty faithfully, though it cuts out Gordie’s adult self for the most part. He provides a little narration at the beginning and end, but other than that, we get to stay in the 1960s with the boys. For those of you unfamiliar with the basic plot, the story centers on four boys who set out to follow the train tracks and find the dead body of a boy who’s been reported missing from a neighboring town. Along the way, they face multiple challenges, including the threat of a monstrous dog, a train while they’re crossing the bridge, leeches, their own personal demons, and a pack of bullies who aren’t afraid to beat the snot out of four kids. I don’t want to go into much more detail, because I honestly think everyone should watch this movie and I don’t want to spoil anything. Sure, there’s some cussing in it, but it is just so good! One of my favorite things about teaching English 10 for the past four years was reading The Body to the class and then watching Stand By Me with them. And despite the language, I never had a single parent complain because the kids were so into the book and movie that they never even thought to mention it to their parents in a way that could have gotten me in trouble. So if you haven’t watched Stand By Me, go watch it. And if you’ve seen it before, you’re probably overdue for a re-watch, right. If for no other reason than to relive how amazing River Phoenix was and what a loss it was to the entertainment industry that he died so young.
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Title: Maximum Overdrive
Release Date: 1986 Length: 1 hour 37 minutes Start Date: November 27, 2018 End Date: November 27, 2018 Director: Stephen King Starring: Emilio Estevez, Laura Harrington, Pate Hingle, Yeardley Smith (Yes, Lisa Simpson is in this!) I don’t know how to break it to y’all, but this movie is terrible. And that’s not just my personal opinion. It has a 15% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 50% audience score. Even Stephen King has talked about how awful it is and decided to never direct again after this failure. It’s just so bad! If you remember my post about the short story “Trucks,” upon which this film is based, you’ll recall that my biggest complaint was the lack of explanation for why all of the vehicles suddenly became sentient beings and started running over every human in their path. Well…I take it back. The movie provides that explanation and it is, for lack of a better word, stupid. But in the movie, it’s not just vehicles that are coming to life to torture and kill humans; it’s all machines. And what has caused this? A comet. Fortunately, the movie also gives the humans trapped in the gas station a cache of weapons to use against the vehicles that are forcing them to pump gas in exchange for their survival. Even better, the movie gives the humans Emilio Estevez to figure out the comet was sent by aliens who are using the machines to wipe out the human race so they can take over Earth. (I told you it was stupid.) Spoiler alert: Emilio Estevez helps the other gas station hostages seek refuge on an island that doesn’t allow motorized vehicles. He and the other survivors hang out there for a couple days until a Soviet weather satellite shoots down the alien spaceship. I can’t say I recommend this movie. While it definitely isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever watched, it was still incredibly awful. The best part about it is the soundtrack, which is entirely made up of AC/DC songs. Title: “The Doctor’s Case”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 36 pages Start Date: February 3, 2019 End Date: February 3, 2019 I love Sherlock Holmes, but Stephen King’s version of a Holmes story just didn’t really do anything for me. “The Doctor’s Case” is a pretty standard “locked-room” mystery of the variety Sherlock Holmes loves to solve. But in this story, it’s Watson who solves the case, behaving in a very Holmes-like fashion to do so. It also ends with Holmes, Watson, and Inspector Lestrade deciding that the victim deserved to be murdered and destroying evidence to ensure the case can’t be solved by anyone else. Maybe it’s because I’m in the middle of reading the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, but I just wasn’t a fan of this deviation from the usual behaviors of these well-known characters. I get that King wanted to make the story his own, but he probably would have been better off just writing a completely original story with his own detective instead of trying to write a new Sherlock Holmes mystery. Title: Silver Bullet
Release Date: 1985 Length: 1 hour 34 minutes Start Date: December 28, 2018 End Date: December 28, 2018 Director: Dan Attias Starring: Gary Busey, Corey Haim, Megan Follows, Everett McGill This movie is so dumb, and for that I love it. It’s campy in all the best ways and absolutely does not take itself too seriously. The special effects are about as good as you can expect from an 80’s movie and the acting is about as good as you can expect from Gary Busey. For the most part, this movie follows the book pretty well. A werewolf attacks every month during the full moon, but is wounded by Marty, a young paraplegic, who shoots the werewolf in the eye with a firework. This leads Marty to discovering the human identity of the werewolf, as the town minister suddenly starts wearing an eyepatch the day after the Fourth of July. Eventually, Marty convinces his uncle to get him silver bullets and they take out the werewolf. Because Gary Busey is basically playing himself as the eccentric uncle, he’s kind of the best part of this movie. Megan Follows is horribly underutilized as Marty’s sister, but I’m biased because I grew up watching her in Anne of Green Gables. And Everett McGill was a little too good-looking as the minister, which made me slightly uncomfortable. Overall, this was an enjoyable movie that I will probably never watch again. Title: “The Reach”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 21 pages Start Date: November 19, 2018 End Date: November 19, 2018 “The Reach” is one of those stories where I like the concept more than the execution. It follows the oldest resident of an island as she realizes that she has never crossed the reach, which is a body of water between the island and the mainland. She has lived her entire life on this one small island and now, as she is nearing death, she decides to make the trek across the now-frozen reach to see what she’ll find on the other side. This next paragraph is going to spoil the ending of the story, so if you plan to read it, skip to the paragraph after that! Throughout the story, it is revealed that she has been seeing the ghosts of the island’s residents who died before her. This is what leads her to the realization that she’s the next to die and inspires her to finally leave the island. As she walks across the frozen reach, she is blinded by a snowstorm and loses her way. Suddenly, the ghost of her deceased best friend joins her, guiding her through the storm. She then sees her late husband waiting for her, offering to let her wear his hat to keep warm. The next morning, the woman’s son finds his dead mother on the mainland, wearing his dead father’s hat. Okay, if you skipped the plot spoiling, you can start reading again here! As I said before, I really liked the idea of this story. But, it runs into a common problem among Stephen King’s short stories: it’s too long. There isn’t actually that much happening to justify it being 21 pages, and the ending would have had the same emotional punch with less insight into the characters’ lives. Overall, this story was pretty middle-of-the-pack. It was a decent story, but not one I’m likely to re-read. Title: “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 51 pages Start Date: November 19, 2018 End Date: November 19, 2018 Due to the fact that it’s 51 pages long, I would classify “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet” as a novella, but it was listed as a short story in the collection it was in, so I suppose I’ll take their word for it. This story follows the alcoholic editor of a literary magazine and his slow descent into madness. The editor begins communicating with a man who submitted an amazing short story to the magazine, and the writer slowly convinces the editor that small elf-like creatures live inside his typewriter and help him write his stories. As a writer, and one who still owns two typewriters, this kind of story should be right up my alley. Unfortunately, I barely remembered it. Part of that is because I read it over three years ago. But I looked at my list where I rank King’s works as I read/watch them, and this one is fairly close to the bottom of the short story list. One thing I really liked, though, is the idea of the flexible bullet representing insanity. The character knows that his insanity, like a flexible bullet, will kill him eventually, but he has no idea when it will finally happen or how much damage will occur in the meantime. If you have a decent chunk of time on your hands, you might as well read this one. But if you’d rather hold out for one that’s more exciting, this one might be better to skip. Title: “Gramma”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 31 pages Start Date: November 18, 2018 End Date: November 18, 2018 I really wish that when I started this Summer of Stephen challenge, I had thought to keep track of all of the connections between King’s stories. But it’s far too late for that now, so I’ll just have to hope someone else has done all of that work for me. That being said, this is yet another King story set in Castle Rock, Maine. It tells the story of a young boy left to care for his ancient, terrifying grandmother while his mother goes to the hospital to care for her other son. The boy quickly discovers his grandmother has died, but she still manages to get out of bed and attack him. He tries to fight her off, but is unsuccessful. When his mother returns home, the boy seems to be far too calm about the events that just took place and it is implied that he is now possessed by the demon that was his grandmother. As far as King stories go, I ranked this one somewhere in the middle. The plot is good, but at 31 pages it just takes too long. It feels like he wanted to expand on it even more and turn it into a full-length novel, but then changed his mind. So if you don’t feel like taking the time required to read “Gramma,” you can instead watch The Twilight Zone episode of the same name. Title: “Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 15 pages Start Date: November 18, 2018 End Date: November 18, 2018 I didn’t find this one particularly memorable, and I’m going to spoil the major plot points. So if you’re planning to read this story, skip this post. As the parenthetical part of the title would suggest, this short story is related to the events from the other Milkman story. But this time, instead of focusing on the murderous milkman, it follows two laundry workers. The two men are driving around, getting increasingly more intoxicated as the story progresses. They get into an argument with another man, who later that night kills his wife and burns down his house. While continuing to drive around, they realize they are being followed by a milk truck, driven by the milkman from the first story. One of the men confides in the other that his wife left him for the milkman, and that he suspects the milkman of being a serial killer. They start to drive faster to outrun the milk truck, leading them to crash into an oncoming car. The story ends with the implication that the milkman is also responsible for encouraging the man from earlier to kill his wife and burn down his house. While that sounds like a fairly exciting plot for a short story, it took King too long to get to that stuff. Those of you who have kept up with my Stephen King posts already know that I frequently complain that he includes way too many unnecessary details and this is no exception. The first Milkman story was so concise and jumped right into the action. I’m not sure why he changed tactics for the second story, but I think it ended up hurting the story. According to the Wikipedia page for this story, King originally wrote a whole novel about the Milkman, but that book was never published. As far as I can tell, these two stories are all that came out of that novel, unless he’s released others with the Milkman name in the title. Title: “Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 5 pages Start Date: November 18, 2018 End Date: November 18, 2018 Going very much against type with this one, King kept this story to a tight 5 pages. In fact, if my spreadsheet isn’t mistaken, King has only one story shorter than this up to this point. And that story, “The Man Who Loved Flowers,” is my favorite of his works so far. “Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)” does not, however, hold as high of a place in my heart. For the most part, this should totally be my type of story. You’ll never guess from the title, but the story follows a milkman while he makes his deliveries in the morning. I told you you’d be surprised. Except, this milkman leaves little surprises in the milk bottles for his customers. These surprises could be anything from poison to spiders to toxic fumes. (Fortunately, I would be safe from this psycho. Lactose intolerance for the win!) As you all know, stories about murder are usually my jam. But for some reason, this one just didn’t do much for me. It was as well-written as any of King’s works, it just wasn’t as memorable. According to my ranking list, I have it right in the middle of the pack for short stories, but that still puts it pretty far down the list. It was a fun enough read, but not one I’m likely to revisit. Title: “Uncle Otto’s Truck”
Publishing Date: 1985 Length: 17 pages Start Date: November 17, 2018 End Date: November 18, 2018 This short story has two items that King fans will recognize: the town of Castle Rock and an inanimate object trying to murder someone. In this case, the murderous object is the titular truck. Uncle Otto, also from the title, used the truck to kill his fellow businessman, crushing him beneath the rundown vehicle. Now, consumed by guilt, Otto becomes obsessed with the truck, certain that it is moving on its own and planning to kill him. Otto lives across the road from the truck and shuts himself off from society as his guilt slowly drives him insane. Eventually the narrator, Uncle Otto’s nephew, comes to the house to find Otto dead. The death is ruled a suicide, but oddly enough, Otto has been drowned with motor oil and there is a spark plug jammed in his throat. Despite how crazy he knows it seems, the nephew starts to let his own mind wander with suspicion about who, or what, could be responsible for his uncle’s death. Overall, this story was just kind of okay. I assume King was trying to remind people of the success of Christine, but in my opinion, he falls short. My main reason for thinking this is believability. I can suspend my disbelief long enough to go along with a car running people over and crashing into things in order to inflict maximum damage. But even my fantasy-loving mind can’t really get behind a truck developing the dexterity to pour motor oil down someone’s throat and then shove a spark plug in after it. |
Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
July 2019
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