Stephen King Goes to the Movies

by Stephen King

Book Overview

Stephen King revisits five of his favorite short stories that have been turned into films: The Shawshank Redemption (based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption") was nominated... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416592369
• ISBN13: 9781416592365
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Bought for my mom.

My mom's a huge Stephen king fan and she loved this book.

Excellent production

Some reviewers have complained that this book is composed of stories that have appeared previously. True. Some complain that Stephen King's commentaries before each story are brief. True again. Many complain that the book is expensive, and it is. So, is this limited edition from Subterranean Press worth what it's priced? Absolutely! The quality of the book is amazing. This is not your average trade or mass-market production. The Vincent Chong movie posters created especially for this edition are incredible. If you are a Stephen King fan and collector you need 'Stephen King Goes to the Movies' on your shelves.

Misleading (but good) compilation

Stephen King has written a lot of stories that have been turned into movies, which is why this compilation is so misleading. One would think, given the title and the publisher's description, that the book is a combination of reprinted stories and King's memories of/reactions to the filming of his movies. Instead, we have straight reprints of 5 King stories along with painfully brief introductions by the author himself. (None of the stories are particularly rare - if you are a King completist you are buying this for less than a dozen new pages, none of which are particularly enlightening). On the other hand, this collection has two of the best novellas Stephen King has ever written - "Low Men in Yellow Coats" and "Shawshank Redemption." I won't spoil them for any reader who hasn't enjoyed them yet, but they contain some of King's most vivid characterizations and heartbreaking scenarios. Both are unforgettable, and provide strong evidence that King is no potboiler. They also are far removed from the chills and thrills that one normally associates with King's name, making their inclusion in a book with an EC Comics-inspired cover very odd. I rated this as a 4 star collection due to the high quality of the original stories. I would not recommend buying this collection based on King's mini-introductions, but they are nice to have if you don't already own the stories in another format.

Good if you're new to Stephen's writing

Make no mistake, this is a book of short stories written by King and all previously published somewhere else, specificially, his short story collections (1408 is from Everything's Eventual, The Mangler and The Children Of The Corn from Night Shift, Low men in yellow coats from Hearts in Atlantis and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption from Different Seasons). And this makes it a very good read, even for someone like me who has read some of the stories from this book before, because these stories are genuinely good. You have the screamers like 1408 and The Mangler, and you have the subtle stories like Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption, which makes this collection very enjoyable to read on a plane or at home after a hard day at work. There are also brand new introductions before every story, written by King, telling about his brief thoughts about the stories themselves and the movies that were made from them. These and a list of King's favorite movie adaptations are the new stuff. So, on the one hand, I liked the stories from this book and the new stuff, but on the other, I feel that there's very little here to justify the selling price. It's really boils down to personal preference, whether you want to spend 7.99 bucks on a book of reprinted (but good) stories and scant introductions or not. The intros were worth the price for me, but for you it could be different.

98% previously published fiction repackaged around a movie theme.

Because the stories are all excellent, I've given this book five stars. But prospective customers ought to know exaclty what they're buying, and in this case, you're buying an anthology of previously published fiction that share a movie theme: each has been adapted to the silver screen. If you have all of King's books, you already have the stories in previous collections: "The Shawshank Redemption" appeared in DIFFERENT SEASONS, "1408" from EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, "Children of the Corn" from NIGHT SHIFT, "The Mangler" from NIGHT SHIFT, and "Low Men in Yellow Coats" from HEARTS IN ATLANTIS. In other words, most of the text is reprinted. Which raises the question: What's new? Short introductions -- the kind Harlan Ellison popularized decades ago in his collections of short fiction -- serve as set-ups: 2 pages for "1408," 2 pages for "The Mangler," 2 pages for "Shawshank," 1 page for "Children of the Corn," 2 pages for "Low Men," and 1 page for a list of his 10 favorite fiction-to-film adaptations. That works out to 10 pages (actually, less than that: some are 1.5 pages) out of a 626 page book. In other words, there's less than 2% of new material and 98% of previously published material. One major omission: "The Body" from DIFFERENT SEASONS, but its inclusion would mean that HALF of DIFFERENT SEASONS would be available in this new anthology, so King wisely limited his selection to one novella from D.S. But "The Mist" would have been a great choice--reprinted in SKELETON CREW. So, is it worth it? Well, if you absolutely must have the new introductions, it's a slam dunk: Get the book and enjoy the brief intros. For me, it's $7.99 that's well spent, since these short intros won't appear anywhere else. But given that King could have written much more about each story in this book and their respective adaptations to the screen, I think he missed an opportunity to hold court, so to speak. DANSE MACABRE and ON WRITING shows King's strengths as a nonfiction writer, and this would have been a great opportunity for him to talk at length about each adaptation, as opposed to the abbreviated introductions. Appropriately, the book is dedicated to film director Frank Darabont, whose adaptations of SHAWSHANK, GREEN MILE, and THE MIST rank among the best King fiction-to-film adaptations. Too bad Frank didn't do an introduction, since I would have liked to see through the lens of his imagination as to how successfully he felt these stories had been adapted to the screen. Bottom line: If you've already got everything by King, this is a nice but not essential addition, given the brevity of the introductions. But if you're a completist, or specifically want a movie-themed collection of King's best fiction, this is worth the asking price. PS: "Trucks" from NIGHT SHIFT should have been included, because of its uniqueness: it's the only film King himself directed. The story of King behind the wheel as director is as entertaining as the short story itself. The f

King's Commentary Accentuates Previously Published Stories

If Stephen King were a director, rather than an author (Let's pretend Maximum Overdrive didn't happen), he'd have the best DVD commentaries in the business. No other writer working today is more open and forthright about inspiration, technique and the "message" he sees in his work. The fact that he's also the most cinematically adapted living author means the world in not lacking accounts of his opinions and memories from seeing his stories transformed to the big screen. Such openness allows books like this to exist, a collection of repackaged stories coupled with his fresh introductions, reflections and trivia. His commentary is most impactful when he discusses how an alternation or even the adaptation process changes his stories' themes and ideas. King sees himself as just a viewer of the films based on his work, and he analyzes them critically as he would any other film. The difference is that his analysis is enhanced by his own unique understanding of the source material. Even when King disagrees with changes made to his story, he does so without the elitist, condescending tone most often used by writers seeing their work transformed to a "lowbrow" medium. Again, he sees himself as just a viewer of the film, not someone offended because the film's creators took a different approach. The stories contained represent the vastness of King's range. The jewel is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which is destined to be remembered as the source of the greatest cinematic adaptation of a King story, but also one that lacks the horror/gore/supernatural elements most identified with the writer. Those genres are explored more in the stories The Mangler, 1408 and Children of the Corn. The story that eventually became Hearts in Atlantis covers another popular world depicted in King's work, one where 99% of the natural laws are consistent with our own universe. It's that 1% that pushes the stories just outside the world of the possible but not wholly into the world of Science Fiction. King loves to tiptoe that line, crafting believable, realistic characters that only differ from his readers by a slight psychic power or ability. Only the most dedicated King fans will have read all of these stories, and even those who have will want to pick up this book to read King's reflections. Sure, it's obviously a way to sale copies of stories previously published, but the new reflections make it worth the modest price. I suggest it to casual and die hard Stephen King fans alike.