Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Not In Flames, But In Mist

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I've mentioned it on social media here and there but I've been re-reading Stephen King's The Stand for the past few weeks in quarantine  -- nothing like diving right into Plague Fiction during a plague! Coincidentally I actually finally finished the book last night, timed pretty much right to the end of said quarantine as I returned to my office, and now tonight I plan on  starting up and re-watching the 1990 miniseries... which I remember as being somewhat terrible? We will see. (I'm very much looking forward to the new version with Alexander Skarsgard and James Marsden later this year, though.) Anyway all of that nonsense went and got me in a Stephen King mood pretty hard, and so this week's edition of our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series over at The Film Experience is devoted to one of the great King cinematic villains, Marcia Gay Harden's turn as Mrs. Carmody in The Mist from 2007. She's so great at being so awful, is't she? Boo hiss, chef's kiss!
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4 comments:

Laramie Dean said...

I loved the novel when I was a kid -- it kept me company on a pretty depressing jaunt down the east coast after I graduated from high school - but it feels so durn epic now that I don't know if I'll ever tackle it again. I did nurse a serious crush on Gary Sinise at the time of the miniserise (damn your insane politics, Gary Sinise!!!), but I remember really enjoying Laura San Giacomo as Nadine: "We are dead and this ... is ... HELL!" I'll be interested to see what you think when revisit it ...

Anonymous said...

I like the miniseries and I am not ashamed. It's very of it's time TV movie level, but it does a decent job. Molly Ringwald's much maligned performance didn't bother me as much as her terrible dye job. Jamey Sheridan is great. Ruby Dee is great. Rob Lowe is shirtless swinging an ax. What's not to like?

bdog said...

I loved all the ABC King mini-series (except The Shining, that shit is awful).
I will probably get CBS All-Access to watch this when it airs, but I wonder why they don't just air it now? TV is a game-show besodden waste land.
Shawnee Smith's psycho chick was a stand-out for me in the original, and The Walking Dead def owes a debt for Alexandria.
The opening of The Stand, in the book and the show is one of my all-time favorite King openings.
I actually own the mini-series DVD, and a copy of the original book. I've read the book 2 or 3 times, the original, and the expanded version.

Johnnie said...

I remember the ads in TV Guide when The Stand was on. I only watched it on DVD years later. I had cut out a picture of Rob Lowe as a bookmark because he was so cute in the promo pics. Marcia is so hateful in The Mist, but the movie is decent, especially the ending, which reminded me of the end of The 7th Continent - Haneke.