NotTooLate said:
You were interested. I would think that substantiates you being here.
Anything King writes, I'll read. Drinking or not, he's still a great master of words.
Joanne
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You were interested. I would think that substantiates you being here.
Anything King writes, I'll read. Drinking or not, he's still a great master of words.
Joanne
As yet another (a non-writing writer as it were) with no business of being here, but desperate to do more than merely lurk, I'll throw my hat (and two cents) into the ring as well:
As to the original thread concerning the "bad" ending, it seems to me to be an American if not Hollywood-esque trait to avoid the sad, ie in most cases realistic ending. A good case in point (since it was already brought up) is Cujo -- the boy dies, not of rabies or mutilation, but of dehydration IN THE BOOK. In the sanitized, glamorized, and (dare I say?) sanctified MOVIE, the mother overcomes the evil beast Cujo (who IMHO never achieves the magnitude of malovelence he earns in the book) AND saves her child -- truly an American outcome.
In addition to the seeming need for a "happy" ending, the only acceptable "bad" endings seem to be the ones that provide continuity, else why would the American public tolerate the evil monster/villain/alien returning from the dead to wreak more havoc on an unsuspecting populace? By the way, was I the only one to recognize a certain spatial similarity to the Predator ship and the hulk that Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo later found on some unnamed celestial body? Just a thought --
As to the original thread concerning the "bad" ending, it seems to me to be an American if not Hollywood-esque trait to avoid the sad, ie in most cases realistic ending. A good case in point (since it was already brought up) is Cujo -- the boy dies, not of rabies or mutilation, but of dehydration IN THE BOOK. In the sanitized, glamorized, and (dare I say?) sanctified MOVIE, the mother overcomes the evil beast Cujo (who IMHO never achieves the magnitude of malovelence he earns in the book) AND saves her child -- truly an American outcome.
In addition to the seeming need for a "happy" ending, the only acceptable "bad" endings seem to be the ones that provide continuity, else why would the American public tolerate the evil monster/villain/alien returning from the dead to wreak more havoc on an unsuspecting populace? By the way, was I the only one to recognize a certain spatial similarity to the Predator ship and the hulk that Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo later found on some unnamed celestial body? Just a thought --
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Wolfyn! We're thrilled you're here. 
Please feel free to join in the discussion.
Good lord--where is this "no business being here" stuff coming from? It's a place to discuss the horror genre--if you've something to bring to the conversation, then of course you have business being here. And we are all enriched by your presence.
(this goes for the other lurkers out there, too)
I think you have a really valid point about the hollywood happy ending--but just to play devil's advocate: We could look at The Shining--King lets Dick Halloran (Scatman Carrothers in the movie) live, while Kubrick kills him off...
Although admittedly, a Kubrick film is hardly Hollywood typical, so that might be unfair. <g>
Please feel free to join in the discussion.Good lord--where is this "no business being here" stuff coming from? It's a place to discuss the horror genre--if you've something to bring to the conversation, then of course you have business being here. And we are all enriched by your presence.
(this goes for the other lurkers out there, too)
I think you have a really valid point about the hollywood happy ending--but just to play devil's advocate: We could look at The Shining--King lets Dick Halloran (Scatman Carrothers in the movie) live, while Kubrick kills him off...
Although admittedly, a Kubrick film is hardly Hollywood typical, so that might be unfair. <g>
WARNING
Can we place a warning at the top of this thread? What if you haven't read/seen the titles to which we're revealing the endings? Guess I don't need to read Cujo now.
Can we place a warning at the top of this thread? What if you haven't read/seen the titles to which we're revealing the endings? Guess I don't need to read Cujo now.
ROFL .. ouch .. Sorry about that NotTooLate, I wasn't thinking about that aspect of the discussion -- it's still worth the read however, since you'll get a dimension to the animal that's not possible (at least not CURRENTLY possible) to explore in a movie.
Wolfyn0911 said:
Wolfy,
So glad you joined us. Hope you stick around and join in on more conversations.
Joanne
NotTooLate said:Can we place a warning at the top of this thread? What if you haven't read/seen the titles to which we're revealing the endings? Guess I don't need to read Cujo now.
Oops, NotTooLate. Sorry about giving away the ending. In the future if I post anything about the content of a book, I'll make sure I add a note before the post. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ****, DON'T READ THIS.
Hope that doesn't hold you back from visiting the threads again.
Joanne
Of course not, I'm already hooked!Hope that doesn't hold you back from visiting the threads again.
There was this NY Times article recently that took the care to write a warning similar to "do not read on if you haven't seen..." in the body of an article about Million Dollar Baby. Only, above that there was a caption that said something like: ------- ending causes debate. Awwww man! They gave it away. Silly NY Times.
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Oops, now I just ruined it for others. Sorry. But I haven't seen the movie, so I still don't know what really happens.
NotTooLate said:
Okay, it's good form to write: spoiler alert, so that any reader who doesn't want the ending spoiled, can skip ahead.
I haven't seen Million Dollar Baby yet, and I have been meaning to... now the ending has just been spoiled for me.
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I'm sorry, no, it wasn't payback; I'm going to go delete it right now. Like I said, I haven't seen the movie, so have no idea what happens.
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NotTooLate said:Can we place a warning at the top of this thread? What if you haven't read/seen the titles to which we're revealing the endings? Guess I don't need to read Cujo now.
I don't think Cujo is about the "ending." It's not that kind of books that if you know the ending, you won't enjoy it.
p.s. A lot of people haven't seen Million Dollar Baby yet, since it's just out! Please, be nice. Cujo has been out for over 20 years.
It's like saying "Rosebud" in the Citizen Kane means... then someone comes back and says, you know what, at the end of the Ring Two...
I think we had the same debate earlier when someone accidentally gave away the ending of The Sixth Sense. Someone on this board hasn't seen it yet -- but then again, it's a six-year-old movie...
No problem, NotTooLate. I was ROFL after my comment. I wasn't upset. You didn't have to delete it.
I'll probably still go to see the movie; I love Clint Eastwood.
Joanne
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SPOILER ALERT!!!
darth vader is luke's father.
writing-wise, i think if you removed all spelling and vernacular, you'd be hard-pressed to say which nationality a writer is. but, if you did a faithful rendition of some foreign horror movie with american actors, it might seem 'off' in comparison to hollywood's flicks. of course that's a generalization, but it seems to me the european cinema's storytelling method has a different take on things. would hollywood have been able to make 'nosferatu' with an all-american cast and crew? doubtful. we might have been able to do 'shaun of the dead,' though we'd most likely would have had done the ending a little differently (not going to mention the pretty obvious here, since 'shaun' is so new).
i think there's a conflict between the two mediums, not just horror, necessarily, but overall. we tend to be muuuch more obvious. we're not terribly subtle by most standards, lol. that really comes through in movies which have their own sets of standards of storytelling. this is why most people complain about hollywood's lack of imagination, but at the same time it's very much our own damn dumb faults, with the attitude that entertainment should take us other places and not have us leave the theatre depressed. 'if i wanted to be depressed, i wouldn't have paid ten bucks to it. i'd have stayed at home. i go to these things to escape reality!' is a pretty common lament i've heard over the years. kinda ignorant to complain about hollywood's lack of originality *then* want the same type of ending over and over again, eh? originality has not proven to sell tickets.
bad endings? i guess i'd say bad endings are ones that aren't organic with the 400 pages leading up to it, like shifting from mahogany to chrome in the same dining room table.
killing off that character in 'the shining' i think also satisfies the audience's bloodlust. who cares about killing off cameos? i think people want there to be an actual deathtoll in horror movies... as long as it's not the main characters. by the time nicholson's character finally died, weren't we convinced by the end he was worthy of dying? so that was pretty satisfying. bad endings have no resolution: the monster doesn't die, the ghost is dispelled, or the vampire survives for the sequel. 'but, preyer, the vampire's in 'interview with the vampire' live.' is that book supposed to be horror? reading it i got the impression it was a twisted gay romance. maybe i missed the point of it, lol.
has anyone ever actually tried to type or write drunk? it's not easy. in my drug-practicing youth i always had better things to do when high than write stories, lol. today, if i wanted to 'cheat' like that i'd just steal from my dreams.
darth vader is luke's father.
writing-wise, i think if you removed all spelling and vernacular, you'd be hard-pressed to say which nationality a writer is. but, if you did a faithful rendition of some foreign horror movie with american actors, it might seem 'off' in comparison to hollywood's flicks. of course that's a generalization, but it seems to me the european cinema's storytelling method has a different take on things. would hollywood have been able to make 'nosferatu' with an all-american cast and crew? doubtful. we might have been able to do 'shaun of the dead,' though we'd most likely would have had done the ending a little differently (not going to mention the pretty obvious here, since 'shaun' is so new).
i think there's a conflict between the two mediums, not just horror, necessarily, but overall. we tend to be muuuch more obvious. we're not terribly subtle by most standards, lol. that really comes through in movies which have their own sets of standards of storytelling. this is why most people complain about hollywood's lack of imagination, but at the same time it's very much our own damn dumb faults, with the attitude that entertainment should take us other places and not have us leave the theatre depressed. 'if i wanted to be depressed, i wouldn't have paid ten bucks to it. i'd have stayed at home. i go to these things to escape reality!' is a pretty common lament i've heard over the years. kinda ignorant to complain about hollywood's lack of originality *then* want the same type of ending over and over again, eh? originality has not proven to sell tickets.
bad endings? i guess i'd say bad endings are ones that aren't organic with the 400 pages leading up to it, like shifting from mahogany to chrome in the same dining room table.
killing off that character in 'the shining' i think also satisfies the audience's bloodlust. who cares about killing off cameos? i think people want there to be an actual deathtoll in horror movies... as long as it's not the main characters. by the time nicholson's character finally died, weren't we convinced by the end he was worthy of dying? so that was pretty satisfying. bad endings have no resolution: the monster doesn't die, the ghost is dispelled, or the vampire survives for the sequel. 'but, preyer, the vampire's in 'interview with the vampire' live.' is that book supposed to be horror? reading it i got the impression it was a twisted gay romance. maybe i missed the point of it, lol.
has anyone ever actually tried to type or write drunk? it's not easy. in my drug-practicing youth i always had better things to do when high than write stories, lol. today, if i wanted to 'cheat' like that i'd just steal from my dreams.
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