All I'm Looking
The Mist (2007)
directed by Frank Darabont
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD at JL's
The Mist, to me, is a great example of someone making a career in Hollywood without knowing a thing about movies. Knocking the writer of a handful of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is a straw short of flimsy, I know, but The Shawshank Redemption bought Darabont more of a pass on The Mist (and all future productions, I'm sure) than he deserved. Is there any way he earned less than six figures for this? Is that "low-budget" to anyone not blessed by Steven Spielberg's benevolent graces?
Like the old line on Buckaroo Bonzai, none of the first-time horror films I love tried for the penniless appeal of shoestring craftsmanship. Herk Harvey and Maurice Prather famously thought of Ingmar Bergman when making Carnival of Souls, and in 1962, as now, it's hard to imagine any lighting more professionally astonishing than Through a Glass Darkly must have looked a year before. For Darabont, the aesthetic is synonymous with lowered expectations, and if the director is that condescending about his own shoot, how can the actors or crew care less?
Not surprisingly, the guy so in love with B-movies can't close down his awful conclusion in less than two hours. At which point it isn't even an adaptation, just a bore.
directed by Frank Darabont
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD at JL's
The Mist, to me, is a great example of someone making a career in Hollywood without knowing a thing about movies. Knocking the writer of a handful of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is a straw short of flimsy, I know, but The Shawshank Redemption bought Darabont more of a pass on The Mist (and all future productions, I'm sure) than he deserved. Is there any way he earned less than six figures for this? Is that "low-budget" to anyone not blessed by Steven Spielberg's benevolent graces?
Like the old line on Buckaroo Bonzai, none of the first-time horror films I love tried for the penniless appeal of shoestring craftsmanship. Herk Harvey and Maurice Prather famously thought of Ingmar Bergman when making Carnival of Souls, and in 1962, as now, it's hard to imagine any lighting more professionally astonishing than Through a Glass Darkly must have looked a year before. For Darabont, the aesthetic is synonymous with lowered expectations, and if the director is that condescending about his own shoot, how can the actors or crew care less?
Not surprisingly, the guy so in love with B-movies can't close down his awful conclusion in less than two hours. At which point it isn't even an adaptation, just a bore.
posted by NPK at 9:24 AM
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