The Screengrab 24-Hour Stephen King Marathon (Part Three)

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Introduction

Part One

Part Two

Noon – 2 p.m. THE DARK HALF (1993)

I think we can all agree that writing has been very good to Stephen King, and it certainly seems to be something he enjoys doing for a living, given the fact that he still puts out approximately seventeen books a month. Yet a casual glance at the writer characters in his work reveals a certain, I dunno, ambiguity about the matter. There’s Jack Torrance, the frustrated novelist of The Shining, who tries to bludgeon his family to death. Paul Sheldon of Misery attempts to retire his most famous character and ends up the prisoner of an obsessed fan. And in George Romero’s adaptation of The Dark Half, we have Timothy Hutton as Thad Beaumont, an author of serious but poorly-selling literary fiction who achieves success with dark, violent novels published under the name George Stark. When a blackmailer threatens to out Beaumont to the press, the author takes matters into his own hands, confessing his Stark-ness and staging a mock funeral for his alter ego. The matter seems resolved until George Stark comes to life and goes on a killing spree, for which Beaumont is the prime suspect. Romero’s film is one of the better received King adaptations, and Hutton does a respectable job in the dual role of weenie Thad and badass Stark (even if he can’t pronounce “Bangor” – it’s not “banger,” people!), but a more accurate title would have been Half-Baked. Romero doesn’t bother trying to wring much suspense out of whether Thad is actually doing Stark’s killing himself, and like much of King’s latter-day work, the whole thing degenerates into arbitrary hocus-pocus in lieu of a psychologically satisfying ending.

Odd (but not really that odd) fact: Michael Rooker plays Castle Rock sheriff Alan Pangborn, who is played by Ed Harris in Needful Things. Ed Harris is married to Amy Madigan, who plays Thad Beaumont’s wife Liz in The Dark Half. This must mean SOMETHING.

2 p.m. – 4 p.m. THINNER (1996)

Of course Stephen King had his own George Stark, although as far as we known the pseudonym Richard Bachman never came to life and started murdering people. King published five novels under Bachman’s name before being outed as the real author shortly after the publication of Thinner. In King’s case, however, it’s not like he was doing something completely different as Bachman; Thinner, in particular, is vintage King. It’s also a prime example of a story that works on the page, but not so much on film. Whilst driving and simultaneously receiving a blowjob from his wife, fat mob lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) accidentally hits and kills an old gypsy woman. The gypsy’s even more ancient father puts a curse on Billy, who begins to lose weight at a rapid clip. This is great at first, especially since he can eat whatever he wants, but it soon becomes clear that the weight loss won’t end until there’s nothing left of him. With the help of a mobster client (Joe Mantegna), an emaciated Billy tries to get the gypsies to reverse the curse. Unfortunately, the fat suit technology is not sufficiently advanced to be anything other than a distraction; Mike Myers was more convincing as Fat Bastard. The “thinner” prosthetics are even worse, but I suppose it’s too much to ask for Burke to go on Christian Bale’s Machinist diet for a B-movie like this. There’s a nasty little twist ending (hint: it involves pie!), but again, it worked better on the page.

King’s cameo: He’s the pharmacist Mr. Bangor (not banger!)

4 p.m. – 6 p.m. THE NIGHT FLIER (1997)

One of the lesser known – perhaps even the least known – King adaptations, Night Flier is based on a short story from the Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection. Miguel Ferrer is his usual acerbic self as sarcastic, ill-tempered tabloid Richard Dees, a reporter for the Weekly World News-esque Inside View. Dees and a rival cub reporter (Julie Entwisle) are investigating a series of murders at small airports. It seems “the Night Flier” swoops in at night in his black Cessna, emerges in a black-and-red Dracula cloak, and eviscerates the unlucky inhabitants. It’s a pretty flimsy premise for a feature-length film, and not much happens until the last fifteen minutes or so, when Dees finally catches up to the Night Flier in an airport full of slaughtered victims. There’s an eerie bathroom moment I’ve never seen before: a stream of blood emerging from an invisible wee-wee and splashing into a urinal. Hey, it creeped me out. As so often happens, however, the ultimate revelation of the baddie is a letdown – just another big critter carved out of latex.

King’s cameo: He doesn’t appear in person, but there’s a clever moment when the camera pans across a wall of framed Inside View covers, each of which takes its headline from a different King story.

The Final Chapter

That Guy!: Miguel Ferrer

Peter Smith — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Miguel Ferrer had some big shoes to fill before he was even old enough to walk. His father was the Oscar-winning actor José Ferrer; his mother was recording star Rosemary Clooney. His oldest childhood friend is Carrie Fisher, his sister-in-law is Debbie Boone, and his cousin is George Clooney. With expectations that high, it’s probably no surprise that he shied away from the intense pressures of film work and found his niche as a television actor; he’s just signed on to a recurring role in the Bionic Woman remake, but he’s also turned in memorable TV roles in Miami Vice, Twin Peaks, Tales from the Crypt, Crossing Jordan and LateLine (as well as, er, less grand projects like Kung Fu: The Next Generation). He’s also won acclaim as a voiceover actor, doing everything from Disney (he was a featured actor in Mulan) to superheroes (a lifelong comics buff, he’s been in several Superman animated episodes and will play a prominent role in the upcoming New Frontier Justice League cartoon) to video games (he plays the lead in BioShock, one of the moodiest, most dramatic, and immersively cinematic games in history). Ferrer didn’t initially want to be an actor at all; turned off by the hyper-competitive nature of the film industry, he was originally a respected studio drummer (playing alongside the legendary Keith Moon in one memorable session) and took his first acting job only because childhood friend — and current bandmate, in the Jenerators — Billy Mumy talked him into it. Twenty-five years later, Ferrer, whose reputation for playing short-tempered, hotheaded jerks belies his abilities as an extremely versatile actor who can handle as much emotional range as he’s given, has become one of an elite group of television actors whose very appearance in the credits is good enough cause to give a show a chance. But despite his infrequent big-screen appearances, he’s still done enough with his few and far-between movie roles to make him a That Guy! favorite.

Where to see Miguel Ferrer at his best:

ROBOCOP (1987)

If it weren’t for the presence of Kurtwood Smith (with whom he’d co-starred three years earlier in the deeply weird JFK assassination caper Flashpoint), Miguel Ferrer would have entirely stolen this highly subversive, hugely entertaining Paul Verhoeven satire right out from under leads Peter Weller and Nancy Allen. As corporate sleazeball Bob Morton, he gets off some of the movie’s best lines before being outflanked by Ronny Cox, who’s an even bigger corporate sleazeball than he is.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

Cursed with a convoluted production history, a number of studio compromises, and a difficult continuity, David Lynch’s big-screen prequel to his classic cult TV show is worthwhile if for no other reason than it gives Miguel Ferrer to reprise his finest role, as the intolerant and exacting FBI forensics specialist Albert Rosenfield. Ferrer doesn’t get as much screen time here as he did in the series, but every second of it is enjoyable as he plays this watchable combination of righteousness and insufferability to the hilt.

TRAFFIC (2000)

Not surprisingly, given its sprawling multiple storylines, Steven Soderbergh’s sweeping drama about the repercussions of the international drug trade features plenty of juicy roles for character actors (including a terrific turn from previous That Guy! Luis Guzmán). Miguel Ferrer puts in an excellent performance as the cynical drug trafficker Eduardo Ruiz, who engages in a memorable battle of wills with Guzmán’s drug agent Raul Castro, and makes the pithy observation that "In Mexico, law enforcement is an entrepreneurial activity."

— Leonard Pierce

The Screengrab : miguel ferrer

The Screengrab 24-Hour Stephen King Marathon (Part Three)

That Guy!: Miguel Ferrer