Recommended Movies on TV

Reg'stoy wrote: »

Horror Channel is showing Stephen King's The Mist directed by Frank Darabont. Famous or should I say infamous for its ending, it starts at ten to twelve tonight the 4th.

There's an interesting story about the ending. I'm sure you've heard it before but I'll tell it anyway for the benefit of those that haven't.

Frank Darabont directed The Shawshank Redemption. That film was originally supposed to end with Red on the bus, hoping he'd see his friend Andy again, because hope was one of the central messages of the film. He was never actually supposed to meet him. That scene was added much later, at the Studio's insistence, because the original ending didn't play that well with test audiences. Darabont hated the happy ending.

That takes us to The Mist, which for my money contains one of the greatest endings of all time, if not the greatest. The Studio weren't happy with that ending either, and they offered Darabont a larger budget to spend on CGI if he agreed to change it. However, this time he wouldn't budge, so what we get is some slightly dodgy CGI, but an almighty closing scene.

Anyway, that's according to Mark Kermode. I hope it's true. It's a great anecdote. I've had people buy me at least four pints because of it.

Deleted User wrote: »

That's not necessarily true, originally he was approached by a producer who wanted to fund the film with a $30 million budget on condition that he changed the ending to a happier one. Darabont had spent so long trying to get the funding that he refused to relent and ended up turning to Harvey Weinsten who agreed to produce the film with an $18 million dollar budget. Darabont had always envisioned the film as being shown in Black & White and as such the creature FX and CG Were created with that in mind, which is why some of the FX work looks a little shoddy

Ah for fcuks sake.

Deleted User wrote: »

That's not necessarily true, originally he was approached by a producer who wanted to fund the film with a $30 million budget on condition that he changed the ending to a happier one. Darabont had spent so long trying to get the funding that he refused to relent and ended up turning to Harvey Weinsten who agreed to produce the film with an $18 million dollar budget. Darabont had always envisioned the film as being shown in Black & White and as such the creature FX and CG Were created with that in mind, which is why some of the FX work looks a little shoddy

Reg'stoy wrote: »

Yeah I have the Blu ray which has the black and white version, which is indeed much better than the colour one.
While the ending is specific to the film and doesn't match the book, it is a King style twist as anyone who has read some of his books will know. It matches the horror of in particular his book written as Richard Bachman The Long walk; when

the first child is shot dead by a soldier when he can't walk any further and you realise that 99 children will have to die for a winner to be found.

Thanks guys. I'd never even heard of the b&w version, but I've just picked up the two disc version in CEX. Really looking forward to this.

One for ANY film fan - MILIUS (yes its capitals cos that's the way John MILIUS is!) on Film4 tonight at 11.05/00.05 (+1)



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2370224/

Hatchet for the Honeymoon 1970 Maria Bava on Film On Freesat 410 at 11 pm. Obviously the picture quality is almost certainly going to be awful but we might be lucky.

Chinatown, Film4 1am

Rope is on BBC 2 tomorrow at 1pm, a terrific Alfred Hitchcock film, although the man himself wasn't as pleased with it.

John Dall is brilliant in it, worth it just for his performance imo and the long takes Hitchcock used really makes for a visually interesting watch (even to non cinema buffs like myself)