11.22.63

The Short Review: No. No no no no no no no. Double nope. Ultra mega hella uber triple dog Nope. As in "Fuck No" times a jazillion and multiplied by 3812000. Fuck you right in your face with my bigass Nope stick.

The Long Review: Man, I loved the book 11/22/63 by Stephen King and I give no fucks what anyone thinks about that. Call him a hack, a mass producing horror machine, whatever. You cannot deny that the man has written some of the most important stories ever to be turned into some of the best horror films of our time. The Shining, Carrie, The Dead Zone, 'Salem's Lot, etc. Unfortunately, there have been more abortions made of his stories than there have been happy births: the remake(s) of The Shining, Carrie (I speak of the Angela Bettis abomination), The Dead Zone, 'Salem's Lot, etc. Ugh, did anyone see the heap of steaming hairball that was Sleepwalkers? I have to mention that one anytime I talk about bad Stephen King movies because I never recovered from that one. Dude, it fucking hurt. It reeked. It stung like hot cat piss in an open paper cut.

I'm not going to waste anyone's time - mine included - in reviewing the book 11/22/63 because the fucking thing is 30 billion pages long and if you had a million or so copies you could logistically construct a shelter capable of withstanding F5 force winds.

I will say this much about the book: I think it's the best thing King has written thus far. It's beautiful and terribly human and more intricate than a scrimshaw sculpture. I love the way it overlaps with the world of Derry created by King for his as-yet-unfilmable It. (Sorry, Tim Curry aside, that miniseries for It was wretched.) I especially loved the small culture shocks experienced throughout the novel, just tiny things highlighting the differences between the 1960s and the 21st century, like the simple mixing of cola syrup and seltzer water to make a Coca-Cola, instead of just pulling the ring tab off of a fizzily hissing aluminum can. I love shit like that.

So, with a remake of It in pre-production, and a golden opportunity to spark interest in it by featuring Jake Epping's month long stay in the cancer ridden mill town and his meeting with Bevvie and Ritchie, what does JJ Abrams decide to do? Move the town of Derry, Maine to Bumblefuck, Tennessee for no fucking reason at all. Well, there is a reason - Tennessee is closer to Texas than Maine, and there's a thing called "compressing time through editing" because nobody has the patience to sit through two prologues and four years worth of build up.

cough Game Of Thrones, cough The Walking Dead, cough six years and still going strong.

But hey, whatever, I'm not the big Hollywood wheeler dealer who knows how this shit works, apparently. Fine. Just chop the shit out of the show and turn it into a literary car chase and see if I give a fuck.

Why was it necessary to have Jake drop out of the clear blue sky into a crowded 1960s street? Why have him attract so much attention to himself by blundering into the past with a goatee and a rock shirt, instead of planning (like he did in the book) and cultivating an Everyman appearance? Why have him attract so much attention to himself at all? For fucks sake, James Franco may as well have gone in naked, clothed only in dayglo body paint, juggling flaming bowling pins and shouting "I'M FROM THE FUTURE!!!" He sucks at blending in. He's not even trying. He's rude and combative and pretty much adopts a "Come at me, bruh" posture for all of the woefully ignorant corn shuckin' past dwellers of Bumpkinland who don't know shit about crap because they lack Google and YouTube and Nokia phones.

Why does he have to meet Sadie while she's still married and months before he takes a job as a schoolteacher? Why burn down the boarding house? And why - why the FUCK - partner him with someone? I know we haven't gotten that far yet, but I know it's coming and I disapprove, goddamn it.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hasty. Maybe I should watch more than one episode before I jump to any conclusions. But hey, maybe the makers of the miniseries should have tried harder to catch my attention first time out. And you know, I get it. I do. I understand that adaptations from book to film have to be edited, condensed and changed just a hair, otherwise book fans would be stone bored.

Or would they? Have any of you Big Cheeses ever considered trying a straight adaptation? Maybe we'd like it. Maybe those of us who loved the book could be catered to, just once, instead of the hordes of illiterate lazy assholes who can't sit through anything that doesn't shove a fistful of pyrotechnic candy and sex sugar in their crybaby little faces right out of the fucking starting gate.