BuzzSugar

Link Time! New Moon Breaks Midnight Sales Records

BuzzSugar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:30:38 -0800

New Moon tops Harry Potter and The Dark Knight for its midnight showing ticket sales - PopSugar
Is Taylor Kitsch taking an early departure from Friday Night Lights? - Ausiello Files
Top 10 star-crossed lovers in film - Rotten Tomatoes
30 Rock's Judah Friedlander talks about his hat collection and his plans to save NBC - TV.com
Steven Spielberg and Stephen King team up to frighten the bejesus out of us with Under the Dome - MTV Movies Blog
Vampire Weekend debut their new video for "Cousins" - Stereogum
Jason Segel sings about how he wants to give you his phone number - and bed you - TresSugar
Imogen Heap writes songs for Zach Braff - Spinner

Buzz's Favorite Stephen King Adaptations

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:15:00 -0700

Just in time for Halloween (aka scary movie) season, Stephen King is taking his work to the small screen again. His novella, The Colorado Kid will be adapted into a series called Haven. The prolific writer has seen tons of his short stories and novels turned into movies and miniseries over the years. Though he's largely known as a horror writer, some of my favorite King-written material isn't horror at all - see what I've picked as my favorite movies adapted from Stephen King's work.

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IT Is Back, This Time on the Big Screen

BuzzSugar — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:30:42 -0700

Coulrophobics (those with a clown phobia), beware: That freaky clown from Stephen King's IT is back - and this time on the big screen instead of in an ABC mini-series. Warner Bros. plans to adapt King's novel for film and has hired Dave Kajganich to make his directorial debut with the scary movie.

The story "centers on seven children in a small Maine town who confront the source of a series of murders in 1958 and again in 1985, when the cycle begins again."

Yikes - I'm not sure I can go through this again! Did you see the IT miniseries back in the day? Do you have that bright orange hair and terrifying clowny face of Pennywise seared into your brain, too?

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Buzz In: What Is the Scariest Movie You've Ever Seen?

BuzzSugar — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:00:14 -0700

'Tis the season (and now the day!) to be scared out of your mind! While some people might be headed out to party the night away, many folks will get together to watch terrifying movies tonight. Of course, what scares people in movies varies from person to person. The suspense of a movie like Psycho turns some into a ball of nerves. For others, the idea of being possessed by a demonic spirit, as in the classic scary movie The Exorcist, will do the trick.

Personally, I still feel a chill down my spine when I think of the creepy, snowed-in hotel in Stephen King's The Shining and I'd prefer to not even talk about 28 Days Later because it was too traumatizing. Now it's your turn: What is hands-down the scariest movie you've ever seen?

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Movie News Roundup: Stephen King, Kevin Spacey, Sam Raimi Get Busy

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:36:49 -0700

Lots of intriguing movie news coming out of Hollywood today:

Kevin Spacey will star in the indie film Shrink as a depressed therapist who likes to ah, partake of the ganja. (A pot-smoking therapist? That sounds familiar.) His clients in the movie will include "Hollywood characters" like Robin Williams, Keke Palmer, Laura Ramsey and Gore Vidal, among others.
Columbia and Sam Raimi will team up together again after their Spider-Man ventures for yet another adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel. Lehane's books make excellent screenplays, apparently, as Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and the upcoming DiCaprio-Scorsese project Shutter Island have all been adapted. Next up, Raimi will direct a film version of The Given Day, which follows Boston cops in 1919.
Speaking of adaptations, the rights to an as-yet-unpublished Stephen King novella Throttle - which he wrote with his son Joe Hill - have already been optioned. The story is about "father-son members of a motorcycle gang that's chased through the desert by an 18-wheel tanker truck." The novella will be a part of a 2009 anthology dedicated to I Am Legend author Richard Matheson.

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Broadway Musical News: The Couger Meets Cujo

BuzzSugar — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:29:36 -0800

Who knew Stephen King and John Mellencamp had anything in common, much less a desire to write a Broadway musical together? Not I, but apparently it's true, and the two men are collaborating on a musical theater project, scheduled to debut in April 2009, titled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.

The story follows the legend that grows out of the tragic death of two brothers and a girl in the fictional town of Lake Belle Reve, Miss. The basic musical idea was originally Mellencamp's. He knew he needed a writer to help bring it to the stage and quickly thought of King.

While audiences have seen ghosts and gore on stage before (think Sweeney Todd) spokespeople for the production say this is a touching tale - more Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, less Carrie.

What do you guys think? Discuss.

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BuzzSugar's Must-Haves for January

BuzzSugar — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:28:27 -0800

Happy 2008 and welcome to BuzzSugar's monthly must-haves, where I show off a handful of the things I'm most looking forward to watching, buying, renting and reading. I'm hoping to start the new year off right with the following goodies.

To see why these six things are at the top of my list, just read more.

2008 Sundance Film Festival - Not so much a "must-have" as a "must-go," the lineup for the Sundance Film Festival this year has me drooling. I can't wait to be in Park City, Utah in a few weeks, getting a first look at the industry's best independent films.
The Magnetic Fields: Distortion - This album, out Jan. 15, is the band's first since 2004's i. While this album doesn't have an obvious theme, the two songs I've heard so far, "Three-Way" and "California Girls," hint at a new musical direction - with Stephin Merritt's acerbic lyrics blissfully intact.
3:10 to Yuma - Though it didn't make the cut as one of my top 10 favorite movies of 2007, I pretty much loved every minute of the remake of the old Western film 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. You can read what I loved about the movie, but you may as well just rent it when it comes out on DVD January 8 and see for yourself.
Cat Power: Jukebox - I can't wait to hear Chan Marshall's sultry voice take on a new set of cover songs on this album, out Jan. 22. Jukebox, Cat Power's second covers record, includes songs originally recorded by artists including Janis Joplin and Frank Sinatra, along with two originals. A deluxe edition includes a second disc with five bonus tracks.
Duma Key: A Novel by Stephen King - I don't totally love everything Stephen King does but that won't prevent me from checking out his next novel, Duma Key, which will hit bookstore shelves January 22. The supernatural story follows a disturbed man whose paintings take on a terrifying life of their own.
Cashmere Mafia - The buzz has been building since ABC picked up the show last May; now, Cashmere Mafia is finally getting its premiere. The show's first episode airs Jan. 6 at 10 p.m., then moves into its regular Wednesdays-at-10 time slot. In addition to giving us some relief from the writers' strike, it also sets up the battle (with NBC's forthcoming Lipstick Jungle) for the rights to be the heir to Sex and the City.

The Mist Will Creep Up on You

BuzzSugar — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:30:00 -0800

I admit that I wasn’t expecting much from the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist. I thought it might be a fun-scary movie - the kind that jolts you out of your seat with fright but isn't all that memorable. Yet just as the otherwordly mist in the film creeps into a small town in Maine and traps unsuspecting shoppers in a grocery store, The Mist crept up on me, making me realize I was in for a terrifying hour and a half. If you’re looking for quickie scares that will evaporate by the time the movie’s over, look elsewhere. The Mist is a disturbing film that taps into primal fears and real world terrors, and its doomsday mood will stay with you long after you exit the theater.

David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is a movie poster artist whose house is damaged one night after an electrical storm. Together with his son Billy (Nathan Gamble) and neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher) - with whom he's had tense relations in the past - he rides into town to buy groceries. There at the grocery store, the ordinary becomes extraordinary: a dense, white mist surrounds the building, an earthquake rattles its foundations, and a man materializes from the eerie whiteness, blood dripping from his nose, shouting "There's something in the mist! It took John Lee!" Scared yet? Well, read more

What is this "something in the mist"? We get some visual clues: a giant octopus-like tentacle attacks a grocery clerk, spidery creatures menace a group as they venture out to get medicine for an ailing man, and a flock of prehistoric-looking insects invade the store. Where did this dangerous mist with its monsters come from? Is it a pollution cloud? Did the nearby military police unleash aliens from another world? Or, as the town religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody (a creepy Marcia Gay Harden) suggests, have they come to exact God's bloodthirsty revenge as a sign of the End of Days?

Like the great disaster films of the 1970s (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure), The Mist's narrative tension (and horror) comes as much from the characters' interactions as from the monsters the mist occasionally spits out. In the midst of a social breakdown, what groups form and who leads them? What ties dissolve? How do race, politics and religion factor in?

With a terrific cast and special effects that do not upstage the human characters, The Mist keeps one foot in the imaginary with CGI monsters and supernatural hints, and one foot firmly planted in our real fears: unchecked military or scientific activity, the breakdown of society, the end of the world. It also has one of the most shocking endings I've ever seen. Like a blank screen onto which we can project our fears, The Mist suggests but it doesn't resolve.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company

Frightful Friday: The Shining

BuzzSugar — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:30:00 -0700

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
"Danny isn't here, Mrs. Torrance."
"Red rum, red rum, red rum!"
"Heeeere's Johnny!"

This week's Frightful Friday scary movie spawned several memorable lines that still manage to send chills down my spine. In addition to the creepy dialogue, one of the things I like most about The Shining is the pacing of the story, proving that a Stephen King-Stanley Kubrick collaboration is (or, was) the way to go when crafting the ultimate suspense/horror flick.

Jack Nicholson, in one of his eeriest and best-known performances, plays recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance who takes a job as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, where he also hopes to work on his writing. He moves his wife and son Danny to the hotel where the harsh winter sets in and they become snowbound. Indeed, the hotel manager cautions against cabin fever, recounting a tale about a former caretaker who went crazy and killed his wife, daughters and himself during the isolating wintertime. At first, Jack enjoys the peace of the place, but strange and spooky things begin occurring to both Jack and Danny. The creepiness starts to chip away at Jack's sanity, which proves unfortunate for everyone involved.

Frightful Friday: Carrie

BuzzSugar — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:30:00 -0700

While Carrie is probably my favorite Stephen King story ever, I also find it to be terribly sad in addition to being terrifying. Every time I watch it I'm catapulted back to those high school days when kids were so outright cruel to each other. Then again, despite the sadness in Carrie's life, this is also the ultimate revenge fantasy - what victim of a vicious high school hierarchy wouldn't want to lock her tormentors in a gym and unleash the wrath of hell on them?

The movie follows the teenage Carrie (played by Sissy Spacek with the spookiest eyes in cinematic history) who can't seem to catch a break. At school, the other students ruthlessly poke fun at the socially awkward Carrie while at home her fanatically religious mother basically screams at her for constantly sinning. Soon, Carrie discovers that she has the ability to move objects with her mind which is at first confusing, and then pretty helpful.

At the school prom, however, things take a turn for the worse. She's nominated prom queen as a horrible prank and then is further humiliated by her classmates when they douse her in pigs' blood. The rest, as they say, is horror movie history.