So I'm wandering around Target today and I stumble across a paperback book.  It's a new...sorta...Stephen King called "Goes to the Movies".  In it, they reprint the original 1408, Shawshank Redemption, Children of the Corn, The Mangler, and Hearts in Atlantis.  Also includes his thoughts on the movie adaptations.  Well, as part of this, at the end of the book he lists (alphabetically) his 10 favorite adaptations of his work thus far.  I present them for you now:

Apt Pupil

Cujo

Dolores Claiborne

1408

Green Mile

Misery

The Mist

Shawshank Redemption

Stand By Me

and Storm of the Century.

Discuss.

Not a suprising list.

King has always stated his displeasure about The Shining.  Shows he doesn't know everything.  Great movie in my opinion and I know Kubrik changed a lot for the film but it's a classic.

Storm of the Century sucked.  Didn't he write the adaptation for tv on that?

Little suprised to not see It and The Stand on the list.  It is great other than the rubber spider.  The Stand was a very well made, ambitious adaptation of a book that isn't easy to translate into film.

1408 was a let down.  Apt Pupil...meh.  I thought he was high on The Mist.  Didn't he even say he liked the movie's ending better than his own?

Wait a minute! WTF!! Where's Maximum Overdrive?!?

wow - no Salem's Lot or Dead Zone, but Apt Pupil makes his list?

I think that accident affected his memory...

I forgot about Dead Zone...damn, that was one of the better movies based on his work

First things first.  I'm not saying it deserves to be on this list, but Storm of the Century, for me, is one of his better and most underated of the movies based on his work.  (I was Andre Linoge for halloween one year.  Super easy costume)  I do think it shouldnt be on here though since he wrote the script and then did the movie.  (Seriously, the only way you can buy the book is in shooting script form.)

Also, I'm nost sure I understand Tways, re: The Mist.  It's on the list.  lol.  So, yeah....he did say that.  The Stand and IT are very surprising to not be on there though.

Surprising to me:  Someone explain to me why Carrie isn't on this list.  Secondly....someone explain why no one's had a problem with that yet.  lol.

Oh...there it is, The Mist.  I couldn't see it cause it was right in front of me in plain sight.

I was never a huge fan of Carrie but, yeah, I can see where it should be there too but what do you drop in favor of it besides Apt Pupil.  Cujo maybe and I've never seen Delores Claiborne.

The untouchables are the non horror movies:  Shawshank, Green Mile, & Stand By Me.  All great films.

And what about Creepshow?

I'd be more interested in what 10 films he hated the most.

I thought he just wrote Creepshow for the film, so it wasn't an adaptation?

I'd definitely say drop The Mist for Carrie... Sure Carrie's hardly scary nowadays, but its a brilliant tale of high school elitism, cruelty and revenge, while I found The Mist just didn't really do anything for me. Sure The Mist had interesting social aspects too, but hardly as powerful as Carrie, or original. I guess it deviated from the book a bit too much for him, I definitely preferred the book at least.

I dunno, I've not seen that many on the list (just The Mist, Stand By Me and the Shawshank Redemption which I fell asleep during so don't really count).

Creepshow-wise, Stephen King acted in it (Jordy Verrill....) And he wrote the whole screenplay, but he also wrote short stories called "The Crate" and "Weeds".  "Weeds" became "Jordy Verrill", and "The Crate", well that's obvious.  So technically, within Creepshow, he adapted himself twice, writing wise, and director wise, by Romero in terms of both the screenplay and the short stories.

Confused yet?  I know I am.

I may not be able to make a full list...but I do know I glanced at the "commentary" page for "The Mangler" where he joked about the idea that they'd adapted his story of a killer washing machine...so I think it might make the list.

I know he hated Lawnmower Man enough to sue to have his name removed from it.

I knew he had adapted "The Crate" from an earlier short story but I wasn't sure about the other 4 segments.

Dolores Claiborne is a criminally underappreciated movie. It's not really horror, but more of a detective story. It ranks right up there with Green Mile, Stand by Me, and that one I hate because it has Tim Robbins in it. Kathy Bates should have won her Oscar for Claiborne rather than Misery, imo.

I am so glad to see that I am not the only one who can't stand Tim Robbins (though Jacob's Ladder is an awesome movie).

I liked Dolores Claiborne and Misery and I thought Cujo was fantastic. Or maybe it was seeing a sweaty Dee Wallace, I can't remember which.

Not on his list that I liked would be Christine, Pet Cemetery, The Dead Zone, and The Dark Half.

file this under "Are You Fucking Kidding Me? WHY???"

I just read on Aint It Cool News that Warner Bros.  is developing a remake of IT. Now, I think the TV version, while obiously watered down, was a damn good adaptation of this epic novel. and Tim Curry's Pennywise is one of the all time scariest fucks to invade our nightmares. But I also think a big screen, R-rated version would be intriguing and could be equally as epic; done as a trilogy or something along those lines. Sadly, it looks like the studio hacks are once again taking great material and dumbing it down for a quick weekend money maker.  

Read it and weep: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40411

No carrie? No Shining? WTF?

Remember, its his favorite ADAPTATIONS.  He notoriously hated Kubrick's Shining adaptation, even if it was good as a movie.  Carrie, I cant explain that though other than they totally abandoned the whole structure the book has.

What about Christine? What about Fire starter? Needful Things?

How can he have Storm of the Century on there? It's the same concept as the Stand in terms of a demon taking on flesh. I haven't seen them both in a long time, and I haven't read the Stand in a long time either, but don't both Flagg and Lenoge or however you spell his damn name end up being the demon named Legion from the Bible?

Me, I don't get how he can have it on there, even though I love it, when he WROTE THE THING HIMSELF FOR THE TV MOVIE!  You can't even buy it in regular book form!  Of course he'll like the adaptation...its basically his work!

I liked Storm of the Century. I also think that his non-horror books have translated better into movies. Although 1408 was very true to the book and really I think that all of his adaptations are good movies.

Storm of the century was so fucking long. Good lord I was worried I wouldn't be the same age when I finished watching it.

I love Stephen King but a lot of his adaptions blow.

Carrie, The Mist, Salems Lot, Delores Claiborne, Stand By Me and The Shining stand out to me as the best, with The Mist edging out them all as the best. Storm of the Century, Christine, Night Flier and the Dead Zone are probably the most underrated and unappreciated

As far as overrated goes - Creepshow, The Shawshank Redemption, 1408, The Green Mile, and Pet Sematary while good I think get way too much praise. Then you have pure junk Firestarter and Maximum Overdrive come to mind. The only thing that saves the Stand from being in the junk category was the first half of the miniseries which was brilliant, but then was almost killed by the sweeetfest of the second half.

And lets not talk about the unwatchable Tommyknockers or Langoliers.

I'll lay back and take my beating now.

hmmm im surprised the shining isnt in there. but w.e all the movies listed here are very

good and interesting. i love 1408

No no no...I can watch Tommyknockers.  I dont like, it but I can watch it.  Now SLEEPWALKERS on the other hand...Jesus.

(Also:  Jasonkrueger, King hated the Kubrick version of Shining.  Didn't like casting of Nicholson, the way the movie was done, etc.  That's actually part of the reason they did the made for tv-remake with Steven Weber...so that the movie would more closely follow the book.  I love The Shining too, but that's why it's not on the list.)