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

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Introduction

Part One

6 a.m. – 8 a.m. CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)

Some would say I’m crazy for undertaking this 24-hour marathon, but I do have my limits. For example, I had briefly considered doing a marathon of every Children of the Corn movie instead. As you may or may not know, there are seven total Corn movies, of which the final five were released straight to video. I find this odd for many reasons, not least of which is that corn isn’t generally considered to be scary. (Creamed corn, on the other hand…terrifying.) Fortunately I came to my senses, so you’ll only find this one Children of the Corn here. Based on another Night Shift short story, the film begins with a tried-and-true King set-up, as bickering couple Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton) drive across country via some scenic back roads. While passing through Nebraska (hey, it’s not like Children of the Corn was going to take place in New Jersey), they hit a young boy with their car. But it turns out the kid was already dead, a sacrifice by the children of Gatlin to He Who Walks Behind the Rows. These brats have already killed off all the adults in town under the leadership of Isaac, another one of King’s patented Creepy Kids. Can Burt and Vicky escape Gatlin without being sacrificed to the corn demon? I’ll be honest, I think I nodded off for a few minutes near the end of this one. I do have a vague memory of Linda Hamilton tied to a cornstalk crucifix, but that’s about it.

King’s cameo: He doesn’t appear in person, but there’s a paperback copy of Night Shift on Burt’s dashboard.

8 a.m. – 10 a.m. DESPERATION (2006)

Am I still watching Children of the Corn? For a minute there, I thought I was looking at Peter Horton driving through the middle of nowhere again, but it turned out to be Steven Weber. Weber, of course, starred as Jack Torrance in the “Why would you do this?” TV miniseries of The Shining. That misbegotten enterprise, as well as the epic TV version of The Stand and many other King things, was directed by Mick Garris, who must have photos of the author with an underage goat. Garris also directed Desperation for TV, but managed to confine this one to a single night. We’ve got another town at the ass-end of nowhere – in this case, Desperation, Nevada – where all the inhabitants are dead. Everyone who happens to be passing through gets pulled over by Sheriff Collie Entragian (Ron Perlman), who finds some pretext to arrest them, lock them up, and, at his leisure, kill them. This is because Entragian is possessed by a demon unearthed from the local strip-mine. One of his detainees is another Creepy Kid, David, who has suddenly gotten religion after being locked in a jail cell by a scary sheriff possessed by a demon. It’s as good a time as any, I suppose. The theology of Desperation is a little murky, but the movie did give me some insight into King’s creative process. I imagine it goes a little like this: King is pulled over for speeding in some shitty little town. Surly cop gives him a ticket. King thinks, “You know what would make this suck even harder? If this cop was possessed by a demon!” Presto, another 600-page novel is born. This ESPN spot would appear to back up my theory:

10 a.m. – Noon SLEEPWALKERS (1992)

Hey, it’s Mick Garris again! And Ron Perlman as another surly lawman, although this one doesn’t appear to be possessed. He does get his arm ripped off, though. Sleepwalkers is actually Garris’s first collaboration with Stephen King, based on the author’s first original screenplay (that is, not adapted from a previously extant novel or short story). Madchen Amick, the most underrated of the Twin Peaks girls, falls for the new boy in town, handsome, vapid Charles Brady (Brian Krause). Little does she know Charles has an incestuous relationship with his hot mom Mary (Alice Krige). But that’s not all! Charles and Mary are both shape-shifting cat people who feed on virgins – possibly the last of their race. Oddly enough, the only thing that can stop them is an attack by an actual cat. It’s a dilemma for poor Charlie; he kinda likes Madchen Amick, but he kinda has to feed her to his hot mom. High school is hard! In the movie’s highlight, Mary kills a cop by impaling him with an ear of corn. OK, so I was wrong. Corn is scary.

King’s cameo: He’s the cemetery caretaker who doesn’t want to be blamed for the mutilated corpses found there.

Part Three

Screengrab Pub Crawl: The Top 15 Bars of Cinema (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Back in my misspent Hollywood days, my friends and I used to enjoy the occasional round of “bar golf” through the dives and strip clubs of Hollywood Boulevard. The rules were simple: a “par one” bar meant we’d have one drink and move on, “par two” meant two drinks, etc., and the goal was to drink in at least nine separate bars by the end of the night. We’d usually “tee off” in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, followed by pitchers of cheap beer in the “par two” Power House on Highland, and somehow the night always seemed to wind up with fire-breathing transvestite strippers at Jumbo’s Clown Room.

And so now, in honor of the recent Memorial Day kickoff to the official Summer Drinking Season, we here at The Screengrab invite you to join us on another pub crawl, though the Top 15 watering holes of cinema...so brace yourself with a nice starchy meal, grab your smokes and aspirin, and join us as we tee off at our first bar of the evening...

THE DRESDEN ROOM, SWINGERS (1996)

Unlike most of the bars on this list, The Dresden Room actually exists in the real world (1760 N. Vermont Avenue, Los Feliz, CA), as well as the fictional universe of Jon Favreau’s neo-rat pack classic Swingers. Maybe it was just the booze talking, but whenever my friends and I would hit the swanky-tacky Dresden on the Back Nine of an East Hollywood bar golf jaunt, we’d all feel as “money” as Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston and the rest of the film’s hepcat posse of unemployed actors, even though I’m pretty sure we never (A) dressed as well, (B) Lindy-Hopped as well or (C) scored digits from (or even met) any super-friendly, super-nice, conveniently single ladies with the suspiciously low standards and drop-dead movie star looks of Heather Graham’s swing-dance enthusiast, Lorraine (who, in L.A., at least, is a mythological figure on par with Liv Tyler’s elf princess in The Lord of the Rings). We did, however, spend plenty of nights enjoying the peculiar jazz stylings of Dresden’s house band staples, Marty & Elayne, who also straddle the line between reality and fiction...much like our drinking buddy a little further down the street in...

THE SKID ROW DIVE BARS OF BARFLY (1987)

To all my freeeeenz! The late Charles Bukowki, the poet laureate of the Thunderbird wine company, wrote this semi-autobiographical fantasy after he himself had stopped going to bars, and he must have wanted to get both his dream image of himself -- the great wino writer Henry Chinaski, played by Mickey Rourke -- and his idea of the bar of his dreams on film to warm himself in his dried-out dotage. The bar in question is a magical place where the women all look like hookers played by Sylvia Miles and the men stand around gawking in awe as our boy Henry shows off his verbal gifts by giving the bartender-bouncer (Frank Stallone) such tips as, "Your mother's cunt stinks like carpet cleaner." When Rourke (who holds his body here in a way that makes him look like a chicken carcass that was taken apart and reassembled by a blind crackhead with a science project due) and Stallone aren't taking turns going back in the alley to stomp a mud hole in each other's ass, Faye Dunaway and Alice Krige are celebrating Ladies' Night by rolling around on the floor, having a diva cat fight over this gorgeous hunk of man. They were going to include a scene showing what goes on there during Trivia Night, but then the picture would have been rated NC-17.

Next stop...the future, as we settle in for a little synthetic skin (and we don’t mean silicon boobs) at...

TAFFEY’S BAR, BLADE RUNNER (1982)

The world of Ridley Scott’s masterful Blade Runner is, for all its gorgeous set design, a pretty intimidating one: creepy warehouses full of nervous marionettes, run-down tenements and strangely glowing noodle shops, and huge corporate arcologies belching fire into the skies of Los Angeles. The only place we can see really spending a lot of time in the L.A. of 2019 is at Taffey Lewis’ rambunctious nightclub. It’s got a highly picturesque clientele, chainsmoking weird tobaccos and speaking the polyglot Creole of the moment; Taffey himself (greasily portrayed by Hy Pyke) always has Louie the bartender ready to hand out free drinks to anyone who can jeopardize his liquor license; and best of all, it’s a full-service erotic establishment, complete with robotic animal acts and the finest in genetically engineered bestiality. In fact, until her unexpected retirement, it was the only place in town where you could see the lovely Zhora (Joanna Cassidy, a million miles from Falcon Crest) “take the pleasures from the serpent which once corrupted Man”! Now that’s the kind of entertainment that money just can’t buy.

Tired of the city? Then grab a designated driver and we’ll head out to the desert for last call at...

THE BEER TAVERN, FEAST (2005)

This horror comedy, directed by John Gulager, is, if you'll excuse a real low ball of a compliment, by far the best of the movies produced by the Miramax-sponsored Project Greenlight TV series and talent contest. It's set in the Beer Tavern, a rickety-looking juke joint whose customers have to get all Straw Dogs when the place is besieged by slavering, man-eating monsters. It's a real mystery where they've come from -- the customers, I mean. The Beer Tavern looks to be set all by itself in the middle of a desert, and the people there appear to be a modest cross-section of everyone within a hundred miles who've worn out their welcome in all the more civilized establishments and no longer dare stick their head in the door anywhere else for fear of getting it shot off. Luckily, the bar is so well-equipped with secret exits and tunnels and hidey-holes, as well as such diversionary elements as the deer head mounted on the wall that one of the monsters, well, mounts, that it seems to have been constructed with a creature assault in mind. When Judah Friedlander is one of your best customers, it pays to take every precaution.

And, since we’re heading north anyway, might as well stop in for a quick one at...

THE PINK ROOM, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

Welcome to Canada! The conversation may not be all that stimulating ("I am the Great Went." "Don't expect a turkey dog here."), if you can even hear it, but the ambiance is out of this world. In our recent list of TV shows-turned-movies, we singled out this scene from Fire Walk with Me, noting that it's "set in what appears to be Satan's roadhouse." That's evident from the pulsing red lighting, the grinding, relentless rock band (playing a Lynch-composed track called "The Pink Room," which may or may not be the name of this place) and the array of seedy characters and half-naked zombie-women among the clientele. This is where innocence comes to die, as Laura Palmer, who long ago lost it, learns when she spots squeaky-clean pal Donna in a drugged topless clinch on the dance floor. As you can see from the above clip, somebody thinks this is one of the worst movie scenes of all time, which is ludicrous. It contains at least two signature Lynch shots I'll take to my grave: a vertiginous, drunken whirl past the repulsive Jacques Renault and into the lights above, and a pan across the unbelievably filthy floor, piled high with broken bottles and the smoking ash from thousands of cigarette butts.

Then it’s back across the border for a little marital advice at...

THE OVERLOOK HOTEL BAR FROM THE SHINING (1980)

On the surface, this nook in the corner of the Overlook Hotel's grand ballroom would appear to be the perfect bar. The stock is self-replenishing, you have the bartender's full attention, and most importantly, your money's no good here. On the other hand, since the place is supposed to be closed up for the winter and completely deserted except for you and your wife and son, there might be a problem: either you're crazy or the joint is haunted or both. But why worry about that? It's always New Year's Eve here, and Lloyd – "the best goddamn bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine – or Portland, Oregon for that matter" – will always be happy to serve you the hair of the dog. As long as you steer clear of awkward encounters with the waitstaff in the blood-red bathroom…what could possibly go wrong?

And speaking of bathrooms, we’re gonna take a quick break to go “powder our nose,” but we’ll meet you over in Chicago for Part Two of the Screengrab Pub Crawl!

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak

The Screengrab : Alice Krige

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

Screengrab Pub Crawl: The Top 15 Bars of Cinema (Part One)