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Children of the Corn (2009)
No redeeming qualities at all
I liked Kandyse McClure in Battlestar Galactica, but her character here is obnoxious, at best. Her husband is worse, being stupid as well as obnoxious. I have't read the Stephen King short story yet, so I can't comment on this made for TV version being true to his short story. Stephen Kings works have a long history of being poorly adapted to television and movies, with few exceptions, such as "The Stand". That held together well almost to the end, which was typically horrid. Again, I haven't read that particular Stephen King work yet, but I hope it has a better ending that the TV mini-series did. Even Stephen King's being directly involved doesn't solve this frequently recurring problem.
I actually like Stephen Kings writings very much, I've read many of his novels, just not many of his short stories. He may be one of my favorite authors. But for some reason, his works don't translate well into visual media. Vicki Stanton has the right idea that something is wrong and they need to leave that town as soon as possible, but her meat head husband has some unexplained obsession with finding out where everyone is, or what happened to them. He's oblivious to the fact that something capable of wiping out a whole town would erase the two of them with ease.
Vicki's death at least stops her harpy shrieking, and Burt's death seems almost as justified ending to his bizarre stubborn stupidity. I'm guessing it might be somehow tied to his having post traumatic stress disorder due to his time in Vietnam. There's plenty on screen to explain that as the cause of his actions, but not how that makes his actions seem reasonable to him.
The basic plot is a rehash of "Logan's Run" with a religious fanaticism overlay and a few less years to live by the book, several years less by the movie. The children's society fell apart accordingly due to the insufficient time to pass on the knowledge required for an advanced, functional society. The children are distractingly clean, while the town is appropriately dilapidated. All the children have time to learn is how to grow corn, & apparently make decent, unbelievably clean clothing. No reason for this incongruity is given. I didn't see in detail what the children were eating, but they couldn't survive on corn alone, even if they used nixtamalization to prevent pellagra.
If I see enough of these horrible TV and film versions of Stephen King's work, I might just get motivated enough to see if I do as bad a job myself. Most likely it would be a high definition crudely animated version of part of his Dark Tower series. As far as I know, that hasn't been bastardized yet on film or video.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Heavily armed men hi-jack a subway train.
The focus of the movie is on how can it be done. How can New York City get 1 million dollars down to a subway car in just 1 hour, then how can the hi-jackers get away. This obviously well planned endeavor executed by intelligent men involves taking a train that can only follow the tracks, in a tunnel, no less. Everyone knows where the tracks go and where all (known) escape routes are.
Using the then state of the art technology, the appropriate branches of the New York City Government work together as a well oiled machine. The clunky patching together of their different communications systems allow them to privately snipe at each other while still cooperating to insure every exit is covered.
Made in 1974, it has the heavy handed obligatory anti-discrimination dogma crow-barred in to place in an occasionally successful attempt at humor. That emphasizes how the workplace had recently changed with respect to sex, race, and country of origin no longer predicting holders of positions of authority in a large municipality. Like their technology, it is now seems out of place and is an interesting comment on that time in our history.
I appreciate how, with few exceptions, the principles involved are good at their job. From the Mayor down to the conductor on the train, they are competent, with no contrived weaknesses added as a mere plot device. I found the story credible, and the politics interesting as to how each level of government try to work with the rest to avoid a bloody massacre.