Book Review: The Terror - 9/10

Dan Simmon's "The Terror" is to the Franklin Expedition what "Pan's Labyrinth" is to Franco's Spain. That is to say, the book is as much a mix of history, horror and fantasy as Del Toro's film is, and achieves this pastiche with an equal level of success. The premise is simple; Simmons imagines the doomed expedition, trapped not only by the elements of the Arctic, but by something more elemental, a physical monstrosity which is killing the men off. I have likened it to John Carpenter's The Thing, but with Kurt Russell in the role of Captain Francis Crozier of the H.M.S. Terror, a role Russell would be sufficiently aged enough to play at present. I'm not implying the "thing on the ice" is an alien. I'm not going to say anymore about the nature of the beast, and have betrayed no spoilers in revealing its presence in the book. The book's jacket liner will tell you as much, and the first chapter makes several references to its presence and malevolent nature. I will warn you that you'll need to read the whole book to find out exactly what "it" is, and that many might find the journey too long and arduous, although I'm of the opinion that this was Dan Simmon's intention.

In truth, the monster is an interesting sideline to the story, but Simmons is thoroughly concerned with his cast of historical characters, especially Crozier, and the reason for turning the pages is the growth and development of the men of the Expedition, not the unraveling of the mystery surrounding the monster's identity, though that certainly makes for an enticing motivator. As with "Pan's Labyrinth," the most monstrous actions are done on the part of the humans, and the historical facts of cannibalism on the expedition, when they finally rear their ugly head, outstrip the fantastical "terror" by far.

Simmons has a deft hand when it comes to explicating historical information within the action of a page-turning scene. He is far more fond of showing us than telling us, and passages that would have been dry exposition in the hands of a lesser word-smith are rendered page-turners, as is especially the case with a surgery late in the book. Ultimately though, Simmons is about the men within this historical setting. The book is historical insofar as it appears thoroughly researched and meticulously crafted to produce verisimilitude. It is horror insofar as it produces fear, employing all the means Stephen King laid out in "Danse Macabre" for evoking horror, even the last resort, the "gross-out." It is fantasy insofar as it deals with the supernatural, or at the very least the possibility thereof. And additionally, it is philosophical, pondering the question of whether or not Hobbes was right in his "Leviathan" when he claimed that life is poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The interplay between the historical and the fantastic hold that question in tension until the very last page of the book, and possibly beyond, leaving the reader to ponder how they themselves are stuck in the ice, trapped in a cold, violent world which seeks to devour them.

Movie Review: Iron Man 10/10

Last year I reviewed Superman Returns without using my handy Criteria for Comic Book Movies, and ended up giving it an 8. I have regretted that review several times since then. Nothing major, but I had a clouded judgment, given that it was a Superman movie, and I am a huge Superman fan. If I'd used my Criteria for Comic Book Movies, I think Superman Returns is a 6, maybe 7 at the most.

By contrast, I am fully convinced that Iron Man is a 10. It is a perfect comic book movie. But just to make sure I'm not biased, I'll stick to the Criteria this time.

1. Source Material. Iron Man sticks to its source material as though it were scripture. The origin story in the film is same as the original comic book. The characters are pulled right from the pages of Iron Man, and the villain, Obadiah Stane and his Iron Monger suit, were the wrap up to a long-running animosity between the two. The film achieves a tight summation of the first 20 years of the Iron Man mythos without sacrificing the heart of the tale.

2. Visual Storytelling. The montage giving the audience Tony Stark's back-story was brilliant, and epitomizes what comic book film-making should be about. The story jumps time several times without losing linear continuity, effectively saying more with less. The Iron Man suit's powers are demonstrated, rather than revealed through exposition.

3. Costume. While it is definitely sleeker and sexier than the original Iron Man armor, the armor of the film is undeniably the same as the comic book's. Any improvements made are in the details, rather than the obvious choice some might have made years ago, which would have been to lose the red and gold colors in favor of something less bold and...well, comic book.

4. The fourth rule is that Superheroes don't shag everything that comes their way. I should have added the caveat, unless they're Tony Stark. However, while Tony starts out as a womanizing playboy, his serial sexual escapades are framed in a negative way. Early Tony is not presented as a moral exemplar. His experience in the Middle East is transformational beyond his becoming Iron Man. He seeks to become a better person in his private life as well. I like this, because it means that when I take my kids to films like this some day, I don't have to explain why Superman humping Lois in the fortress of solitude wasn't considered morally reprehensible (I'd like to say that I don't think this is prudery. And perhaps I need to limit my criteria to Superhero Comic Book Movies, since films like Sin City are adaptations of comic books with lots of sex in them. )

5. The fifth rule used to be "Keep Joel Shumacher away from your film." I might add Sam Raimi to that list now, given the general public's response to the third Spider-man film. I think the core idea behind this rule is that good special effects, flashy special effects and glitzy sets do not a comic book movie make. The mise-en-scene of the film should not be garish or painted entirely in oversaturated primary colors. The setting can look completely realistic, which ostensibly allows for the actions of the super-hero to be even more fantastic. Iron Man does not take place in some fictional world, but in our world, with something to say about the issues taking place in our world. While it might not actually change anything about the real world's problems, I have to say that the moment where Iron Man descends with a vengeance upon terrorists preparing to wipe out a small village has a certain cathartic joy to it you just can't get from watching Hotel Rwanda. It's part of the fantasy of the comic book, that these heroes are real in some possible world somewhere, making things right in a way our world never seems to achieve.

6. Give the fanboys and girls things only they will appreciate. Iron Man showcases one of the best Stan Lee cameos ever, when Tony Stark mistakes him for Hugh Hefner. Or perhaps he's supposed to be Hugh Hefner. As a fanboy, I know that Stan Lee was Hugh Hefner in Fantastic Four many years ago when She-Hulk was taking Ben Grimm's place for a while. A magazine of ill-repute got pictures of She-Hulk while she was sunbathing on the roof of the Baxter Building and when She-Hulk shows up at their office demanding the pictures, the sleazy mogul behind the magazine was modeled on none other than Marvel Comic's mogul himself, Stan Lee.

7. Make sure you've got good villains. Jeff Bridges was positively menacing, and when Iron Man and Iron Monger go at it, the slug-fest is worthy of the best splash pages of any comic book. There's nothing like using a motor cycle as a weapon after you've clotheslined its rider.

Beyond my formalist, anal-retentive comic book criteria, Iron Man is what summer blockbusters are meant to be, with Robert Downey Jr. reminding us all throughout the film why he was once nominated for an Academy Award.

The preview for Dark Knight was amazing. But all I could think when I left the theater is that Batman has some big shoes to fill this year. They look a lot like red and gold ski boots and if you're wearing repulsor gloves...and yeah. You can fly.

How to Read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time

In 1990, I picked up a book by a writer named Robert Jordan, who at the time was mainly known among fans of fantasy for the Conan novels he penned, which were among my favorites at the time. Seeing one of my favorite post-Howard Conan writers had written something entirely his own, I bought the trade paperback without a moment's hesitation. I was not at all disappointed. The Eye of the World, the first novel in the Wheel of Time series, followed the classic formula high fantasy had been treading since Tolkien wrote of Sam and Frodo leaving the Shire with Nazgul in pursuit. The difference was, that unlike Terry Brooks' Shea and Flick Ohmsford, the young adventurers leaving their village were not vertically challenged, and several were females. And the differences didn't end there.

Getting to the end of the book and realizing it was the first in the series was icing on the cake of a thrilling, fast paced fantasy read. And the second book in the series, "The Great Hunt," while it didn't live up to the expectation "Eye of the World" had set, was still very good. I couldn't wait for what I assumed would be the conclusion, the third book in the series. After all, nearly all high fantasy before the 90's was wrapped up in a trilogy, wasn't it?

Alas, "The Dragon Reborn" did not wrap up the story, and in a pre-Internet world, I had no way of knowing that Jordan intended for 12 books total. I'm not sure anyone following the series in those days did. And by the time book 6 came out, I was sick of waiting for things to wrap up. The way I sawy it, while Terry Brooks had pumped out two Shannara trilogies, he'd had the good sense to wrap things up at the end of each book so fans weren't hung out to dry waiting.

So I got stuck at book seven for several years. Although I had no intention of ever reading them, I kept getting the books as they were released. I thought long and hard about selling all but the first book, since I'd read it three times in the course of reading up to book 6 (I found that I needed to re-read the whole series when book 6 came out, as I couldn't remember who the hell half the characters were).

The reason I started reading the series again was friend Jeff Nelson. Jeff is a voracious reader and had read all of the books. Where many others had given up, he'd persevered, and still had many good things to say about the series. So Jeff was my initial inspiration.

The way I got over the hump of Book 7 was Audible.com. I've been a gold member for awhile, and had been thinking about using the unabridged audio version of Book 7 to get me started again. I listen to books on my I-pod while doing yard work, shoveling the walk, or driving. Last year, as I was working hard on our yard and basement, I began listening to Book 7, sure that I'd be using it to augment my actual reading of the book.

I'm not sure I've picked up a Jordan novel since. But I am about to begin Book 11. And I'm looking forward to the posthumous collaboration of Jordan with Brandon Sanderson sometime next year. So, to all those who have given up on Jordan, and wished they hadn't, or to those who are thinking about starting but have heard too many negative reviews, here's how I recommend reading Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series.

I'd like to begin with a few words to Jordan's detractors.

1. Understand that Jordan as a writer, loves detail. He will describe clothing in so much detail, that if "Wheel of Time" ever gets optioned for film (it needs to be a television series, but more about that in a moment), the costume designers will be able to go for a hell of a lot of coffee breaks. He is fond of giving elaborately detailed descriptions of every character, even the minor ones. If you can't handle that, shut up and stop reading the series.

2. The repetition of previously established plot elements in subsequent books is for the people traveling on planes who pick up book 5 in the airport. It allows them to enter the world enough to get through the read. It's a device publishing companies use with bestselling series like this one to ensure that the series remain a bestseller. While I have never started any series mid-way through, some people apparently do, and these passages are for them. If you can't handle that, shut up and stop reading the series.

3. Jordan likes to weave intricate plots with a cast of characters so large it necessitated a glossary at the end of each book. Many of the books are entirely character based, and so seem to have "no action" taking place. This is because you as a reader want someone to storm a tower, engage in a climactic battle, or throw a ring into a fiery pit. Jordan is too busy marrying characters or introducing a new plot thread to bother with such things. And while he may not talk about a character for one book, he has almost always gotten back around to them later on. If you don't like character development the way Jordan does it, shut up and stop reading the series.

4. Bottom line: There are already enough posts all over Internet chat rooms, Amazon, and Indigo (or the other online bookseller of your choice) telling us about why they are no longer reading Jordan to sink the Titanic again. If you gave up on the series, just write "ditto to so-and-so's review, I gave up too" and get on with your life. Just shut up and stop reading the series.

So, now that I've announced that I know why people generally give up on the series (which were reasons I shared), let me tell you how I got back on the Wheel.

1. I started thinking about "Wheel of Time" as a television series. It's long enough to sustain several seasons, the iron is hot for the striking insofar as fantasy media goes, and the cast is basically Beverly 90210 (or whatever teen drama is currently hip - sue me, I'm old) meets Lord of the Rings. The cast would be young, attractive and cool, and the setting would be cool in the current deluge of fantasy films. But it's too damn long for a single film installment, so a television series makes the most sense. I got to thinking about how we watch television series, which is one episode at a time. I began to view the chapters in each book as "episodes" of "Wheel of Time" as a television series, and each book as a "season." I don't like every episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and there are some seasons I like better than others. Some of my favorite episodes are in my least favorite seasons. But I love the characters, and I want to see what happens to them, so I tune in. I love Rand, Mat, Perrin, and many of the characters in Wheel of Time. I want to see what happens to them. So I keep tuning in.

2. I listen to them on audiobook. This is an extension of the "Wheel of Time" as television series concept, since it takes about 40 minutes or so to listen to a chapter. Some people just aren't that patient, but if you did it on your work commute or as part of housework, yardwork, or some other activity which would allow you to pay attention to the story without sawing your hand off, then you could easily get through a "season" of "Wheel of Time" before you know it. And Jordan's prose actually lends itself (in my opinion) better to audio than to regular reading. The repetition of how Aes Sedai do this or that is less annoying, because your brain is also thinking about washing the dishes.

3. I remember that Robert Jordan used to be a Dungeon Master for his kids. So much of "Wheel of Time" reads like a long-form role-playing campaign. I've got this nagging, but unconfirmed suspicion as a DM myself that many of the vignettes in "Wheel of Time" are narratively tightened versions of gaming moments. They just feel that way all too often. I find that thinking about "Wheel of Time" as a gaming campaign gives me ideas for my own gaming, especially in areas of character development. And it challenged me to run a campaign involving three different groups of players all playing in the same world and time period, but in different places, with their actions having major ramifications for each other's groups.

4. I got over the reasons I quit. Simply put, they were my reasons. I had expectations of Jordan he never intended to fulfill. I expected him to wrap it up in a trilogy. He didn't. I expected him to snap Rand out of his sullen funk. He didn't. I expected him to stop telling me about the embroidery on coats or dresses. He didn't. I expected him to bring a certain major character back from the dead. He didn't. And finally, I expected him to finish before he passed away. And he didn't.

It was that last one that really galvanized me. When I heard he had terminal cancer (many years after it was a reality), it got me thinking about the legacy the man would leave on this earth. An epic bestselling fantasy series. And I realized that, to quote Elvis and Sinatra, he'd done it his way. I might not like some of the choices Jordan made, but I love the world he created and the people walking through it. And I wanted to know how they fared in the end.

So that's my journey to Book 11 of "Wheel of Time" and I wanted to share it with everyone who visits my blog or reads my reviews at Amazon and Indigo, because I've enjoyed the journey. I want new readers to know what to expect, but also how to let go of those expectations, and to know that the journey is one worth taking. Especially if you want to be there when the final novel is released next year.

Me? I'll be starting book 1 this fall and listening to all the previous "Seasons" of "Wheel of Time," one per month, in anticipation of the final installment. The Wheel of Time turns...and I'll be turning pages with it.

NOTE: One final word. I'd like to add that while "Wheel of Time" is one of my top fantasy series of all time, I pray to the publishing gods at Tor to re-release the whole bloody series with new covers. Each time a new book comes out, I am further convinced that Darrell Sweet is not only the worst possible choice for cover illustrator for this series, but also that he has never read any of the books, or in the case of the first one, not even a description of the major characters. Judging from this post, I am not alone. In a perfect world, Keith Parkinson would have been the illustrator before he passed away. Since he is no longer an option, I'm suggesting Seamas Gallagher, who has done what I consider to be the best renditions of the characters from the series, with the exception of the interior art of the Wheel of Time roleplaying rules from Wizards of the Coast. Barring that, I'm ordering the whole series from the UK, where the covers, while a bit boring, are at the very least, not annoyingly inaccurate.

Getting Ready to Defend

On Wednesday at 10:00 I will be defending my thesis. I love the way that sounds, especially since I often had a picture much like the Frazetta painting I've posted in my head many times over the past 6 years. It's been a very long haul, and this last leg of the journey has been no easier than the earlier ones. With a new addition to the family, my first teaching job, the Gathering with fewer volunteers than nearly any other time in its history, the end of Seven Devil Fix, and the odd article or speaking engagement to tend to, each week feels like its a new opponent to be tackled, or as it were, a whole mess of opponents all at once.

Life gets to feeling like that at times, doesn't it? Like you're standing your ground with a big ass sword, feet firmly planted, doing your best to stay standing, despite the onslaught of bills, the demands of relationships, your job, or school, or lack thereof either job or school, trying to deal with the ghosts of your past or the looming specters of your future lying just around the corner. That might seem a bit too cynical and entirely un-theological, since it seems to assume that God isn't looking out for me, but I feel way more like Samson with a jawbone in my hand than I do the men hanging with the angel of the Lord in Nebudchadnezzar's furnace.

Besides, my thesis defense is part of an ongoing journey to defend my family. To provide for them in a more stable fashion. To work in an environment where I'll get time to spend with my kids. To be able to allow Jenica the freedom to stay home with the kids if she so chooses. To loosen some of the burdens imposed on us by economic burdens which are the result of either my too-idealistic or too-stupid choices as a younger man.

This Wednesday will mark the end of the hacking and slashing for a while, as we'll be taken a much needed break as a family. Until then, I'll be thinking about this painting and adopting a defensive stance.

Reflection - Shanna She-Devil

Getting gift certificates for your birthday is a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because it's always fun to go on a shopping spree on someone else's dime. A curse, because I always feel I need to live up to the gift-giver's generosity by picking the absolutely most perfect thing. It can't be junk. It's gotta be great. I can buy crap with my own money, but effectively, gift certificates are still someone else's money. So when I went to Happy Harbor Comics, the best comic book store on earth, to spend two rounds of gift certificates (Christmas and birthday), I was feeling a little overwhelmed.

A good comic shop is one of my favorite places to be. And Happy Harbor isn't just a good comic shop, it's a great one. The guy who owns the place understands the hobby and the people who indulge in it. He'll watch you to make sure you aren't stealing any of the merchandise, but otherwise, he lets you browse for lengthy periods of time, a practice which is essential to the hobby. We comic geeks just like soaking up the ambience of a comic shop, looking at the covers, flipping through the pages. If a comic shop has a sign about not flipping through the comics, it's owned by some paranoid wanker who doesn't understand that if I like a comic, I'll still buy it AFTER I've looked inside. But I need to look inside to make sure that the artist who painted the amazing cover is the same guy who illustrates the whole book. Because I'm not buying comics for how much they're going to be worth someday. I'm busying them because I like reading them.

That's why I only get trade paperbacks anymore. I don't buy single issues, save on rare occasions, like when I order the collected Atland books. I want to support the artist in that situation, and he might not ever get the chance to release a trade paperback (TPB) if I don't support him in the single issue stage. Never mind that taking a TPB off the shelf and reading it is a hell of a lot easier than taking the single issue out of the collector's bag I have it hidden away in.

But deciding on the right TPB is a difficult thing, especially at Happy Harbor, because the selection is phenomenal. However, I'd been eyeing one book in particular since I first started scouting out my possible choices for spending my gift certificates shortly after Christmas. I was Shanna, She-Devil by Frank Cho.

Artists like Frank Cho are why teenage boys start reading comics. Frank Cho draws the best women in comic books, with anatomy which, however buxom his women become, still obeys gravity. And they all look a bit like Linda Carter, which isn't a bad thing. He also draws great dinosaurs. And he does both in Shanna, She-Devil.

If you ask me why I picked up a trade paperback of a scantily clad jungle girl who kicks the ever living shit out of dinosaurs with birthday gift certificates for my favorite comic shop, I'll tell you "I like to read the articles...I mean story!" In all honesty, you can look down your nose at me all you like.So maybe this is my mid-life crisis...the scantily clad jungle babe for my inner adolescent, and the dinosaurs for my inner child. It takes me back to being 12 years old reading my first Conan comics.

The plot is simple. A military unit crash lands on a mysterious island filled with dinosaurs. There they discover a secret Nazi research facility. Inside said facility, clones of hot blonde Aryan women who were going to be super soldiers! How proto-feminist of the Nazis to choose women as their super soldiers! Only one is still alive, and when she is freed from her stasis tank, she joins with our group of soldiers in trying to survive on the island...until a deadly virus is unleashed! Only a serum back at the Nazi research facility can save them, but there are a lot of dinosaurs between Shanna and the serum, and then even more between her and the camp!

Yep. Plot is dumb as hell. But Cho rises to the occasion, both as visual artist and writer, to make Shanna, She-Devil not only fun, but somewhat engaging as a character as well.

Say what you will. It's got dinosaurs and a hot blonde heroine. I've been studying high-falootin' literatooor for the past 5 years. I needed some junk in my reading diet.

Doing it For the Lord

The end of April is the end of income for me, from all sources. My scholarship will be done, the T.A. work I do at the University will be finished, and my semester as a sessional instructor at King's will have come to an end. So I've been hunting high and low for a summer job.

Finding a summer job when you're 37 with a nearly-completed M.A. degree is no small task. You're overqualified for nearly everything that constitutes summer work (and doesn't involve working in the oil patch) and the average income from these jobs is a $12-16/hr range. Lucky for me, I landed an administrative position with the Alberta government for the summer. The pay range is from $18-22/hr, and when I did the calculations on what that works out to monthly, I realized with a slightly sick feeling that, while this is not the most I've ever made hourly, it will be the most I've ever made monthly, given that the majority of my work since I hit 30 has been part time.

Think about that. I was a pastor with over 10 years experience and 6 years of applied education under my belt, and I never made more than an entry level admin position.

Churches talk a lot about fighting injustice, but one of the greatest injustices within the church walls is how much the pastor is paid given the expectations placed upon him/her. I ranted about this in regards to youth pastor positions and pay scales a while back, but I think it's high time for another rant, now that I can no longer be accused of having a vested interest in the conversation.

There are a number of problems with the income vs. expectation issue for pastors. The first is that churches rarely have a standardized method of determining salary. A number is arrived at based upon what the church budget can afford, rather than by having some sort of schedule which all churches within a denomination will adhere to. The only exception to this rule which I have encountered has been Mennonite Church Canada. I invite others to inform me of more denominations which are being forward thinking enough to do this. As a result, when I first began working for MCC, I made more on an hourly basis than the senior pastor did, simply because I had more experience and education. This is a fair policy. Each year, so long as I didn't sacrifice any of the teens to one of the Elder Gods or sell crack as a fundraiser, I was given a raise. There was no lengthy meeting about whether or not I deserved a raise. The MCC pay schedule stated I would get one each year I was employed. It was something I could count on, a little job security to keep me working hard.

One of the other problems facing pastoral pay is the expectation of education. Many churches now expect that their pastoral staff will have a Master's degree in theology or some related field. This is ridiculous, not only because the income one makes at such jobs is not commensurate with the average amount made by other professionals with the same education, but also because the tuition at Bible colleges and seminaries is more expensive than the tuition at secular colleges and universities, leaving a Master's trained pastor with a greater debt load than a Master's trained...well, anything else. As I already noted, the $18-22/hr range of my upcoming summer work is more than many church positions offer, and only marginally less than I was making with my experience and education.

Pastors will inevitably also put up with more bullshit than nearly any other job on the planet. When I tell people why I left the ministry, I often cite all the politics. People reply that "all jobs have politics."

"Yes," I say, "but none which rely upon beliefs related to ultimate destiny." Tie religious belief to anything and your arguments will be more passionate. Heaven and hell are ostensibly on the line. So when you come home at the end of the day, you can never really leave your work at the office. You can't compartmentalize prayer and passion, as John Piper argued in his book Brothers we are not Professionals. So the hazard of your work is that you agonize over souls and salvation, and you get paid less than the people who shuffle paperwork for the government.

And the church wonders why pastors are leaving the pulpit in droves. They wonder why there's a crisis of leadership.

"You shouldn't be doing it for the money," the pious will say. "You should be doing it for the Lord."

Bite me. All Christians are supposed to be 'doing it for the Lord' according to Colossians 3:23. It's just that everyone else gets the added perk of an income which matches their training or experience. And don't bring up the clergy tax breaks, because a) they don't make up for the lack and b) the government keeps thinking about taking them away. Pastors are underpaid, underappreciated, and it's why the position will gravitate towards mediocrity. There will be the rare heroes of the faith who will persevere despite the economic shortcomings, but all too often I was sharing my seminary classes with people who had failed at some other career and had been accordingly "called by God" to become a pastor. The position seemed to have become the dumping ground of failed attempts at more lucrative careers. And the sermons on Sunday morning in many churches display this level of mediocrity.

Want a great pastor? Pay them well. It's not a guarantee, but if you have a great pastor and you feed him peanuts, expect his wife to work a second job while raising kids and volunteering in your Sunday School, don't be surprised when he up and leaves you to go work on the railroad. And don't laugh. I know two pastors who did just that.

DVD Review: The Mist - 5/10

I'm not really sure I should be calling this a review, as it's really more of a rant. However, a "rant" for The Mist will not attract search engines, and I would like to warn as many people as I can that no matter how happy you are when you start watching it, by the time you're done, you'll wish you'd rented something really cheery, like Pink Floyd: the Wall or 8mm.

Before I move on, I have to say that I love the movie. I read the novella when I was in my teens, then again in my twenties. I have a great appreciation for the Lovecraftian monstrosities, which are realized in the film to superb effect. I like being scared. I like monster movies. And I loved The Mist. I just hated the ending.

Hated it. Loathed it. There isn't a word in English for the contempt I feel for it.

It's different from the book. But that isn't what bothers me. I can deal with adaptation. I forgave the changes made to I Am Legend because they worked for the film in a way a literal adaptation of Matheson's novel might not have. It bothers me, because it's utterly hopeless. In fact, the last chapter on the DVD before the credits is aptly named "Hopelessness." (I'd footnote this point if I could, but the blog won't let me, so I'll settle for a bracket. The hopeless ending isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've seen films where it worked. The reason it doesn't work with The Mist is that there's no way in hell the main character played by Thomas Jane would have made the choice he did. He retains hope throughout the film, even when others lose it. So for him to lose hope right before his hope would be rewarded was like a kick in the nuts. It was cheap, and unoriginal. I said it about Silent Hill, and it still holds true. There's nothing original about bleak endings anymore, especially in horror films. Wanna be really original and subversive? Find a way for a happy ending to work in a horror movie. Another recent Stephen King adaptation, 1408 did. And, interestingly, so did John Carpenter when he made The Fog). I wish I'd known how crappy I'd feel after watching it. Which is why I'm warning you all.

It made me want to walk into the Blockbuster I rented it from and say, "This DVD doesn't work for me."

Of course they'd reply, "Well, we'll rent you another copy."

"I'm pretty sure that one won't work for me either," I'd say.

"How do you know? Did it skip?"

"Actually, if it had skipped, at say, 1:46:43, that would have been awesome."

"Well, we can rent you another copy."

"Does it have a different ending?"

Now I know, someone is out there saying, "You can't give a movie a bad rating just because you didn't like the ending!" And that's where you'd be wrong.

Watching a movie where the ending is utterly hopeless is a lot like going for a fantastically sumptuous meal, where the appetizer does what it should; it's not too large a portion, and it whets your appetite for the main course. The main course comes, and it's just as good as you hoped it would be. Your mouth waters with every bite. You sit, looking at the love of your life across the table, and comment on how incredible the food is, and how glad you are to share it with each other. Finally, the waiter comes to ask if you'd like to see the dessert menu, and you decide to share a decadent creation. As you wait for the waiter to return, you stare into each other's eyes and sip wine of a excellent vintage. The waiter returns, your anticipation mounts, and then he places an empty bowl on the table.

And takes a shit in it.

It's bad enough you're closing off the night with a bowl with a fresh steaming turd in it, but now you're wondering about the soup...did the waiter piss in it? What other abominations did you ingest over the evening?

A bad ending makes the whole film shitty. It's the last taste we leave with in our mouths, or brains, or whatever. After The Mist, I needed to cleanse my palette in the worst way possible. I'm not alone in my estimation that the ending ruined the experience. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe said the following: (Spoilers Ahead!!)

"Then, as if to underscore that he's above such silly things as sci-fi and horror, Darabont throws his curveball of an ending. (OK, last chance. Exit's that way. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.) Having escaped with three others, David and little Billy drive through the mist until their car runs out of gas. Around them are the shrieks of horrible things ready to pounce and rend. The five humans have a gun with four bullets; David does what he must and exits the car alone to await his fate. Two minutes later the army shows up. Bum-mer.

I don't think you have to be a parent to hate a movie that ends with the kid getting shot in the head by his dad. As a favor. And just think: All they had to do was turn on the car radio.

Someone must think such a finale is dark and daringly tragic and uncomfortable and cool. Someone is wrong. "The Mist" doesn't provoke further thought; it provokes active annoyance at being punished in the service of a pulp morality tale with pretensions. Even Hitchcock knew that: When he blew up the little boy in the bus in 1936's "Sabotage," he ended up having to issue a public apology. And Darabont, need I say it, is no Hitchcock."

Chuck Wilson of the Village Voice had this to say: "All this would be disappointing, but not infuriating, if the film's ending weren't so unforgivably bad ... which is so distasteful and untrue to all that's come before it as to be a slap in the face to characters and audience alike. The last word in King's story was "hope," and while Darabont certainly has the right to head in the opposite direction—in our own monster-filled world, happy endings are harder than ever to buy—he does so in a manner that's both pretentious and cruel. The Mist made me want to scream, but for all the wrong reasons."

Writer/Director Frank Darabont, has been responsible for adapting two of King's works into film with the greatest success accorded any filmmaker who has undertaken the task. We all loved The Shawshank Redemption Frank. You know why? You didn't change the ending. We all loved The Green Mile Frank, and you know why? You didn't CHANGE the ENDING. It's a little ironic, because you mention in the commentary at the end of the film that the composer was humble enough to "get out of the way" and allow you to use a Dead Can Dance song. He didn't think he was better than Lisa Gerrard. He knew a master musician when he heard one. Maybe you should have done the same. Stephen King isn't the bestselling writer in America because he makes stupid choices. He ended The Mist the way he did for a reason. You should have done the same.