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Misery (1990)

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The last time that the late, great Rob Reiner directed an adaptation of a novel written by Stephen King, it was of one of his rare ventures outside of the horror genre, his typical domain, the 1982 coming-of-age adventure drama, The Body , adapted for the screen and renamed as Stand by Me . With that adaptation, which, at the time of its release, King himself referred to as the greatest adaptation of any of his writings to date, wiping tears of admiration from his eyes and enveloping Reiner in an appreciative embrace, Reiner proved himself as a filmmaker who understood the essence of King's stories, taking a simple narrative about a quartet of preteen male best friends venturing into the woods to locate the corpse of a recently killed 12-year-old boy and enriching it with loads of heavy, real-world subtext, fully dimensional characterizations, uninhibited performances, and subtly shifting tonality. To put it simply, King had discovered the ideal cinematic storyteller to bring his m...
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Elephant (2003)

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When writer-director Gus Van Sant initially set out to produce the psychological drama, Elephant , its title a reference to director Alan Clarke's 1989 BBC short film of the same name, it began its journey as a documentary about the Columbine High School massacre, one of the most infamous massacres ever committed in the United States that remains the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado. On April 20, 1999, two 12th-grade students named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold arrived at their high school in Columbine, Colorado and murdered 13 of their fellow students and one teacher in a shooting and attempted bombing, concluding once both gunmen took their own lives before they could face criminal punishment. Their gunshots injured 20 more people, and three others were injured while trying to escape.   For whatever reason, Van Sant elected to abandon his idea of a factual account in favor of a largely fictionalized cinematic dramatization. The core concept of his movie would remain faithful t...
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Scream 2 (1997)

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The first time we're reintroduced to Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), the quintessential horror movie know-it-all who survived the Woodsboro, California killing spree orchestrated by Billy Loomis and Stu Macher in Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's  Scream , he's sitting in the Film Theory class of Windsor College, leading a discussion about whether the violence depicted in entertainment bears any responsibility for the real-life violence committed against two senior students butchered in a movie theater. One student, played by Josh Jackson, insists that because the killer was wearing a ghost mask that resembled that of the villains from the film presented in the theater, "it's directly responsible." Cici Cooper (Sarah Michelle Gellar) asserts otherwise: "Movies are not responsible for our actions." When their teacher poses the question of whether someone is setting out to make a real-life sequel to the Woodsboro massacre, Randy replies, " Stab 2 ? W...
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