I’ve never made any bones about Christine being my favorite Stephen King novel. Despite having an utterly ridiculous premise, the story works, mainly due to exquisite characters, as well as a nostalgic 1950’s/1970’s setting. Christine remains the only King book I’ve read three times.
I was excited when I learned that John Carpenter was helming a film of Christine. We saw it the first weekend it opened. At a drive in, naturally.
In my mind, Christine is one of Carpenter’s better films. It’s nicely paced and the photography is always interesting. I really felt that the casting was letter perfect all across the board. I’ll always think of Keith Gordon and John Stockwell as Arnie and Dennis. Other standouts are the always-reliable Harry Dean Stanton as Detective Junkins, Alexandra Paul as Leigh, Robert Prosky as Darnell and of course Roberts Blossom as Lebay. The thing that I can’t seem to come to grips with is that Christine was made 23 years ago. A long time ago and in my own opinion Carpenter hasn’t made a movie as good since.
Now for the negative aspects of Christine. It is a long novel and would have been suited much better as a miniseries. Too much happens too fast and Arnie’s assimilation by Lebay/Christine is far too abrupt. It’s done much more gradually in the book and we learn to care more about Arnie and his relationship with Dennis that way. I also think it was a mistake to have the car portrayed as evil from the very beginning, instead of being haunted by the evil George Lebay. I suppose that these things had to be done in order to pare the length down to a commercial running time. I think the story suffers from these alterations from the source. Possibly the story of Christine would benefit from being remade, but no matter how well it was done, I don’t think a better cast could be found for it.
Columbia’s Christine Special Edition DVD has much to offer the film’s fans. The 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen presentation looks stunning and there are 20 deleted and alternative scenes that offer a glimpse into what might have been. There are also three fascinating mini-documentaries and a commentary by Carpenter and Arnie himself, Keith Gordon. Gordon has made a name for himself as a director and has tackled some tough jobs of adapting books like Vonnegut’s Mother Night and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. I miss him as an actor though, having really enjoyed his performances in Back to School, Dressed to Kill, Home Movies and especially, Christine.
Oh yeah, one more thing…Columbia went all out for this presentation, but would have it been asking too much for them to go the extra mile and at least have optional 5.1 Surround Sound? I think not. But this will probably be the best that Christine will ever look and fans need to own it.
I was excited when I learned that John Carpenter was helming a film of Christine. We saw it the first weekend it opened. At a drive in, naturally.
In my mind, Christine is one of Carpenter’s better films. It’s nicely paced and the photography is always interesting. I really felt that the casting was letter perfect all across the board. I’ll always think of Keith Gordon and John Stockwell as Arnie and Dennis. Other standouts are the always-reliable Harry Dean Stanton as Detective Junkins, Alexandra Paul as Leigh, Robert Prosky as Darnell and of course Roberts Blossom as Lebay. The thing that I can’t seem to come to grips with is that Christine was made 23 years ago. A long time ago and in my own opinion Carpenter hasn’t made a movie as good since.
Now for the negative aspects of Christine. It is a long novel and would have been suited much better as a miniseries. Too much happens too fast and Arnie’s assimilation by Lebay/Christine is far too abrupt. It’s done much more gradually in the book and we learn to care more about Arnie and his relationship with Dennis that way. I also think it was a mistake to have the car portrayed as evil from the very beginning, instead of being haunted by the evil George Lebay. I suppose that these things had to be done in order to pare the length down to a commercial running time. I think the story suffers from these alterations from the source. Possibly the story of Christine would benefit from being remade, but no matter how well it was done, I don’t think a better cast could be found for it.
Columbia’s Christine Special Edition DVD has much to offer the film’s fans. The 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen presentation looks stunning and there are 20 deleted and alternative scenes that offer a glimpse into what might have been. There are also three fascinating mini-documentaries and a commentary by Carpenter and Arnie himself, Keith Gordon. Gordon has made a name for himself as a director and has tackled some tough jobs of adapting books like Vonnegut’s Mother Night and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. I miss him as an actor though, having really enjoyed his performances in Back to School, Dressed to Kill, Home Movies and especially, Christine.
Oh yeah, one more thing…Columbia went all out for this presentation, but would have it been asking too much for them to go the extra mile and at least have optional 5.1 Surround Sound? I think not. But this will probably be the best that Christine will ever look and fans need to own it.
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