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Misery with Kathy Bates & James Caan
I rewatched this today and my god is it twisted. I actually read the book beforehand which made me want to revisit the film.
Annie Wilkes is so much more terrifying in Stephen Kings pages than she is as played by Kathy Bates however I do think Kathy (& James) played the parts better than most actors could.
I do think the breaking his ankles with the sledgehammer scene is very hard to watch, I think I'd have actually preferred the books version of her cutting off his foot and cauterizing the wound.
Anyway very good film but the book is so much better, the same can be said about most books I know.
Annie Wilkes is so much more terrifying in Stephen Kings pages than she is as played by Kathy Bates however I do think Kathy (& James) played the parts better than most actors could.
I do think the breaking his ankles with the sledgehammer scene is very hard to watch, I think I'd have actually preferred the books version of her cutting off his foot and cauterizing the wound.
Anyway very good film but the book is so much better, the same can be said about most books I know.
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Annie was meant to be a ****ed up derranged person and Kathy turned her into a kiddy panto villian.
I saw it done at the Criterion Theatre in London back in the 90's, initially with Sharon Gless and Bill Paterson, and then later with Julie T Wallace and Nigel Le Valliant.
It had a very clevery realised revolving set that made for some very tense moments.
I know what you mean, but I think it would have been difficult to play it any other way and still get across the fact that she's supposed to get more and more unhinged, especially after she discovers he's killed off her favourite heroine. In the book, King has the benefit of a slow build, plus, a lot of it takes place in his mind, two things that the film had to basically jettison and dial up the crazy quite quickly to make the things she does at least semi-plausible.
Seriously it would have, I just find the placing of the wood between his bare ankles then the sight of them smashing to the side of the wood joint way more disturbing than a bloody axe chopping scene.
Maybe its just me?
I guess that's why she won an Oscar and the acclaim of Stephen King who wrote Delores Claibourne with her in mind.
Me too.
When she placed the block of wood, neither I or James Caan were sure of what she was intending to do. This is one film that I wouldn't change in any way.
Regardless, that doesn't change my opinion
Plus the oscars never get it right all the time