My latest Sympatico/MSN DVD column is up, meditating on Frank Darabont’s “The Mist”.
Four months on, I can’t say I’ve changed my opinion that the ending ruins an otherwise perfect Stephen King movie. And I think Darabont’s decision to include a black-and-white version of the movie on a second disc is just dopey.
I mean, this isn’t a case of the alternate cut redeeming (or even just salvaging) the movie, as we saw with Mikael Hafstrom’s “1408” — another King adaptation released by the Weinstein Company, which is clearly game to run the two-disc alternate-version special-feature strategy at any opportunity.
This is the same exact movie, with the color taken out of it. And they did it digitally, so the contrast levels are all wrong.
I’m not sure whose idea of added value that’s supposed to be, but it isn’t mine …
Darabont is probably the worst American filmmaker working today. The Mist is absolutely unwatchable. He practically directs with a sledgehammer, and the nonstop camera movement was enough to give me motion sickness.