Dream Contained

I've discovered another Stephen King movie is vastly underrated. 2003's Dreamcatcher may not be the best Stephen King movie ever made but I think it deserves better than its 28% Rotten Tomatoes score.

I really like the cast, for one thing. Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Timothy Olyphant, and Damian Lewis play a group of old friends who also all have psychic abilities owing to an encounter in their childhood. In this, the story resembles numerous other Stephen King stories, such as It and Stand by Me. The twist here turns out to be an invasion of toothy alien eels that burst out of peoples' colons.

But not before giving them lots of gas, something Jason Lee's character laughs at as merrily as his breakout character, Brody, in Mallrats. If you're amused by fart jokes, you'll probably find this movie a lot of laughs. I tend to see farts as a mundane human function so I get bored of them quickly. That doesn't matter, though, because I don't think they're played wholly for laughs here. The reflex to see them as comedic helps put the viewer off-balance as they start to work more as a sign of these victims losing control to their bodies. It becomes a malevolent sign of the parasite asserting physical dominance.

I really like the interplay between the characters' abilities and the alien menace they fight. It almost feels like an X-Men movie except, since it's Stephen King, anyone can die at any time. Any resemblance the characters have to superheroes only adds to the horror when their fingers are getting chewed off or their guts exploded.

The dialogue isn't always great. William Goldman and director Lawrence Kasdan's screenplay is absorbing enough when plot stuff is happening but their attempts to make the four friends sound like regular guys fall flat. Lee tells a joke about a Meg Ryan movie that seems like maybe they were trying to tap into the sort of nerdiness Lee exhibited in Mallrats. But it comes off more like an insider reference from a screenwriter who's worked in the industry for a long time and has no clue how regular people process his work. The movie also never really justifies its title.

But I liked the alien design and Kasdan capably threads all the scenes together. Thomas Jane and Jason Lee are two actors very good at playing one, specific kind of guy, and they're not quite playing to their specialties here. Still, it was nice to see them, especially knowing how underutilised both have been throughout their careers. Morgan Freeman and the recently deceased Tom Sizemore also have nice supporting roles.

Twitter Sonnet #1697

A foolish phantom crossed the edge of dreams.
His paper boat absorbed the ink of night.
A darling face was nothing like it seems.
And so the Eyes of Green put out the light.
The pirate building sailed to take a yam.
A ruddy whale was miffed at spinning ships.
The gummy candy crossed the mental dam.
The ducal fleet is little glowing blips.
With shrinking foam, potato heads depart.
Decisive glass divides the tile space.
What fog condemns the shower crushed a heart.
For running deer we hid the monster face.
A Janus language clogged the mirror spark.
A pixel storm has turned the glasses dark.