The Incredibles, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Fahrenheit 9/11, The
Manchurian Candidate, Dawn of the Dead (the re-make) and Maria Full of Grace.
This piece is listed as Personal Best on the Entertainment Weekly web site.
The Pop of King: Crying Wolfe (January 21, 2005)
‘Nobody wanted to like Tom Wolfe’s new novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, more than I, and no
one put less stock in the largely negative reviews the book generated. There’s a reason for that’, King
writes. Many critics and readers alike indeed eagerly anticipated Wolfe’s latest. The description of
the novel from amazon.com reads: ‘In I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe masterfully chronicles
college sports, fraternities, keggers, coeds, and sex—all through the eyes of the titular Simmons, a
bright and beautiful freshman at the fictional Dupont University.’
Closing his column, King says: ‘I wanted this to be one of those wild hog-stomping books; for a
variety of reasons...it isn’t. Even Wolfe’s usually raucous language grows tiresome and eventually
begins to grate—by page 600 or so, I felt a little as if I were listening to the longest Donna Summer
disco tune ever recorded. Yet this immense (and immensely troubling) novel is driven by two things
most American novels lack: ideas and ambition. Some of the ideas on view in Charlotte Simmons
may provoke discussions deep into the night (the book seems to be a very hot item on many college
campuses). Good—that’s what social fiction’s for. I only wish this novel’s high ambition had not
been so undone by its wooden characters, who move and speak but never really seem to breathe.’
The Pop of King: The 14 Lessons of 24 (February 24, 2005)
King writes: ‘It’s always annoying to be bumped by the front-of-the-book boys and girls (this
column was slated to go last week, but then News & Notes141 ran Has 24 Gone Too Far?), but the
additional time has given me a chance to refine these 14 Lessons. Hell, even back-of-the-book guys
understand that when it comes to current events, the clock is always...but that’s Lesson 1.’
He lists the lessons of 24, a very popular US television series, with a short description for each:
The Clock Is Always Ticking; There Are Enemies Everywhere; We Fight Back With American
Technology; The Technology Always Screws Up; The Management Ain’t That Great Either; The
More Chloe Pouts, the Better; Never Trust the President’s Wife; Never Trust Smart African-
American Women in General; The President’s Advisers Are Monsters of Expediency; On 24, Suicide
Is Always an Option; For 24 Hours, the Rule of Law Is Suspended; In the Course of the Season, One
Good Guy Will Get Killed; In the Course of the Season, One Good Guy Will Turn Out to Be a Bad
Guy; and For One Day a Year, Jack Bauer Will Not Need to Go to the Bathroom for 24 Hours.
Entertaining and pointed, this column is deserving of reprint.
The Pop of King: The Worst Ads on TV (March 4, 2005)
This piece deals with the ads for prescription drugs that have become all too prevalent on
American television. King ties this relatively new fad in with his deep knowledge of American
popular culture: ‘Who can forget the game little tennis player in the Celebrex ads? Or the happy
Celebrex cartoon couple, bundled up and making angels in the snow? And you had to get behind the
plucky guitarist in the TV ads who vowed, “I can play the long version.” The Celebrex slogan was “I
will not give in!” What could be more American? Ironically, the problems of Vioxx and Celebrex
were reported extensively on the same network news programs that have become the No. 1 sales
platforms for the 21st century’s medicine-show pitch-daddies...Just as CMT would be the
demographically logical place to market thalidomide, CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox newscasts are great
places to sell prescription pain relievers and “sleep aids” (street name: downers), because much of
their audience is overweight, overstressed, and over 50. They ache, they lie awake, and they
sometimes hobble to the bathroom in the morning. When someone tells them a pill will magically
make it all better, they want to believe. Americans love a quick fix, and our love affair with snake-oil
salesmen probably stretches clear back to the Pilgrims. And when the man says, “Daddy fix, Daddy
make it all better”… man, we love that. We love it.’
King goes on to mention recent news regarding COX-2 inhibitors used in certain prescription
medications. It was reported in November of 2004 that Vioxx might have caused up to 139,000 heart
attacks and 55,000 deaths. So, he closes, ‘Want a moral? Try this: If COX-2 inhibitors are dangerous
enough to warrant black-box warnings or even outright prohibition, maybe we should have been
worrying a little more about prescription-drug ads on TV all along and a little less about Janet
Jackson’s boob...which, as far as I know, didn’t kill anyone.’
As one can see, this column is quite a departure from King’s usual focus on pop culture in EW,
but not from the ‘socially conscious’ King opinions central to his non-fiction all the way back to his
days on the University of Maine campus.
The Pop of King: No Stars, Sorry (March 25, 2005)
‘Some bad habits are hard to break. Making stupid cell phone calls while driving on the
turnpike. Snack hunting in the fridge after 10 p.m. Scanning USA Today ’s Life section for the
inevitable postmortem on how last night’s American Idol contestants did. And then there’s believing
in movie stars. The Hollywood elite were less than charmed when Chris Rock took after this myth in
his Academy Awards monologue—the most amusing result was Sean Penn’s impassioned defense of
Jude Law—but I thought Rock was right on. At last someone pointed out the obvious: The emperor is
strutting around in his birthday suit’, King argues in opening this column. Once again we find King
negatively commenting on the way Hollywood (or at least Hollywood celebrities) conduct business.
Later, he evokes the column’s sub-title and gives specific examples to back his argument:
‘Sorry, no stars. The myth of star power may seem pretty, but the statistics prove it is nothing but a
lie. For every high-budget, starring-vehicle flop you can name—a King Arthur with Clive Owen or
an Alexander with Colin Farrell—there’s a string of low-budget, no-star flicks that found multiplex
success in spite of studio indifference. They had the only thing that audiences really care about: story.
I’m thinking of Cary Elwes in Saw; Sanaa Lathan in AVP: Alien vs. Predator; Jon Heder in Napoleon
Dynamite; Because of Winn-Dixie, with Anna Sophia Robb; and, of course, Kimberly Elise in Diary
of a Mad Black Woman. In Hollywood, studio execs are even now sitting around asking themselves,
“Why didn’t we do that?” The answer, of course, is because Halle Berry was too busy doing art films
like Catwoman.’ King, as ever, is consistent about the one thing he finds vital to good books and
movies— story.
The Pop of King: My Fever Pitch Obsession (April 8, 2005)
It seems most everyone knows of King’s obsession with the Boston Red Sox142. My Fever Pitch
Obsession turns out to be the perfect movie for King: ‘Like Shakespearean tragedy, the course of
romantic comedy is immutable: In Act 1, the boy gets the girl; in Act 2, he loses her; in Act 3, he gets
her back. A good story, but it’s a little long in the tooth. At this point it better have something else
going for it. What the Farrelly Brothers’ sweetly amusing Fever Pitch offers is the familiarity of the
manic sports-obsessive. You’ve probably had one sitting next to you on the couch from time to time,
drinking a gentlemanly beer if the big game is going his way, eating the bottle from the neck down if
it’s not. Or staring back at you (out of bloodshot eyes) from the bathroom mirror on a workday
morning after you stayed up to watch a West Coast game that ended around 2 a.m. Or, if you happen to
be married to one, you’ve probably heard him bellowing like a moose in rut from the living room
while you hid out in the bedroom, trying to talk about The Secret Life of Bees to your sister in St.
Paul. You don’t have to be a Red Sox fan to recognize the manic-obsessive subtext (which isn’t very
sub) in Fever Pitch, but it certainly helps.’
Of course, even baseball fans in America who don’t read King know the author is frequently
shown on television attending games, mostly at the Red Sox’s home ground, Fenway Park. King
closes with changes made to the film after the Red Sox’s winning season: ‘The filmmakers had to
rewrite their ending (happily, without cutting my cameo), but no one in New England is going to mind.
In fact, they’ll probably hear us cheering in St. Louis when the lights go down at the start of Fever
Pitch and the Standells crank up “Dirty Water.” That’s the one that goes “Boston, you’re my home.”
Because up here, the Red Sox are karma, dharma, and obsession. Sox first, while sex and breathing
will take care of themselves? Sounds like a plan.’
The Pop of King: Prime Downloads (April 29 - May 6, 2005)
Music has always been one of King’s passions, as one can tell from the many references in his
fiction, and the amount of non-fiction he’s written that deals with the subject. ‘The first thing I used to
turn to in this magazine was the movie reviews. No more. Since my youngest son showed me how to
burn CDs and my daughter-in-law taught me how to use my computer to get music online (to a geezer
like me that’s a beautiful thing, like sucking songs through a magic electronic straw), I immediately
hunt for the “Download This” box in the Music section of each new EW. I don’t like everything, but
that’s okay; many music download services offer you a little taste—that spoon, that spoon, that
spoonful—so you can try before you buy’, is the opening of this column.
He proceeds to list some tracks he’s downloaded and a short note for each. The tracks on his
‘compilation’ are: Dance With Me by Michael McDermott143; California Stars by Billy Bragg & Wilco; To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High) by Ryan Adams; City of the Damned by the Gothic
Archies; Castanets by Alejandro Escovedo; Our Love by Rhett Miller; Tell Mama by Savoy Brown;
Diamonds and Rust by Judas Priest; Blue on Black by Kenny Wayne Shepherd; Manifesto No. 1 by
Shooter Jennings; What I Got by Sublime; Don’t Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston; We Can’t
Make It Here by James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards; and Yeah (Pretentious Mix) by LCD
Soundsystem.
The column ends, ‘That’s 63 minutes of total bliss that will fit easily on most blank CDs. Just
remember who gets the credit when you play it for your friends, and also remember your Uncle
Stevie’s motto: It all sounds better when you turn it up to 11.’
The Pop of King: My Summer Hit List (June 3, 2005)
Here, King reminds readers he’d ‘rashly promised to pick the big box office winners and losers
of the 2005 summer season.’ Some time after, our columnist realized he needed some help in this task
and turned to a good friend for help: ‘Shane Leonard grew up going to the movies with my kids and
still never misses a major release or a minor chopsocky flick. In the old days he was known in the
neighborhood as The Longhair. Well, you know how that usually turns out—he finally had to visit one
of the local head-choppers in order to get a damn job—but to me Shane will always be The Longhair,
Peerless Guru of Movie Success, and I went to him like Luke Skywalker goes to Yoda.’
King’s predictions are presented with supporting notes. The projected winners are: Star Wars
III; War of the Worlds; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Batman Begins; Fantastic Four; The
Longest Yard; Must Love Dogs; and Land of the Dead. Other ‘projected winners: Deuce Bigalow:
European Gigolo (“Same ho, new lo”), and Dark Water (more Ring-style PG-13 horror for the
junior-high/Harry Potterset).’
The column ends in King’s typical humorous style: ‘Those are our picks; write ‘em down. If we
hit it out of the park, someone owes us a chicken dinner. Of course, it’s faintly possible that we might
screw up. In that case, we’ll be eating the bird associated with Thanksgiving. Side by side with
summer’s big-budget failures.’
The Pop of King: Extras Bite (June 17, 2005)
‘Like the SUV your uncle Fred bought before gas prices went up, DVDs are loaded with extras.
Unlike your uncle’s SUV, which came with air-conditioning, onboard navigation, and power
everything, you get the DVD extras whether you want them or not, and they’re usually dumber than
mud. I suspected this for years; a month reviewing recent discs transformed my suspicion into
certainty. I don’t know what the Big One is, but I am sure that DVD extras are one of the things that
bite it’, King comes out swinging in this column, which gained some media attention at the time. He
lists some DVDs that had good extra features (Saw; The Incredibles) and others that weren’t so good
(The Day After Tomorrow).
Later, he expresses his frustration with these extras: ‘You can tell me I don’t have to watch the
extras if I don’t want to, and besides, they’re free. Not always true. There is, for instance, the
“Suicide Ending” of First Blood, a brief clip piggybacked on a three-disc Rambo collection that
retails for about 35 bucks. And don’t forget the so-called “Special Edition” packages, buoyed by
extras designed to, as far as I can tell, completely muddle your experience of the movie—for the right
price, of course. Sometimes there’s a newly inserted “lost” scene, which was probably lost for good
reason. Other times you get new special effects dumped into old movies—and who cares, really, if
they don’t quite match the old special effects?’
The Pop of King: Long Live the Dead (July 8, 2005)
In the summer of 2005, the fourth film in George A. Romero’s Dead quartet was released and
King was excited to review it: ‘How long has George Romero been fashioning his living dead epic,
which concludes this summer with the long-awaited (if you like zombies, that is; fans of the Olsen
twins have probably not been counting the days) Land of the Dead? Well, let’s put it this way: Night
of the Living Dead—maybe the most important horror flick of the last 50 years —showed up in
theaters nine years before George Lucas introduced the world to Luke Skywalker.’
King has long been a fan of Romero’s work144, has written non-fiction both exclusively about or
mentioning the films, and even wrote the liner notes for the laserdisc/DVD editions of Night of the
Living Dead (see Untitled (1994; 2002) in our Opinion—Radio, Music, Film and Television
chapter). He closes with more praise: ‘What I admire most is that this phase of the series is ending
almost 40 years later with Romero’s original creative vision intact. In each succeeding film the arena
is larger, but the grim bottom line is the same: not dog-eat-dog, but man-eat-man. Jedi Knights
notwithstanding, this may be the only true other world you’ll have an opportunity to visit between
now and Labor Day. The zombies are coming, and in the world of George Romero, there is no wise
old Yoda to set things right.’
The Pop of King: My Manifesto (July 29, 2005)
One of the main things King does with his non-fiction, as we have said, is comment on American
culture, and his study of the subject is never more focused than in these Pop of King columns. King
begins this column writing about The Pop of King itself and why he does what he does: ‘This column
was written two days after the Fourth of July—if it seems a little sentimental put it down to that. I’ve
been dwelling on the back page of EW for two years now, and a surprising number of people still ask
me why I do it when I have a perfectly adequate day job (there were times when I wondered if there
would be more novels for me after the Dark Tower books—seems there are). The reason is simple:
The American popular culture is my culture, and I don’t just live in it; I love it madly, and writing
about it seems as natural—and as necessary—as breathing’. Obviously, the public confirmation that
King would continue to write novels makes this an important column, although insiders were well
aware his ‘retirement’ after the Dark Tower was most unlikely.
King writes, ‘It’s my culture and I love it dearly—I have, I think, ever since the age of 8, in a
Connecticut movie theater, when I first heard Clark Gable tell Vivien Leigh, “Frankly, my dear, I
don’t give a damn.” There are plenty of people who see this beautiful junk-shop carnival as lowbrow,
thoughtless, ruinous, even vicious (I’m thinking of folks like Harold Bloom, the literary critic who
had a cow when the National Book Foundation gave me an award for, ahem, Distinguished
Contribution to American Letters). They are not, as a rule, the ones who shoot off fireworks on the
Fourth of July. Or subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, for that matter. Many are folks who believe art
should be work and see entertainment as subversive.’
This column was titled Poppin’ Fresh on the Entertainment Weekly web site and is deserving
of reprint elsewhere.
The Pop of King: Kick-Back Books (August 12, 2005)
King, who loves entertainment for its own sake, is the perfect person to serve up a summer
reading list. He begins in his normal personable style: ‘Oh God, it’s August. Ads for school supplies
have started showing up in Staples. In the pharmacies, they’re offering big discounts on sunscreen, not
to mention those crappy plastic toys that always get left behind at the beach when Mom and Dad pack
up the little ones and drive back to Greater Suburbia. And once more your promise to yourself that
this summer you really would kick back and do some reading went unfulfilled. You got to the new
Harry Potter... but everybody got to Harry. Do not fear, little Nell (or Nelson); it’s your Uncle Stevie
to the rescue. Below is my Great Late-Summer Reading List, every book guaranteed to please the
mind, eye, and heart. And before you go moaning that summer’s practically over, let me whisper a
secret in your ear: Summer doesn’t really end until Sept. 22, so you’ve got plenty of time to check
these out on the porch with a glass of iced tea nearby (hammock optional).’
He lists seven books with a short description of each: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami; No
Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy; Lost in the Forest by Sue Miller; The Breakdown Lane
by Jacquelyn Mitchard; Hello, Darkness by Sandra Brown; Killing Floor by Lee Child; and Mystery,
So Long by Stephen Dobyns145.
The Pop of King: Lost’s Soul (September 9, 2005)
Note: This special guest piece is by Jamie Zeiters.
This column contains King’s musings on the television show Lost, the ‘cash cow’ launched by
the ABC network in 2004. King begins by praising the drama and comparing it to hit shows of a
similar genre: ‘Ah Lost. There’s never been anything like it on TV for capturing the imagination,
except for The Twilight Zone and The X-Files...Lost projects a sense of genuine awe and mystery,
making it most unusual in a medium more known for boredom and predictability.’
Next, King discusses a problem the Lost writers could eventually face: ‘… the Prime Network
Directive: Thou Shalt Not Kill the Cash Cow.’ In other words, if a television network has a million
dollar show, it will continue to milk it sometimes beyond its worth, possibly continuing the show long
after the story should have ended. King writes, ‘ X-Files blundered off into a swamp of black oil, and
in that swamp it died...If J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and their band of co-conspirators allow
something similar to happen to Lost, I’m going to be even more pissed, because this show is better.
Memo to Abrams and staff writers: Your responsibilities include knowing when to write The End.’
As a storyteller himself, King knows that one quality of a good writer is to know when the story
should end. The hardest part, he writes, ‘… will be telling ABC that Lost is going to conclude with
season 3 or season 4, while the audience is still crazy about the show.’
King pleads with the writers to make the right decision: ‘End it any way you want, but when it’s
time for closure, provide it.’ He adds, ‘When a meal is perfectly cooked, it’s time to take it out of the
oven. And when a story is told, it’s time to fade to black.’
The Pop of King: My So-Called Admirer (September 30, 2005)
King says a local bookstore clerk told him Bret Easton Ellis (author of American Psycho) had a
new novel out that was very similar in style to King’s. King did some research on the Internet and
was surprised to find this was indeed true. ‘Bret Easton Ellis is calling Lunar Park a Stephen King
homage, and claims to have read Salem’s Lot at least a dozen times as a kid... or so says Elizabeth
Hand in The Washington Post, but she also calls the demonic toy in Lunar Park a Yerby (it’s
actually a Terby, and yes, it matters). If Ellis really did read Salem’s Lot a dozen times as a kid, the
reasons for the past drug use he’s spoken of become much clearer to me’, he says.
King ends this column giving his own views on the matter and commenting on the book itself:
‘Whether or not Bret Easton Ellis is “doing” Stephen King at the beginning of Lunar Park (little
parenthetical expressions and all) doesn’t matter, because by the end, all the masks, imitations, and
pharmacological shopping lists have been set aside. Even in American Psycho, that boringly
bloodthirsty book, it was clear to me that Ellis was a fine storyteller. It’s this facet of his writing that
has most appealed to readers and been most overlooked by critics. It seems at times to have appalled
Ellis himself (one could almost believe it’s the Terby hidden inside his laptop, flexing its claws). I
got a clear sense of Lunar Park having started almost as a joke—perhaps a rather desperate one, part
apology for American Psycho—and having finished as what is close to a credo. That is the true magic
of novels, which often possess more strength (and reality) than their creators suppose: They see into
our secret hearts.’
The Pop of King: The Fright Stuff (October 28, 2005)
One would think a guy like King would love Halloween. As that horrifying time of year
approaches, the author uses his column space to make some relevant viewing and listening
suggestions. ‘Gosh. Zowie. It’s almost Halloween again. Somebody peel me off the ceiling’, he
writes.
As we know, King likes to write about his musical interests and this column is no exception.
Under a section titled ‘Putrid Pop’, he says, ‘There’s no shortage of grim pop music, but let us push
aside such chestnuts as “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” and “Thriller” in favor of the real sicko stuff.
There’s “Hey Man, Nice Shot” by Filter (inspired by a politician’s tasteful decision to commit
suicide on live television), “Days of Graduation” by Drive-By Truckers (a car-wreck tune that makes
“Last Kiss” seem like Mother Goose), the Pine Valley Cosmonauts’ version of “Gary Gilmore’s
Eyes” (a transplant operation goes horribly wrong), and my favorite (and a brief top 20 hit in the
‘70s), “Timothy,” the Buoys’ rock ode to cannibalism’. Under the ‘Terror Television’ section he
mentions the television shows Invasion and Lost. There is also a section called ‘Dreadful DVDs’,
where King recommends The Changeling (an older film), or the Japanese import Infection (a newer
one). Finally, under ‘Malevolent Movies,’ he mentions the remake of The Fog, Saw II, Flightplan
and A History of Violence.
In closing, King asks readers to remember others in the wake of recent tragedies: ‘One other
suggestion while I’m at it. Mother Nature played two of the biggest tricks of all this year, and she
didn’t wait until Halloween. One was called Katrina, the other Rita. People have been incredibly
generous with cash donations in the wake of these storms, but one thing the Red Cross never gets
enough of is—heh-heh-heh—blood. If you’d like to give a treat instead of playing a trick this
Halloween, why not find your nearest Red Cross blood bank and roll up your sleeve? Maybe I’ll see
you there, because I always try to give a pint on that day as a way of remembering that blood has been
pretty good to me. I just don’t look when they stick the needle in, because I’m a little squeamish about
the sight of that red stuff. Especially my own.’ And there’s a piece of personal information to amuse
his legion of fans.
The Pop of King: Lights in a Box (November 18, 2005)
‘George Clooney’s film about Edward R. Murrow and the early days of TV news is probably
sending many audience members on extra trips to the snack bar and bathrooms out of sheer
claustrophobia. It almost never leaves the stark confines of the CBS newsroom and editorial offices.
This will come as a shock to 21st-century viewers accustomed to seeing Anderson Cooper (CNN)
and Brian Williams (NBC) being blown around by hurricanes, and Katie Couric wearing a pair of
cute goggles, working on Habitat for Humanity houses in Rockefeller Plaza’, King begins this
installment.
At the end of his review of Good Night, and Good Luck he recounts his favorite moment and
gives us some insight into the sub-title of this column. ‘The best moment in GN&GL? Easy. When
Murrow finishes his Liberace interview (with a promise to visit Mickey Rooney and his lovely new
wife the following week), he signs off and the harsh studio lights go out. As they do, an expression
crosses his face, as fleeting as a brief muscle cramp. It is weary distaste. Speaking to an industry
audience some four years after the McCarthy debacle, Murrow says: “[Television] can illuminate and
yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are willing to use it to those
ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.” It’s something to think about the next time you
sit down in front of news that may be more flash than fact: It’s merely lights in a box.’ Here we see
King again delivering an important philosophical point in what appears to be nothing more than a
light column in an entertainment magazine.
The Pop of King: My 2005 Picks: Music (December 9, 2005)
In 2004 around the same period, King published three columns on the best music, movies and
books of the year, and EW ran them one after the other, instead of with the usual three weeks
separation. This following year it seems that the magazine and King wanted to do the same thing. King
opens, ‘I don’t think it’s possible any longer just to talk about the best albums of the year and leave it
at that; albums may not be as dead as the dodo, but they’re certainly an endangered species. I bought
about 50 in the year just past (for the purposes of these best-of columns, my year runs roughly from
one Turkey Day to the next), but only a dozen in actual stores. It amazes me to write that, but it’s true.
Most were downloaded...and through perfectly legitimate pay-then-play sources, I hasten to add.
Copyright is my bread and butter, and I do not cockadoodie where I eat.’
King’s top six albums of the year: Delirium Tremolos by Ray Wylie Hubbard; Solo Acoustic,
Vol. 1 by Jackson Browne; Kicking Television: Live in Chicago by Wilco; All Jacked Up by
Gretchen Wilson; Childish Things by James McMurtry; and If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry by
Marah. He also offers his top eight singles of the year: Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down by Fall Out Boy;
My Humps by The Black Eyed Peas; Land Locked Blues by Bright Eyes; If I Ever Leave This World
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