With movie studios scrambling to produce (and re-produce) recognizable intellectual property, famed author Stephen King and his work are in high demand. Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer were brought on to adapt Pet Sematary, a 1983 King novel of the same name. The novel’s second adaptation in 30 years, the studio should’ve followed the book’s choice wisdom: sometimes dead is better.
Twenty-nine years after Driving Miss Daisy unconscionably secured the Academy Award for Best Picture, Green Book, a movie informally dubbed the reverse Driving Miss Daisy, took home the same prize at the 2018 Academy Awards. Studios won’t halt production on the Green Books of the world until movies like it are no longer profitable and well received, but the Academy should stop rewarding them. Green Book is entertaining, innocuous (on its surface), and feel-good for the right viewer, but the context surrounding it and the subtext that can be garnered from it change the conversation.
A Mixed Review 