Christine

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Christine Review

"Christine" is about possession. In adapting Steven King's novel to the screen, director John Carpenter and writer Bill Phillips streamline King's narrative to focus on the true star of the book and film--the car itself. "Christine" tells the story about a nerdy high school senior (Keith Gordon in a very strong performance)who can't do anything right but his best friend college jock Dennis(John Stockwell)seems to do everything right. So when Arnie finds the perfect car that he can rebuild and put his love into, the car nicknamed "Christine" by its former deceased owner more than returns that love--she gives Arnie a thug makeover and turns him into a monster as bad as the the kids that used to beat Arnie up. Needless to say, Christine has some special abilities of her own and she becomes--so to speak--the vehicle for Archie's revenge and vice versa.

Dennis tries to intervene but once Arnie becomes possessed by Christine, he and Arnie's new girlfriend Leigh (the lovely Alexandra Paul in her first film role)are unable to reach him. A local police detective (Harry Dean Stanton)becomes suspcious but isn't able to prove that Arnie had anything to do with a mounting body count consisting of high school students from Arnie's school.

The beautiful transfer here manages to skip many of the flaws that have become a Columbia Tristar trademark; the edge enhancement is minimal and the sharp, detailed picture has vivid rich color recalling the original look of the theatrical cut of the film. The high definition transfer is as sharp as a rebuild car after a top notch paint job.

Duplicating the wonderful format that director John Carpenter has used on "The Thing", "Big Trouble in Little China" and "Escape from New York", the audio commentary features both the director and star Keith Gordon (now a director himself) discussing the nuts and bolts of making the film. Gordon provides a unique perspective as both the film's star and also an acclaimed director of small, independent films.

While I also like King's books, I'd like to point out that to make a feature film of a novel would take (as writer Bill Phillips astutely points out in the special features section)20 hours or more so novels have to be streamlined in the hopes of capturing the feel of the film. It's hoped that the visul style brought to the film will make up for the narrative threads that are lost and Carpenter's film does just that. While LeFey the previous owner of Christine played a major role in the book, it seemed as if he was the one driving the action. Carpenter and Phillips decided that Christine was just born bad and that evil spilled out to possess their owners as well. I found Carpenter and Phillips choices in turning the novel into a film to be very good ones.

Laurent Bouzereau's three excellent featurettes focus on the conception of the film all the way through the production and release. Oddly enough, though, Columbia has them listed out of order under the special features section starting with "Christine Fast & Furious", "Christine Finish Line" and "Christine Ignition" presented in that order. You should really watch the last one first, the first one second and the second one last. Of course, you can click on them in any order (they play individually)but it does seem a curious choice to present them this way. We also get 20 deleted/alternate scenes that provide an interesting addition to the original film. While Carpenter wisely chose to cut some of them, a small portion of the deleted scenes would have made a great addition to a "Director's Cut" of this film. Since Carpenter is technically "retired" (as he jokingly points out in his commentary), he certainly could spent the time to reintegrate key scenes. Unfortunately, it's doubtful that this special edition had the budget for such an undertaking. Regardless, I'm happy that Columbia Tristar elected to put out this special edition in the first place.

We also get the usual Columbia Tristar previews as well. This special edition provides a classic Carpenter film a second change on DVD. While the film was critically well received (Time called it "Carpenter's best film since 'Halloween')for the most part (many criticized the foul language. Writer Bill Phillips discusses how Columbia's executives asked him to add more foul language so the film could earn a hard "R" rating. He laughes as he recalls that "Scarface" would soon replace "Christine" with the most foul lanugage in a two hour movie), it only did fair box office business. It's nice to see this classic bit of Carpenter-King-Phillips entertainment finally the way it should be presented.

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