I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fresh and Exciting

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I am addicted to these great episodes - the production values are excellent and they are done almost to perfection. Two quibbles with "The Road Virus Heads North," though. They are pretty good with signs like "Route 1 North" and exterior shots of Boston, such as the Zakim Bridge, etc. However, when Tom Berenger checks into the Windsor Hotel, supposedly in downtown Boston, you can clearly see palm trees in the background (uh, not too many of those around here.) Also, he stops for gas at a "Caltex" station - definitely NOT a New England brand (only Mobil and Exxon around here, folks.) Anyway, it's too bad they didn't quite nail the details.

Man, I really wanted to like these shows. I am starving for some good television and I applaud TNT for providing these "opportunites". But, sadly, I am in the minority I guess when it comes to the Cinematic Stephen King. As brilliant as King's writing is, the irony is that it simply doesn't translate well to the screen, big or small. With few exceptions (very few), the King experience cannot be filmed with the same impact that the stories have when read. Many people would disagree with this, but I'm sure that in their heart of hearts they have to admit that the best filmed King story is but a pale memory of the one they read. The reason is simple. The average King story takes place in the mind-scape of the characters in the story. He gives us glimpses of their inner thoughts, their emotions and their sometimes fractured or unreal points of view. In short, King takes the reader places where you can't put a Panavision camera. As an audience watching the filmed King, we're left with less than half the information than the reader has access to. It's not too far a stretch to claim that One becomes a character in a King story they read, whereas One is limited to petty voyeurism of that same character when filmed. For as long as King writes, Hollywood will try shooting everything that comes out of his word processor, without any regard to whether or not they should. I don't blame the filmmakers for trying, but it takes an incredible amount of talent and circumspection to pull off the elusive Stephen King adaptation that works. The task is akin to turning lead into gold, or some arcane Zen mastery. Oh well, better luck next time.

I will tell you what...I partially agree with the previous comment on the length of the shows. However, in the first show "Battleground" I felt that the utter lack of dialog added immensely to the tension, and although I was skeptical about how to animate the army men, I was incredibly impressed.I didn't like "Crouch End" when I read it, so I wasn't anticipating liking the show, and I didn't. It was very long and unnecessarily melodramatic. I felt that they could have picked a comatose actress to play the lead and she would have been better. Not a big fan of the overly expressive actors. Play it down folks.As for "Umney's Last Case", the show was a lot different than the story, but it was still a good piece. I don't know that I would've chosen William H. Macy as Umney (although he is a great actor, don't get me wrong)."The End of the Whole Mess" was the most faithful adaptation of book to movie, but it also felt the longest of the four that I've seen. I was curious as to how they were going to show the depletion of the narrator, because in the book he was writing, and you could tell that he was slipping by the way that he spelled some words or had to break off in the middle of a sentence. I thought the video-camera was a nice touch.I'm looking most forward to "You Know They Got A Hell of A Band" and I'm also very curious about "The Fifth Quarter", but if I had to guess, I think the best of the eight episodes will be "The Road Virus Heads North" only because from a literary standpoint, the visuals in that story are the most compelling.I'm a huge fan of Stephen King's, and I will always watch any film or T.V. adaptation that he gets behind, but I am often of the persuasion that a movie takes away from some of the individuality and imagination of actually reading the book. Ever after, the re-reading of those stories will be tainted by certain actors that played certain roles, or changes in the movies will effect the way you read the books, and I find that to be kind of a shame.

Umney's Last Case: I'm not a big fan of Stephen King: that would be my wife. But I've read enough of his shorter fiction to have a feel for his work, and I really enjoyed this segment; it worked very well. William H. Macy was perfectly cast and Jacqueline McKenzie was very good, as well. Yeah, it's a silly premise, but once you suspend disbelief, it was very well-crafted. The ending was exactly right: no real conclusion, just the realization by both principles that the tables had turned. If only they had done The Stand, or Firestarter as well as this. If I have a quibble, it would be with some of Mrs. Landry's actions, which seemed a bit weird even for a King story. Overall, this is a 9 out of 10.The End of the Whole Mess: As for the second story of the second evening, this was not as engaging, but it still worked fairly well. I liked the idea of doing it as a documentary, but this also meant that some time that could have been used in developing the ideas in it was wasted on showing Ron Livingston's character, Howie, telling the story. I'm sure that this is how King wrote it (I've not read the story), but I think they could have just set it up and run with it, cutting back to seeing Howie talking maybe half as much as they did. But this is a small complaint. The story isn't as creative as the first one of the evening, but it worked well, as far as it went. There are some internal inconsistencies as well, which made it harder to like it. Perhaps the fact that it was grimmer than the first one made it easier to be critical of it. I'll give this a 7 out of 10.