276: Matthew Lillard Talks The Life of Chuck and Stephen King

Writer/Director duo David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano (I Don't Understand You) join Vespe and Breznican to talk all about their new movie as well Stephen King's The Stand, with a focus on the 1994 Mick Garris mini-series adaptation.  Unexpected topics of conversation this episode: hilarious film commentaries, birds being a-holes, '90s footwear, the perfect choice for Randall Flagg being poo-poo'd by King, and questionable strip club stories from Miguel Ferrer. I Don't Understand You is available on digital platforms June 24th

Life of Chuck stars Karen Gillan and Tom Hiddleston sat down with us to talk about their Stephen King origin stories, the film adaptations that moved them, and everything that went into their roles in the most recent Stephen King adaptation.

The Life of Chuck is based on Stephen King's novella of the same name from the If It Bleeds collection and is a story told in reverse featuring dancing, death, a haunted cupola, and the end of the world. You know, the basics for a good yarn.

Mike Flanagan's adaptation of The Life of Chuck starts hitting screens this weekend. It's about a lot of things: the end of the world, the impact a single person can have on the universe, the importance of math, and the joy of dancing. It's hard to explain what this movie is, but it is large and, much like the title character, contains multitudes. 

The Outsider is the book where King's current obsession, Holly Gibney, takes a full step to the forefront as she helps investigate a particularly interesting case where a man arrested for the brutal killing of a child has proof that he wasn't anywhere near the scene of the crime despite a mountain of eye-witness, surveillance, and DNA evidence to the contrary. Is there something deeper at play here? Perhaps something supernatural? 

Rose Red is the rare mini-series that Stephen King wrote directly for the screen and is essentially his stab at playing in Shirley Jackson's Hill House sandbox. With a wild cast that includes both Nancy Travis and Julian Sands and Melanie Lynskey and a story that feels like a Greatest Stephen King Hits compilation, Rose Red is a fascinating one to look back on.

"A Death" is a lesser-known Stephen King short story from The Bizarre of Bad Dreams. Set in the Old West times, a young girl is killed and the town rounds up a likely suspect who proclaims his innocence upon deaf ears. Is this man a murderer or is he innocent, like he claims? 

Larry Hama not only worked on GI Joe, he also dabbled with Wolverine, Nth Man, and Elektra. His work on Joe didn't end with the comics, either. He also penned the majority of the dossier files on the back of all the toys. 

Both The Mist and our guest's latest film, Drop, are contained pot-boilers as a small group of people share the same small common area as wild stuff is happening outside. One involves creepy cell phone drops, the other tentacled monsters, but go with us with this comparison.

Carrie is the novel that started everything for Stephen King, a runaway success that set him up to be the master of horror for going on 5 decades now. It tells the story of a sheltered, awkward girl who just so happens to be telekinetic and when she's pushed too far... well, she makes her wrath known to the entire town.