CELL BOOK
REVIEWS
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BY STEVEN KING
Part zombie tale and part social fable, Cell is Stephen King's scariest novel in years, sparing no gore or horror. It can also be called his first techno-thriller; it's something you'd expect Michael Crichton's dark side to conjure up. If nothing else, the story is timely. These days, you
can't spit without hitting someone with a cell phone glued to their ear, and you can't turn on the news without being reminded that biological and chemical warfare are real dangers.
Cell's story follows an event in which braindeadening agents attack millions of people via cell phones. Victims turn into violent zombies (think 28 Days Later with a terrorist attack instead of a sickness). In this post-apocalyptic nightmarish world, small groups of "normies"—those without cell phones who
are immune from the attack — are left to defend for themselves. They're led by Clayton Ridell, an illustrator who's trying to find his wife and son in the pandemonium,
The social commentary in King's book is a clear indictment of our technology and
communication obsessions. King himself does not own a cell phone and writes his novels either longhand or by typewriter. He is the perfect author to bring the cell phone cult down a peg.
With the completion of his Dark Tower series,
King seems free to explore and loosen up a bit. Many of his earlier works went into minute details about town histories — such as his beloved Derry and Castle Rock — and secondary characters, which tended to make the novels seem almost plodding in places (look no further than the cubic epic it). Cell has no such baggage. As a result, it's a much faster read with a lot less weight on it. Down the road, Cell may be called the novel in which Stephen King got his groove back.
Price: $26.95
Available in hardcover
★★★★
Kelsey Hayes
STICK IT
MOVIE
Stick It was written and directed by the writer of *Bring It On*. That tells you a lot of what you need to know. It's bright and shiny, with a pop-punk and hip hop soundtrack, quite a few joyously dumb moments and dialogue that could've been witty if the director had wanted it to be. it's a little something for the 14-year-old girl in all of us.
The story follows Haley Graham (Missy Peregym), a rebellious young woman who would rather go to military school than return to gymnastics, the sport she denounced years ago. But, the judge doesn't give her the choice — for her crime (crashing a bike through the window of a house) she is sentenced to hard time in gymnastics school.
The ensuing movie is mostly free of dramatic tension. Haley is a troubled
The ensuing movie is mostly free of dramatic tension. Halley is a troubled youth in a scaffoldy, clean
drug-free, non-violent sort of way. The villains in the story are only peripheral. The training is hard, but it's nothing a little musical montage or two can't handle.
The film lags in the middle, unable to maintain momentum when nothing momentous is happening. Most sports movies would solve this problem by pretending the anticlimactic events are hugely important — that sports can save the day, the world, our relationships, our souls, etc. Stick it doesn't go there. Instead, the athletes try to save the sport. The movie actually has something to say about gymnastics
Admittedly, it doesn't have a whole lot to say about anything else. But what does that matter when you can watch people in colorful
leaptards do gravity-defying stunts to catchy music?
Rated: PG-13, 105 minutes
South Wind 12
★★★
Kit Fluker
★ You'll wish you were dead ★★ You'll want to leave the theater early ★★★ You'll say "eh" ★★★★ You'll rave to everyone who asks ★★★★★ You'll have a religious experience