Quoting Alien Redrum:

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As a book adaptation, The Shining sucked. As a movie, it's fine. King is absolutely correct in hating this as an adaptation of his novel.

You liked his version better?

Quoting Alien Redrum:

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Quoting Kulju:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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They must have phoned him when he was drunk.

Which is pretty much always.

He also have a nice track record for judging which movie adaptation is good and which is not. Shining....anyone?  (which is by the way the only good Stephen King horror novel movie adaptation in my opinion.)

As a book adaptation, The Shining sucked. As a movie, it's fine. King is absolutely correct in hating this as an adaptation of his novel.

Well what you expect when you give it to Stanley Kubrick. Previous 20 years of film making  before The Shinning show he never compromises his own vision with someone else's.

So why should Stephen King be surprised he never stuck to every word of his book and make big deal out of it when clearly that was never going to happen with his book in the hands of Kubrick.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Instead, it has to do with having an open mind and no preconceived notion that American remakes suck.

If you take a look at my collection statistics you might see that I like US movies, I even have a few US remakes in my collection, but I still haven't seen a US remake that is better than the original. When I saw the remake of Wicker Man, the first thing that came to my mind was to find a rope fast so I could hang myself and end the pain 

It's not the remakes per se that revolts me, it's the relatively new phenomeon that for a quick buck remake pre-production is almost starting when the original is still running on big screen. I cannot remember that happening 10 years ago, but maybe I'm wrong.

On US television: the FCC has jurisdiction over broadcast channels only. These shows are supported by sponsors. This limits what you can do. There is a watershed of sorts from 10pm EST to 6 AM, but this rarely comes up as a legal issue. Examples of these shows include the Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the CSI family and Family Guy. I mention these series because all of them have been censored to some degree when aired in the UK. Regardless of what's hypothetically allowed, in practice, US TV is less censored in significant cases even at its tightest restriction.

Basic cable programming is available to anyone with a cable subscritpion. It is also sponsor-supported, but the government has no control over it. Examples include The Walking Dead, Mad Men, South Park and The Shield, none of which are terribly inhibited in content, even though they do have to deal with what sponsors are willing to support.

There's also premium cable, which is HBO, Showtime and the like. These shows are paid for by subscriber fees and have less restriction. They don't show hardcore porn (though there's no law against doing so) and pretty much anything else goes. Examples include Deadwood, The Sopranos, Weeds and True Blood.

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

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There is a watershed of sorts from 10pm EST to 6 AM, but this rarely comes up as a legal issue. Examples of these shows include the Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the CSI family and Family Guy.

This list is quite funny since all the programs you mentioned, including the cable ones, I find Family Guy easily the most offencive. Though, I've only watched the Finnish DVD versions, which are unsensored, so I'm not sure if they are edited a lot for the US/UK TV-broadcast.

Quoting bbbbbb:

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I just watched Deadwood 1.02 and saw breasts and pubic hair of a woman, and a penis.

Lucky you! 

Quoting Astrakan:

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I honestly don't see the distinction. I can't think of any reason to want to shield children from that kind of content other than prudishness.

You mean, other than the fact that a 10 year old kid shouldn't be watching simulated sex?  I mean, it would be one thing if we felt nobody should watch it, that would be prudish, but to shield our kids from it doesn't make us prudish.

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The existence of cable is in no way any kind of proof that the overall tone of your culture isn't prudish. It's only proof that you're not on the extreme end of the scale. Whereas the existence of the FCC and broadcast rules is proof that you're not in the middle or low-end of the scale either.

That is why I said we aren't as prudish as you think.  That 'overall tone' is intentional, but does not reflect reality.  We like our 'edgy' content, we just don't want the kids to have access to it and we don't want you to know about it.  The former I understand completely, the latter, not so much, but it is what it is.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Quoting Astrakan:

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I honestly don't see the distinction. I can't think of any reason to want to shield children from that kind of content other than prudishness.

You mean, other than the fact that a 10 year old kid shouldn't be watching simulated sex?  I mean, it would be one thing if we felt nobody should watch it, that would be prudish, but to shield our kids from it doesn't make us prudish.

Umm, yes it does. The value system that make you feel that way is a prudish value system. And we're not just talking about simulated sex, we're talking foul language and nude imagery.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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That is why I said we aren't as prudish as you think.  That 'overall tone' is intentional, but does not reflect reality.  We like our 'edgy' content, we just don't want the kids to have access to it and we don't want you to know about it.  The former I understand completely, the latter, not so much, but it is what it is.

The overall tone is reality. The FCC is very real their impact on U.S. cultural output and behaviour is very real. And in terms of not wanting kids to have access to the edgy content, that is itself prudish. But I mentioned that above.

Having lived in the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Spain and having visited many other countries on four continents and experienced their culture and TV broadcasts first-hand, I'd say the tone of the U.S. culture is perhaps a 6 or a 7 on a 1-10 scale of prudishness. Higher than that if we are to consider only western nations. Obviously there's nothing scientific about this figure, just my own experiences.

I want to point out that this is not an attack on your culture, just my observations. Canadian culture is almost indistinguishable from U.S. culture.