Theresa and Megan reading.
You can access their joint interview in Phoenix's Poison Pen Bookstore right here.
Not sure how long it will be up but it's loads of fun because Patrick asked great questions and they had a lively audience. Isn't the new technology great.
I am a big fan of Egoyan's earlier movies but for some reason, this one, troubled me. I felt the front story, full of intrigue and excitement, left the end story seemingly trite and predictable.
It seems like we were deliberately misled about what the story was about.
I think thrillers can get away with this tactic, but this was not a thriller. Even though it appeared to be for a while.
There was also an extremely improbable final scene. Hard to discuss this without spoilers.
Yet all the reviews for this movie are very favorable. Do you ever feel like you missed the boat with a book or movie? Do you wonder if that something that would have pulled it altogether eluded you?
9 comments:
This one just get mention on Filmspotting in connection with their top performances of the year so far. I haven't honestly been all that into the Egoyan film's that I have seen, but I haven't seen any in sometime.
As far as not getting something that everyone else seems to see, I think it's more a matter of what connects and what misses. There are plenty of things that I can see the quality in that just do no move me.
This is a slight diversion from what you have asked, but your comments remind me of my own disappointments with movies based on novels; in fact, I cannot think of one movie that was either equal to or an improvement upon its antecedent. Thus, I strenuously avoid going to films based on novels, especially if I have a fondness for the novel.
Postscript: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was the only movie that did not disappoint me because I thought it was a decent representation of LeCarre's short novel. I cannot think of other examples, can anyone else?
R.T. I think the movie THE GODFATHER was superior to the novel. I think there are cases when the one is the equal to the other-for instance Egoyan did a fine job with THE SWEET HEREAFTER, but on the whole, no. Alternately, movies into books seldom do much for me.
Top performances, boy, I don't see that either. Seemed pretty standard acting to me. Yes, the connection was missed for me because of the misdirection he insisted on beginning with.
The movie version of THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER was better than Nelson DeMille's novel. The larger question of being out of step with critical opinion and conventional wisdom is another issue. I've tried to read Proust twice. Each time, I bailed out after a 100 pages. I've tried to read Samuel Beckett's novels. Same thing. I'm just not getting it. Some books and movies just don't connect with me.
I can't even think about Proust without getting the shivers.
I recently saw the new Agnes Varda film, "The Beaches of Agnes," which people have been raving about for months. I thought it was very clever and charming - but also too precious, and removed from her past. It's supposed to be a memoir, but it didn't give any real impression of who she was at different points in her career. Just lots of "nice" memories of people she knew - nothing intimate or insightful.
That said, it is still pretty fun, and I'm glad I saw it. But -- like you said, Patti, I guess I just don't see what all the commotion is about.
If it appeared to be a thriller for a while, it sounds like it didn't meet the expectation of its audience.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE the first film was certainly an improvement over the novel. Haven't seen the remake.
At least sometimes, there's something in a novelization that goes beyond the the film...Barry Malzberg's PHASE IV comes to mind, and there are odd hybrids, such as Kurt Vonnegut's OF TIME AND TIMBUKTU and the fact that Clarke and Kubrick collaborated on the treatment for 2001, then went their own ways for novel and script. I suspect that if I read it, Fritz Leiber's TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD will be better than both the film and any of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan novels.
Excellent acting, unimpressive script: AWAY WE GO. Decent acting and special effects, atrocious script and everything else: MOON.
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