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Quote:

Originally Posted by evollove

He's created a niche for himself in the marketplace, Cronenberg has.

And Delillo hasn't? Which part are you only fucking with us about?

Yeah, cuz book publishing is totally divorced from business and economics. Just wish for a book and blam! It materializes. Ah... poets! Of course DeLillo gets no money from the publisher or the production company. He needs only ambrosia from Mount Parnassus and his day job as a busboy.

..

I hope this movie is successful so that Cronenberg can (finally, someone who can) make White Noise. Because Barry fucking Sonnenfeld was supposed to make it, but luckily didn't.

The only problem I see with anyone adapting DeLillo is his dialogue. I love how he writes but his dialogue is always awful.

DEEP IMPACT

yep. for the second time seeing it. it still sucks, but it was on t.v.

Quote:

Originally Posted by demonrail666

The only problem I see with anyone adapting DeLillo is his dialogue. I love how he writes but his dialogue is always awful.

i've never noticed this but my guess is that in such case adaptation would actually be helpful, no?

damn, i'm looking for that movie everywhere-- i hope i didn't miss it.

Yeah, I don't see a reason why it couldn't be changed at the script stage but I imagine he's a particularly difficult writer to adapt anyway. I think of him primarily as a stylist, even more than Burroughs, or Ballard. I've never been particularly into his plots or even his ideas but love the way he can describe a scene. There's a kind of precision to them that's really literary, in a way that reminds me a lot of Ian McEwan - another novelist whose books I generally really like but which don't seem to translate very well into film, at least for me. I am fascinated to see how Cosmopolis turned out, though.

His characters always seem like they're giving a speech rather than having any kind of conversation. He's at his best when describing an event but I don't think he's particularly interested in people, as such, except on some kind of conceptual level. That's not really a criticism, more just a personal prejudice of mine, I suppose. And it's more noticable in some books than in others. White Noise (which I otherwise really like) has probably the worst case of it but I don't remember it being that bad in Cosmopolis, although I may just have gotten used to it by then.

But Donny D (as I call him) is not a realist. He flaunts this in LIBRA and UNDERWORLD where we find him gleefully juggling paranoid visions compiled from fact and fiction. And he tosses realism totally out the window with elliptical prose-poems like BODY ARTIST and POINT OMEGA.

Everything in a well-crafted novel should be raised to the same stylized pitch, whatever that pitch, dialogue included.

(Although I admire and prefer the delicate touch it takes, say Updike, to transfer something from my own life onto paper.)

He's not a realist, you're right, but most of his most celebrated passages (say the opening chapter in Underworld or the description of the mass wedding in Mao II) definitely qualify as a very heightened form of naturalism, which his dialogue invariably seems at odds with - which I'm sure he would say is key to his overall message (whatever that may be).

Incidentally, I really couldn't get into Libra. No particular reason, I just couldn't get interested in it. I never finished Underworld, either, but I think that's kind of standard, even with a lot of DeLillo fanatics. I think the idea with Underworld is just to read the first chapter, declare him a genius and then quickly move on to something else before the rest of the book starts to inspire any doubts. (See also the first chapter of Ian McEwan's Atonement.)

Less Than Zero

I love this film. It's not particularly good but nonetheless.

The Virgin Suicides

Lost in Translation

Just got back from going to see a film in a cinema for the first time in 13 years and it was fucking terrible. Was it always this LOUD?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murmer99

I went to see Annie Hall in a theater today and had a good time.

That's a film I'd love to see on a big screen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murmer99

I've been busier than usual, therefore I've tried for the past two days to squeeze in some time to watch Fritz Lang's "M". I've fallen asleep both times due to the circumstances but I remember noticing certain things in the second viewing that I didn't appreciate the first time. I'm not sure why I've never seen this one. Fritz Lang is an interesting director to me, and my favorite of his work so far is The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

You absolutely must see his American films. Not his Westerns so much but his crime films. The Big Heat, Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window are some of the bleakest films Hollywood has ever produced. I actually prefer them to most of his German films, although I do think M is a masterpiece. Metropolis bored me silly, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murmer99

I appreciated it more than I ever have this time around. I loved the quick shots of the bumper cars that Woody placed in proximity with his character bumping into other vehicles when Annie leaves him. I really thought that was brilliant. I felt more of an emotional connection with the film towards the end, when it plays the song that Annie sings.. "seems like old times" and it shows the flashbacks of their relationship just after it has seemingly ended. And of course that quote from Woody right before the film ends. I wouldn't disregard this film as pessimistic.. Woody adds sincerity and absurd dark humor that all makes sense to me. It's somewhat sad and beautiful at the same time. I'd have to admit it's one of my favorite films of all time. Most of the reviews I've read from writers I particularly admire are quite mixed on this one.

I'd recommend you go see it if they play it in your area, demonrail.

Yeah, I really must. It tends to get shown quite regularly so I've probably just taken it for granted a bit. Plus I've now seen it so many times on TV that I can pretty much repeat the dialogue line for line. But there are certain scenes that I imagine would be amazing on a big screen, like when he goes back to Brooklyn or the scenes in LA. Oh well, until the next time it's screened, "la di da"

Quote:

Originally Posted by E. Noisefield

And it was fucking great. I can't believe it took me so long to notice this movie. It might have had something to do with the ultra lame US poster:

I just watched it again. The first time I saw it I had a really hard time taking Ryan Gosling seriously but for some reason he clicked with me this time around. Excellent film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keeping It Simple

Is that any good? A friend keeps trying to get me to watch it but I'm really put off by the poster.

Yeah, no arguments on any of those points from me. A massive Cary Grant fan, too. England's Marcello Mastroianni, only better. (I'm only half joking with the Mastroianni comparison.)

Just watched ...

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I don't think this is a bad film but I do think it pretty much says everything it has to say in about the first 30 minutes and that everything after that just seems like more of the same.