movies

[Vidor]

I've never understood why people like it so much. One of my least favorite Hitchcock movies.

BOOOOOOOOOO

[ghostrunner]

I take it back. I probably like Rope less.

Of what I've seen I'd go:

Rear Window
The Trouble With Harry
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Strangers on a Train
Spellbound
The Birds
Psycho
Rope

[JL21]

Wait, I can understand liking some Hitchcock less than others, but Psycho and Rope are both good and fun. Or at least I thought they were.

If nothing else, Rope is hilarious for all of the overt references to masturbation.

The thing for me with Hitchcock is that if you want to put aside your inner film scholar, he's still a blast- and I find it true in all of the films you've listed there. But if you want to dig into subtext, there's a treasure trove of hilarious Freudian references. And the craftsmanship is top notch, like the spinning eye/drain scene in Psycho. Or the blurry, no-visibility windshield that Marion has in the storm right before she stops being the protag.

[ghostrunner]

I should probably see both again. Mostly I remember being underwhelmed by Psycho, and jarred by the protagonist getting killed. But I saw it when I was younger - late teens, early 20's. I was excited to see it because of it's rep, so maybe it didn't live up to whatever I thought it would be. Particularly once Martin Balsam takes over.

[33anda3rd]

If nothing else, Rope is hilarious for all of the overt references to masturbation.

The thing for me with Hitchcock is that if you want to put aside your inner film scholar, he's still a blast- and I find it true in all of the films you've listed there. But if you want to dig into subtext, there's a treasure trove of hilarious Freudian references.

If you wanted to make 10 new fun drinking games based on movies, and you wanted them to all be psychosexually based, you could probably pick 10 Hitchcoks, skip all others, and have no regrets.

[33anda3rd]

And more importantly, my biggest pet peeve- never compare the book to the movie or vice versa. Because: 1. You go in with a pre-concieved unfair notion of what the film HAS to be, which isn't fair to the film, and 2. They're different art forms, meant to be taken as they are and on their own merits.

I agree. I'm just making the comparison, cuz, well, it's Pynchon, I worship at the guy's feet.

33 - I agree that ideally Inherent Vice would've moved at a much more frenetic, off-the-wall pace.

In principle I agree about adaptations, but we're not talking about Grisham or Danielle Steele, we're talking about the Greatest Living Author and the first film adaptation of his work. Pynchon acolytes like me and TTM are expecting something that honors the tone, pace, sense of humor, structure* of a Pynchon book, and in Inherent Vice that is lacking.

I don't think the quality of the author has a lot to do with the principle. The problem is still your expectations. The filmmakers aren't obligated to provide a definitive or representative adaptation, just the one they want to make.

I agree for 90% of book-to-film adaptations, but disagree in some cases and this is one.

You have the greatest living American author. A guy so elusive he skipped out of Mexico when they came to interview him about his debut novel. Who has refused interviews for over 50 years. Who as an F-you to the literary establishment sent a comedian to accept his National Book Award in the same year the Pulitzer Prize refused their panel's recommendation that Gravity's Rainbow be given the Pulitzer on the grounds of obscenity, leaving the Pulitzer vacant that year instead of giving it to the greatest American novel of the last 60 years. Who has written at least 4 flat-out masterpieces of fiction while going 7, 17, 7, 9 years between works leaving a fanbase and literati salivating for more. Who has insisted via his actions that his work speak for itself. A guy whose work has been studied and written about to such a nano level that even the "I tried GR/V/Mason & Dixon and stopped at 200 pages" crowd is still familiar with his themes and what he's about.

This is a case where, fine, pick the thing about Pynchon that's most important to you and put it forward, but honor the other stuff. Because if you're not going to full-on adapt Pynchon for the screen and throw all that's great about his work into the adaptation, then you're not really adapting a Pynchon novel to the screen, you're borrowing the story to pursue your own interests. And PTA can write his own story, he doesn't need a literary source to tell a compelling one. You can borrow a story from tens of thousands of novels and explore your own stuff in there.

[Famous Mortimer]

Psycho is a damn masterpiece. I saw it at the Ragtag in Columbia and it was great fun, big group of people all really enjoying it.

But I just finished the No Retreat, No Surrender series, all five movies (although the last two are better known under unrelated titles). 2 and 4 are great fun, the other three are bloody awful. Loren Avedon could have been a decent-sized star, although he was apparently fairly difficult to work with, an attitude I'm sure he regrets now, twelve years past his last starring role.

[go birds]

The Guest was nothing short of amazing.

At this point, im convinced Wingard can do no wrong.

[ghostrunner]

And more importantly, my biggest pet peeve- never compare the book to the movie or vice versa. Because: 1. You go in with a pre-concieved unfair notion of what the film HAS to be, which isn't fair to the film, and 2. They're different art forms, meant to be taken as they are and on their own merits.

I agree. I'm just making the comparison, cuz, well, it's Pynchon, I worship at the guy's feet.

33 - I agree that ideally Inherent Vice would've moved at a much more frenetic, off-the-wall pace.

In principle I agree about adaptations, but we're not talking about Grisham or Danielle Steele, we're talking about the Greatest Living Author and the first film adaptation of his work. Pynchon acolytes like me and TTM are expecting something that honors the tone, pace, sense of humor, structure* of a Pynchon book, and in Inherent Vice that is lacking.

I don't think the quality of the author has a lot to do with the principle. The problem is still your expectations. The filmmakers aren't obligated to provide a definitive or representative adaptation, just the one they want to make.

I agree for 90% of book-to-film adaptations, but disagree in some cases and this is one.

You have the greatest living American author. A guy so elusive he skipped out of Mexico when they came to interview him about his debut novel. Who has refused interviews for over 50 years. Who as an F-you to the literary establishment sent a comedian to accept his National Book Award in the same year the Pulitzer Prize refused their panel's recommendation that Gravity's Rainbow be given the Pulitzer on the grounds of obscenity, leaving the Pulitzer vacant that year instead of giving it to the greatest American novel of the last 60 years. Who has written at least 4 flat-out masterpieces of fiction while going 7, 17, 7, 9 years between works leaving a fanbase and literati salivating for more. Who has insisted via his actions that his work speak for itself. A guy whose work has been studied and written about to such a nano level that even the "I tried GR/V/Mason & Dixon and stopped at 200 pages" crowd is still familiar with his themes and what he's about.

This is a case where, fine, pick the thing about Pynchon that's most important to you and put it forward, but honor the other stuff. Because if you're not going to full-on adapt Pynchon for the screen and throw all that's great about his work into the adaptation, then you're not really adapting a Pynchon novel to the screen, you're borrowing the story to pursue your own interests. And PTA can write his own story, he doesn't need a literary source to tell a compelling one. You can borrow a story from tens of thousands of novels and explore your own stuff in there.

Or this particular movie isn't specifically made with just Pynchon fans in mind. Or maybe he just flat out failed. The rap on Pynchon's books has always been that they're unfilmable anyway, which makes sense to me based on what I have read of him. Might be similar to Naked Lunch, which people said was unfilmable, and then Cronenberg apparently went off on his own tangent and at least in that case made a great movie. The Godfather is considered one of the best two movies ever, and is based off what is widely considered a bad book. There aren't rules for this kind of thing.

As far as what the filmmakers are obligated to do - come on. You can't dictate inspiration, interpretation, approach, etc... Make your own movie if you feel that way - and I'm not trying to be flip.

[BW23]

Saw Imitation Game this weekend. I liked it.