The new trailer is out for Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox movie. Oh wows. I want to see it so much. It looks all twonky and lo-fi and wonderous. And that game is so going to catch on.
Tag: adaptation
Ok, I take it back. That trailer which I really didn’t like was clearly the result of the powers that be thinking that people would only go and see a political thriller if it had guns and actionythrills, and is not actually a reflection of the film at all. The film being, actually, genuinely really good.
It’s a bit like ‘variations on a theme of state of play’ – I think that’s the best way to explain it. You have this original story that’s really frakking great, and it’s made into an awesome TV series. But what’s being re-made isn’t the TV series, per se, but the story, which is still a frakking great story. I mean, you’d go see several productions of, say, Twelfth Night over the course of your life, if you liked Shakespeare, because they’re all different but equally valid. If it’s a bad production you’re pissed off and regret it, but if it’s good you enjoy it and you get something out of it. State of Play: Teh Film is like a good new production, which takes a slightly different slant on the original story than the TV series did.
Oh Watchmen Watchmen Watchmen.
So here’s the thing, I get why the Watchmen fanboys have gone to town on their love for it. And I get why the snotty-nosed (and also, few less snotty-nosed) don’t. It is both a brilliant film adaptation of the comic, and a fairly rubbish film. Simultaneously.
It’s just too damn faithful, which is the reason for its success and its downfall. They clearly haven’t massacred the source material, so yay, BUT, it also doesn’t add anything to it, and if it doesn’t do that, what is the point of filming it at all? It tries to bring in everyone’s backstories, and everyone’s arcs, and get everyone from character point (a) to character point (b), and completely fails to focus the viewers attention on any particular elements. And the film just can’t cope, it’s collapses under the weight of the material of the book – a book just can do so much more than a film in that regard. The film really needed to decide whether it wanted to focus on either Rorshach *or* Nite Owl/Silk Spectre, and do more with Ozymandias before the end, and follow that through in a way that would do at least for them what the novel does for them all – which is to show the problems inherent in “superheroes”.
So although it’s a very faithful film, it just doesn’t really work as a film. You might as well read the comic whilst listening to the soundtrack.
It’s been a wee while since I read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, but I do remember really enjoying it. Gaiman is a greater storyteller than he is a writer, I think, so it makes sense that his kids stories and fairytales are better than his adult novels. I far prefer Stardust to American Gods, for instance.
Anyway, the trailer for Henry Selick’s film version is now online. As I can’t bring to mind too much of the plot of the novel, I can’t really comment on that aspect of it, but I really do like the look and tone of it. Stop motion is beauteous.
I went to see the tnew film of Brideshead Revisited last night. Brideshead Re-edited.
First off, I’ll admit that it was not at all the trainwreck I was expecting. Nor was it wholly and unentirely unlike the book – except that the Catholicism Screws You Up Theme was much much stronger in a way that Evelyn Waugh might not have liked. And of course the inevitable plot changes – Julia in Venice, WTF?
It was, however, Brideshead Revisited at Warp Speed as whole years went flying out of the window and everything crashed about at the same time in the plot. Bridey and Cordelia nearly ended up flying out of the window after them. Surely the fact that Cordelia is by-and-large content should be important, especially in contrast to her siblings? And whilst Ed Stoppard is a thoroughly repulsive Bridey, he is thoroughly repulsive, where beloved Simon “Arthur Dent” Jones in the TV series was perfectly disconnected, which is how I think Bridey should be. Cousin Jasper wouldn’t say of FilmBridey: “Brideshead went down last year, a very sound fellow…” FilmBridey is not sound to any point of view.
