Oscars

[Tard]

Originally posted by Ed T.:
I shared your experiences with Joyce. I read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" a long time ago. Joyce certainly had a beautiful way with the written word, but his storylines were a little too non-linear for my taste.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I had a MUCH more difficult time with 'Ulysses', as the book covers the same exact day through a number of different peoples perceptions/viewpoints. Talk about 'non-linear', this book was non-chronological ta-boot! Every chapter was written with a different persons slang & mindset.

I really want to get out & see PASSION. Not for any other reason than to see how much fuckin punishment the Romans can put him thru (reviewers rank it as one of the most violent and brutal films ever; worse than 'GUINEA PIG: VIOLENCE COMPLETE', probably not, and I still have to catch a screener for 'MORDUM'). Religion-wise, I'm somewhere between Agnostic & Athiest, believe in HIM when I see HIM, not
before. I'm just waiting for the Jesus-Crispies to fade out of the crowds before going to the theatre.

[Edwardt]

Yeah- she was a fanatic about it and actually had pictures of Hobbits hanging on her wall, as I remember. Needless to say, the relationship lasted about as long as my reading of the book. Only other book that ever happened with where I didn't finish but aborted reading after only a few chapters was one of Tom Clancy's books. Can't remember the title, but the book was as thick as a Bible and the initial 2 chapters described military weaponry in loving, fetishistic detail. After finally getting to the 3rd chapter, I decided that life was too short and turned to something else. Once I start a book, or a movie, I like to see it throught to the bitter end, even if it's bad. Not that I'm saying the Hobbit book was bad- just not my cup of tea, I guess. Like science fiction, which can be very well-written, even erudite, but just not a subject that interests me much.

[JundtHeald]

I haven't seen the film either but just go into it thinking its a movie and entertainment, maybe you'll enjoy it more. It's just his view on what happened. Scorsese got blasted for Last Temptation of Christ and it was a pretty good movie.

Only book I ever stopped reading was Moby Dick.

[Edwardt]

Moby Dick was a great book, as I remember it, but it did tend to bog down in the chapters describing the various types of whale populating the ocean. Talk about a big yawn! Still a classic book, though, as was Billy Budd. Melville was an interesting guy, and one day I want to read an extensive biography of him. Although he was married, he's belived to have had homosexual propensities (although its always a tricky thing to psychoanalyze the dead) and ended his days in poverty. Like Poe and Lovecraft, I believe his fame is largely posthumous. He's buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, which also contains the remains of Miles Davis, Fiorello LaGuardia, Duke Ellington, Ruth Snyder, Barbara Hutton, and a score of others, both famous and infamous. Sorry to be so pedantic, but I have locked within my head a vast storehouse of useless and/or eroteric information and I have to get it out some kind of way. Not to beat a dead horse, but I'll probably wait awhile to see the Jesus movie as well. The 1st week it came out, people in my area were leaving the theatre in tears. Not exactly the kind of crowd you can enjoy your popcorn and soda in.

[JundtHeald]

Has anyone seen Secret Window yet?

[Edwardt]

Not yet. I have a real ambivalent attitude towards Stephen King. He can be a great storyteller, even though he cannibalizes a lot of the old horror comics from the 50's. I don't think he's a great writer. His characters tend to be superficial, the dialogue he has them speak always rings false to me, and every book he writes features The Precocious Child, a feature of his writing that I find very tiresome. Some of his short stories are very good. The longer works tend to bog down and fizzle out. As for movies made from his novels, most of them are pretty bad, let's face it. "Dead Zone" was good, but then it was directed by David Cronenberg. "Shawshank Redemption" was effective enough, but King's horror stuff doesn't seem to translate well to film. I'll probably make an effort to see this latest film because I have enormous regard for Johnny Depp. I know people who met him on the set of "Donnie Brasco." Pacino was not unpleasant, but he was surrounded by an entourage and tended to keep to himself. Depp was a regular guy, very down to earth and friendly. Depp also challenges himself in films, I think. This is a guy who could have just coasted along very nicely on his good looks alone. Instead, he takes roles that really do raise the bar. For example, he played a Cuban transvestite in one recent movie, the name of which unfortunately escapes me. For an A list actor to do this is nearly unprecedented, I would think. Name someone else of his stature in mainstream movies playing a comparable role. So, I'll probably end up seeing it, if only because Depp is in it.

[JundtHeald]

Before Night Falls is the movie you are thinking of.

I do like some movies based on King's books like Carrie, The Shining, Dead Zone, Christine, Stand By me, Misery, and Shawshank.

[Edwardt]

"The Shining" had great moments, thanks to Nicholson and Kubrik, but I thought it was a seriously flawed picture. That's a picture I need to see again though. Saw it when it first came out, and I think that's over 20 years ago (Jesus, am I old or what?). I remember a review I read at the time that always stayed with me. The reviewer said one of the reasons it wasn't really effective as a movie was because Nicholson played the character as a crazy from the very beginning. The proper course would have been to play him as normal in the beginning and show a steady escalation of madness as the movie proceeded. But, then again, Nicholson is one of the great actors currently working in films, so who's to say? "Misery" got great reviews but then again, it's not a horror film in the conventional sense. I think when King's films work, they do so more because of the people involved- actors, directors, etc.- rather than the inherent quality of the story. Like I said, I'm real ambivalent about King. Some of his stuff I really like simply because the story is engrossing. "Salem's Lot" is an example (the book, not the movie). I think his best stuff is similar to a really good comic book. "Salem's Lot" suffered from the usual things a King story suffers from - superficial characters, improbable dialogue, etc.- but it worked as a vampire story, for all that. It was simply enjoyable and enjoyably simple and there's nothing wrong with that. I thought they ruined the movie by making the vampire a cheap Nosferatu knock-off. The cheap sets didn't help either.