If you must read Dan Brown, read Angels and Demons. It is the first Robert Langdon story and "better" than The DaVinci Code. It kept me occupied flying home from Rhode Island.
Let me guess. We're in a hurry.
Inara ,'Serenity'
Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
SuziQ - Sep 29, 2004 5:48:24 am PDT #4200 of 10001
Back tattoos of the mother is that you are absolutely right - Ame
Anne W. - Sep 29, 2004 5:50:16 am PDT #4201 of 10001
The lost sheep grow teeth, forsake their lambs, and lie with the lions.
The DaVinci Code reads as if it was written by someone who read way too many "How to Be a Best-Selling Author!" books.
Vonnie K - Sep 29, 2004 5:55:03 am PDT #4202 of 10001
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.
Heh. So, the consensus is... hell, no?
'S OK. It's not as if my to-read-pile wasn't already approximating the dimension of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Jess M. - Sep 29, 2004 6:25:03 am PDT #4203 of 10001
Let me just say that popularity with people on public transportation does not equal literary respect. --Jesse
The Parent Trap remake with Lindsay Lohan was much more fun and charming than the Freaky Friday remake, I thought. And yeah, I agree with P-C (I think he said it) that LL was a better "adult" than teen. And JLC was hilarious. But for a movie that was really quite short, it seemed to take a long time to get started...(my sister and I watched it off netflix on Monday)
Dana - Sep 29, 2004 6:26:38 am PDT #4204 of 10001
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
Freaky Friday made a great plane movie, though. Much better than that awful movie with Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid that was so boring I've forgotten the name of it...Cold Creek Manor. For a movie that was supposed to be suspenseful and mysterious, it completely lacked suspense or mystery.
§ ita § - Sep 29, 2004 6:27:11 am PDT #4205 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Nova, I just now realised I put in the title of the wrong movie. Somehow I missed your post also correcting the award name.
What I meant to say -- JLC good, not great, LL really well done, still not great.
Polter-Cow - Sep 29, 2004 6:35:43 am PDT #4206 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
See, I've heard all about how badly written The Da Vinci Code is, but that's criticism of the prose. It could still make a fun movie, right?
§ ita § - Sep 29, 2004 6:37:31 am PDT #4207 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
No, the plot's dumb too. There's no characterisation, the conflicts are hackneyed, and the solutions not challenging.
Polter-Cow - Sep 29, 2004 6:42:37 am PDT #4208 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Do things blow up? I like when things blow up.
Nutty - Sep 29, 2004 6:42:47 am PDT #4209 of 10001
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
Freaky Friday made a great plane movie
I think that there are special qualities to being a good plane movie. Like, that silly time-travel movie with Paul Walker, Timeline, was a perfect airplane movie, because it was enthusiastically forward-moving without any complicated plot details to remember (or any logic to follow), and explosions and derring-do at the end. I probably would have hated it as a movie seen on the ground, but on an airplane, perfect.
Whereas, Master and Commander was extremely hard to follow when viewed on an airplane -- the screen was too small for me to see who was who sometimes, and the complexity of action was such that I had a hard time seeing what exactly was happening, despite having seen (and liked) the movie when seen on the ground.
I've heard all about how badly written The Da Vinci Code is, but that's criticism of the prose. It could still make a fun movie, right?
But P-C, haven't you ever read those airport novels that are basically just a movie script in novel format? Those can occasionally make good movies, depending on the acting and the director and whether the whole project winks towards its tawdry roots. Whereas, books that are irritating claptrap tend to make movies that are irritating claptrap, unless some wise soul just borrows the title and premise, and makes something else entirely out of it.