Catcher seems pretty darned unfilmable, too.
Hey, don't worry about it. Nest full of vampires, you come get me, okay. Box full of puppies, that's more of a judgement call.
Jonathan ,'Lies My Parents Told Me'
Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai
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.
Tom Scola - Jan 14, 2011 10:04:45 am PST #12785 of 30000
hwæt
Daisy Jane - Jan 14, 2011 10:09:13 am PST #12786 of 30000
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
I couldn't imagine how anyone could film Catch-22, and yet they did, and I liked it.
JZ - Jan 14, 2011 10:34:55 am PST #12787 of 30000
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
I dunno. Jumping from therapy sessions to a WWII massacre, recounted in horrifying detail, to an afterlife that plays off of the wedding feast at Cana. Rape and terror porn, the horrors of the Holocaust as the vehicle for one person's enlightenment, Freudian RPF (actual Freudian, with Freud) and a hearty helping of woo.
Not that I hated it, because I didn't, but I can't think of any way to translate it into film that wouldn't turn any or all of the above into a whole lot of fail.
Wikipedia says that one of the attempts to film it was by David Lynch working with Isabella Rossellini, and I can kind of just barely see that, if I squint; but even so, it's a very "Yes, indeed, that failure would have been a less ghastly failure than the other failures" squint.
Catcher at least has a nice distinctive narrative voice and a ton of vivid episodes, and Catch-22 has some screamingly comic and horrifying dialogue that would be just fun to hear gifted actors doing. But The White Hotel? I... just... no. I might possibly see Lynch's version, or Guy Maddin's, if such a thing ever came to exist; but even so I'd do it out of obligation. Much good as there is in the novel, there's nothing in it that would make me want to see it as a film.
Polter-Cow - Jan 14, 2011 10:40:36 am PST #12788 of 30000
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
The Green Hornet is the rare stoner superhero movie that you can enjoy sober. It actually makes me interested in checking it out.
Daisy Jane - Jan 14, 2011 11:01:17 am PST #12789 of 30000
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
Wikipedia says that one of the attempts to film it was by David Lynch working with Isabella Rossellini, and I can kind of just barely see that, if I squint; but even so, it's a very "Yes, indeed, that failure would have been a less ghastly failure than the other failures" squint.
What? Catch-22, because [link]
Daisy Jane - Jan 14, 2011 11:03:55 am PST #12790 of 30000
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
Ah, I see you were talking about TWH.
However this does sound like something I would cringe at
There was also a brief television comedy series based upon Catch-22 made and televised in 1973, with Richard Dreyfuss in the starring role of Capt. Yossarian.
erikaj - Jan 14, 2011 11:46:58 am PST #12791 of 30000
"already on the kiss-cam with Karl Marx"-
Larry Gelbart could have done it. But that's why he's a legend.
Laga - Jan 14, 2011 11:57:28 am PST #12792 of 30000
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.
I'm sure they pitched it: M.A.S.H. meets Hogan's Heroes.
Kathy A - Jan 14, 2011 1:06:42 pm PST #12793 of 30000
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
I'm with megan--The Alienist would make a great film, and it's too bad no one has managed it yet.
beekaytee - Jan 14, 2011 1:08:52 pm PST #12794 of 30000
Compassionately intolerant
I totally agree. I listen to the audiobook (the abridgment read by Edward Hermann) a couple times a year. The images are so evocative, I feel as if I've already seen the movie!