philosoraptor42

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I've always thought that Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" (sometimes known as "Tiger! Tiger!") would make a fantastic sci-fi action movie. (Perhaps remove the rape, which should be easy considering that the 50s writing style means that it's never explicitly mentioned anyway.) The book is simply filled with clever little sci-fi ideas (so I can express outrage about every single one that gets left out or badly represtented in the movie adaptation) and has an anti-hero for a lead protagonist.

Apparently the book was made into a BBC Radio Play with Miranda Richardson amongst the cast, so I'd be interested to hear what that was like. The whole book is currently available online, including Neil Gaiman's introduction: http://www.american-buddha.com/starsmydestinationtoc.htm

I reckon if I were choosing someone for the character of Gully Foyle, I think I'd pick Jason Statham. I'd also happily choose Milla Jojovich for the thief he teams up with for much of the movie. There's a psychic child in it at one point and since I'd be inclined to pick the best young actor I can for the role I might have them switch gender and give the role to Dakota Fanning. I'd like Dagenham, the radioactive hitman, to be played by Peter Weller.

Of course, a more sensible casting director would make rather different choices if they didn't want this to inevitably end up in a bargain bin. However, since I'm currently envisaging a Total Recall style sci-fi action movie, those were the names the came to mind.

So yeah, we'll finish off by illustrating my ridiculous cast suggestions and a neat bit of artwork from DeviantArt...

( Read more... )

Just got around to checking out Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr Fox" movie. A few people reckoned it was one of their favourite movies of 2009. I'm afraid to say it has more than realised all my worst fears.

Just like the trailer suggested, it is a heist movie in the style of George Clooney's prior contribution "Ocean's Eleven". Meanwhile it is mainly unrelated to the novel on which it is meant to be based. Ok fair enough, think of it as a movie rather than as an adaptation. Not so hard, right? ... Well, as a big Roald Dahl fan that'll always be playing on my mind, but whatever.

Here's the problem. It's borrrring. I know that seems a little lacking in details and, as such, a rather uncultured thing to say. Admittedly my first instinct in answering exactly why I think it is borrrring is to point everyone to the much more exciting and engaging book. I'm still midway through the movie. (Don't worry, it's on pause.) We've just been told that Mr. Fox has a plan. His plan is to take over a farm. What have the farmers done to him? Well nothing, they're just bad people. There's now been a lot of talking, some of it related to the need for a "plan", but most of it just being self-indulgent BS.

Y'know when I first knew this movie was going to be bad news? Well, actually it wasn't when Mr. Fox reacted badly to Mrs. Fox telling him she was pregnant. No, it was actually the first time that Mr. Fox decided to do this clicking noise followed by a whistle. Oh dear is it irritating. And he does it ALL THE TIME. They've given Mr. Fox this annoying noise to do to indicate, um, that he's... er... cool? They obviously think it's cute and it's REALLY NOT AT ALL! Gah!

The worst thing is that I am well into the movie and very little that is remotely exciting is happening yet. The main reason why nothing is exciting or interesting or engaging or thought-provoking is because I couldn't care less about anyone. Actually, the Mr. Fox's son is making a good stab at making me care about him, but the stark indifference he gets from his father, the "fantastic"(?) protagonist, is perhaps the main cause for sympathy.

Just watched a little. There was a rather boring heist scene where I really didn't care about anything that happened. Then there was a scene showing Mr. Fox's son getting bitter about his cousin who is much better than him at everything., which was reasonably engaging. I get the impression that Wes Anderson just wanted to make a different movie and, if anything, Roald Dahl's story was limiting him. Roald Dahl's name should not be on this movie and more set up should have been done on why we should care about Mr. Fox's heists.

Must I really watch this all the way through? *groans*

IO9 announce that there's going to be a graphic novel exploring the backstory of the vampire protagonist. Apparently they come across "viscious men consumed with greed".

A flashback involving viscious greedy men sounds somewhat familiar for those of us who've read the book. So unsurprisingly, there are several commenters saying "actually I didn't want to read a graphic novel about a boy having his genitals chopped off".

(Un)Fortunately, since it's a prequel to the remake (titled "Let Me In") we don't need to worry about that. In this version the vampire's name has been changed from Eli to Abby. Forget that Ellie is clearly a much more common girl's name than Abby. Apparently the young vampire's lengthy history of sexual exploitation is far less important than the section of the story with the zombie. *facepalm* Needless to say that the contents of the graphic novel seem pretty irrelevant to the version of the story found in the novel (as well as that found in the original movie):

Being forced to spend eternity as a vampire-trapped in the mind and body of a child, with slaughter the only recourse for survival-is torture enough. But when Abby finds herself faced with a ruthless real-estate tycoon willing to do anything to get at the property she and her caretaker call home, far more monstrous torments await.

By comparison to what Eli had to deal with, that sounds pretty trivial. You know what would normally happen if someone threatened to throw them out of their home? They'd have to move somewhere else. (Probably after sucking the blood out of the real-estate tycoon or, more likely, his unfortunate lackey.) From the images provided it looks like she's going to play detective and catch a serial killer. The child vampire I read about wouldn't give a sh**.