FNG

I'm doing the book-on-tape thing while I work on my boat lately. I just finished listening to The Beach by Alex Garland. It was a good, fast paced book that felt pulpy with an intellectual edge. I won't review it here, but I want to see the movie now. Like all books that have been adapted into movies, I can't imagine them doing it right. The popular movie format shoots them in the foot right from the getgo. For instance, I remember reading Tai Pan by James Clavell. It is a great historical novel, along with it's brother, Shogun. As I turned the last page I could actually see the credits rolling on a beautiful, visually stunning movie. But it would never work, unless it was something like 12 hours long at a minimum, I told my self. I looked it up anyway, just to see if some idiot had tried. Yep, they tried. And they proceeded to make one of the worse pieces of crap put on the screen. It also looked terrible; not low budget terrible, they had plenty of money; but I stabbed the eyes out of my head with rotting shit terrible. Maybe I exaggerate, but it really pissed me off, that they could desecrate such a great story and setting with this poop. It joyed me to see that Shogun was done right, as a mini-series. Sure, it has it's faults, chiefly, that it is dated, but it still stands up strong. All this bitching about bad taste at film studios and still I can't resist wanting to see the crap they produce. I always hope that maybe, just maybe this time they got it right. Like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Great book and great movie.

So on my list is The Beach, and Minority Report for right now. I hear that M. Night Shamalan is going to make Life of Pi. We'll see if he can do it.