Category Archives: Book to Film Adaptations

Franchise Frenzy with Star Trek Beyond and Jason Bourne

It wouldn’t be the summer movie season without franchise entries galore, and although I proudly shirk most, two series I have always enjoyed are Star Trek and Jason Bourne. The latest episodes opened on back to back weekends and both are entertaining, serviceable entries providing escapism that hit all their required marks. But it was interesting to see how one was almost undone by its director’s ambition with action sequences, while the other was so taut and perfectly executed in its action as to take the film to another level. If Justin Lin’s smash-and-grab acrobatic incoherence is the perfect example of what not to do with action sequences, then Paul Greengrass’ intense hand-held location shooting is the masterclass of modern action direction.

Star Trek Beyond Damnit Jim Its Bright In Here

Being with the same cast for the third time around gives Star Trek Beyond a nice lived-in feel. We know the characters so well, as these actors have come into their own doing great jobs with Simon Pegg’s scripted witty and goofy banter that harkens back to classic Treks, especially Karl Urban as Bones. The plot is pretty basic. And since it seems like The Enterprise needs to get destroyed every time now, they wisely dispense with this in the beginning when the crew crash lands on an uncharted planet after having fallen into a giant space booby-trap. On hand as the villain, is a growling Idris Elba who seems to be the go-to guy for villains with crazy accents these days. The flick is fun and quick paced, and the special effects (especially the giant space station/city Yorktown) are colorful, bright and dazzling.

I was happy to see J.J. Abrams move on from the franchise, but Justin Lin was not the right choice to replace him. Lin made quite a name for himself orchestrating some of the most gleefully over-the-top car/truck/tank/plane/whatever smash-em-ups in the otherwise brain-dead Fast & Furious franchise. Sadly, his flair for the outlandish stunt doesn’t translate as well into space.   Continue reading →

Our Kind of Traitor is Our Kind of Movie

Our Kind of Traitor

In Marrakech, a British couple on the skids looking to reignite their stagnant marriage (an always slightly slimy but marginally honorable Ewan McGregor, the professor, and a delightful Naomie Harris, the barrister) accidentally befriend a bawdy yet charming Russian mobster (a smashingly good Stellan Skarsgard) and his brood of children in peril.  Wouldn’t you know it that Russian guy is looking to have help delivering a secret bank file to MI6 and get safe passage for his family on the eve of a shady financial deal his boss would kill people to cover up.  Once back in London, one British spy (Damien Lewis, nicely against type as the buttoned-up good guy) makes it his mission to use this information to bring down a certain MP (Jeremy Northam) involved in the corruption.

Susanna White’s jazzed up version of a John le Carre film adaptation is far better and more enjoyable than the ho-hum reviews and the movie’s own slickly off-putting first twenty minutes would have you believe.   Continue reading →

The Spin’s Top 40 Sci-fi Films of All Time

LEPRECHAUN-IN-SPACE

Well, those ever-expanding genre polls over at Wonders in the Dark continue…and next on their docket is the Top Sci-fi films.  Below is the list I submitted, and in the coming weeks and months they will be unveiling their list after all the votes are tabulated.  I went with a fairly liberal definition for sci-fi, hence some genre-bending monster and horror films made the cut (but alas, no Leprechaun in Space!).  Also making the cut are films like Being John Malkovich, as I saw in the film a “scientific” explanation for how people were able to enter the head of John Malkovich…an unnerving “fiction” for sure!

Sci-fi films from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s (along with Universal Monster movies from the 30’s) ruled my childhood as they were shown in endless loops on local television on the weekends…so there are many sentimental favorites here.  The list topper, from one Stanley Kubrick, should come as no surprise for my readers, as it is also a film I routinely name in my revolving Top Five Films of All Time.  Coming in at number 2, might surprise some, as it’s also a Universal Monster classic…James Whale’s Frankenstein, a great film based on Mary Shelley’s trailblazing sci-fi-by-way-of-parental-wish-fulfillment-nightmare gothic novel.

The best science fiction films typically tap into some disturbed psychology and common fears…hence its natural and seamless blend with horror (see Alien).  Satire, both gentle and militant, mixed with science fiction can also be potent (see the works of Jonze and Verhoeven and Miller).  At its most noble, science fiction allows us to dream bigger dreams (see the best of Spielberg and Nolan).

I’ll let the rest of the list below speak for itself – links provided to more detailed write-ups and reviews of applicable films provided by clicking the title. Continue reading →

Well, He’s No Solomon…in Love & Friendship

Love & Friendship

Mild-mannered, well-groomed, high-stakes, period-piece social satire reigns supreme in Whit Stillman’s sharp film adaptation of a “lost” and incomplete Jane Austen novella.  Austen simply titled it after her conniving, widowed but still lively anti-heroine Lady Susan (played with perfectly vivacious high-brow snark by Kate Beckinsale), but Stillman plays on Austen’s “Blank & Blank” template and renames it Love & Friendship.  The title itself a rouse, much like the import of debutante season in Stillman’s Metropolitan.

As in the most superior of Austen or Stillman works, high society types are on display in all of their entertaining mannerisms and foibles.  The two authors separated by centuries seem a perfect marriage, as humor both scathing and dry, bites and blows across the posh manners, country estates and London townhouses where Susan plots to find both her and her daughter (Morfydd Clark) rich husbands to secure their futures.  Never do the characters seem aware of their preposterousness, as if all of life is a parlor game, and their scruples (or lack thereof) never are challenged even as gossip and innuendos challenge their lot and plot. Continue reading →

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is Everything that is Wrong with Modern Shakespeare Adaptations

Macbeth

In an unnamed tented wilderness (seriously, you could’ve convinced me these people were living in Mongolian yurts) some psycho (Michael Fassbender – all grit and style, no substance) starts killing people to become king while his libidinous, depressed wife (Marion Cotillard – wasted) pines for their beautiful Guns-N-Roses music-video-style-photographed dead child (buried…or burned…in the opening scene).  Eventually the action moves to some moodily lit chapels and castles where I finally realized the growling and whispering actors were speaking with Scottish accents (except Marion Cottilard – who spoke with….a….what the eff accent?)

Macbeth is allegedly an adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play and I had no idea what was going on most of the time.  Kurzel’s adaptation (which incidentally has some 1980’s big-hair metal band meets Game of Thrones style cinematography from the otherwise talented Adam Arkapaw that could fool someone into thinking they are watching something dreadfully artsy) is completely incompetent.  For the most part, the film is slavish to Shakespeare’s language (when it’s not cutting key lines), which seems like a good idea (umm, considering Shakespeare’s dialogue is like the best dialogue ever written in the English language) except for the fact it is spoken by otherwise award-caliber thespians with absolutely no sense of feeling or nuance or wit or…well…anything. Continue reading →

Reverence for The Revenant

The Revenant_04

Oh, how I wish I could have gone into The Revenant completely cold, knowing nothing other than it was Inarritu and DiCaprio.  Curiously the film suffers from following an amazing, shrewdly edited trailer that promised uncompromised tension as DiCaprio fights for survival across dreadfully gorgeous cinemascope-worthy mountainous winter landscapes photographed in otherworldly fashion by the king of pretty “sunlight through trees” cinematography Emmanuel Lubezki.  What if I hadn’t known that epic bear attack was coming?  What if I hadn’t known Tom Hardy was going to murder (wait, does everyone know this yet?).  What if…what if…what a shock the film would’ve been had I not already known its moves.

Bu the trailer and its subsequent building buzz hit perfectly on everything:

  • This was loosely (very loosely) based on a harrowing true tale that became a book.
  • DiCaprio gets viciously mauled by a bear (in fact, gets his throat almost ripped out and spends the rest of the film in sparse, pained speech when not completely silent or gurgling blood) and left for dead.
  • Mother Nature is both heartless and beautiful.
  • Tom Hardy (sporting his own unique growling speech and interesting accent) is gonna get his.

Despite being in awe of the craftsmanship and audacity of its scope, watching the film seemed stripped of any suspense.  You feel like you’re going through the motions even though it’s utterly captivating from a visual sense.  Continue reading →

The 10th Annual Davies Awards in Film

A Look Back at 2015:

Speak low…when you speak love…when you speak of the films you love…

There’s a film that was released in 2015 that hardly anyone is mentioning at year’s end.  It’s a film that for fans of a certain type of old-school cinema…those who love noir, Lang, Hitchcock and The Third Man…soared wafting in on the summer breezes to art-house theaters like a fresh breath of cool lake air.  And it features a singular performance (from the one and only Nina Hoss) and a closing scene, so haunting, so complete, so cinematic, so classy…it made those lovers of that refined kind of retro flick gasp.  “We didn’t know they could make them like this anymore…” we communally thought.  Oh, but they do…and it’s so very rare and precious when they do.  Phoenix (and for the legions who haven’t seen it, please do…it’s currently streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime) is the film of the year – hell, maybe of the decade.  My wife and I loved it so much we had “Speak Low” play as one of our wedding songs.  It’s that damn good.  And unforgettable. Continue reading →

Carol Takes the Train

Carol Christmas

In Todd Haynes’ picture-perfect design of aching mid-century refinement and repression, Carol (adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel, The Price of Salt), our titular maddening matron (Cate Blanchett) meets her soon-to-be lover/shop girl Therese (Rooney Mara) in the toy department while looking for a doll for her four-year girl for Christmas.  Therese convinces her instead to buy a train set.  The whole film, delicately detailed and quietly chugging along, is like that perfectly constructed train set – and the characters are all there perfect in their places…until they aren’t…until their desires cause everything that was supposed to represent the American Dream in the 1950’s to derail.

Haynes and his lead, Blanchett, are firmly in their wheelhouses.  Blanchett is right at home depicting a troubled woman stuck at the echelons of society in an impossibly well-do-family with a controlling husband (Kyle Chandler) and adorable little girl with impossibly WASPy names like Harge and Rindy.  She was made to play this type of role, a woman of carefully controlled mannerisms hiding her repression and passions.  Continue reading →

Brooklyn Bridge to the Past

Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn

Early on in John Crowley’s  Nick Hornby scripted film adaptation of Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn, the director wisely let’s his camera linger on star Saoirse Ronan’s face while at a neighborhood dance where her BFF Nancy has nabbed a man on the dance floor and Eilis is once again left to ponder whether there will ever be anything or anyone to keep her in Ireland.  Ronan, whose performance would be a revelation if she hadn’t already proven herself as a wee lass in Atonement, completely and subtly commands the camera and the audience, the slight tensing of her neck tendons, the nuanced flint in her eyes, that almost imperceptible sigh.  The whole plight of everyone who has ever wondered what else might be out there is written on her face.  And off to America…and to Brooklyn…Eilis goes.  Brooklyn is blessed by a few of these very smart moments, and also by a lot of clichéd ones.  There’s really not much suspense in guessing our heroine’s fate, but there are moments of sincere heartache and gentle beauty. Continue reading →

Dead Giveaway: The Motion Picture

Room 01

In Lenny Abrahamson’s tonally perfect adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel, Room (smartly scripted by the novelist herself), a young mother (Brie Larson) imprisoned in a backyard shed by a sexual predator since she was 17 creates an elaborate imaginary world for her 5-year-old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), to inhabit in order to shield him from the true horrors of their lonely existence (seriously…thank god they had TV…it was their only connection to the outside world).  But eventually she comes to a breaking point, and she must shatter her little boy’s world in order to convince him to agree to a scheme for them to break out into freedom.

Apart from the subversive reprieve for the lasting power of television in a smart-phone and social media obsessed world, Room is stacked with all the right moves crafted to push all the right emotional buttons.  The escape plan is truly harrowing and daring, and Abrahamson films it in a way to build up genuine suspense – the shots, editing, music and acting are all top grade.  Continue reading →