Jim wrote:
"No my reaction to Altman's bringing his talent to bear on a
film that had so little reason to be made is Superman's
whenever he encounters Lex Luthor.
"'If only he had used his great power for good.'"
I thought that was Maxwell Smart's line. Speaking of which, I
saw in the latest Premiere magazine that Steve Carrelll has
siged to play Agent 86.
Perhaps more intersting for us, Paramount is releasing Brian
Helgeland's cut of Payback on DVD in April. Mel Gibson, who
got Helgeland fired, was not involved with the reissue.
Of course, this goes back to Jim's assertion that "more
faithful = better movie." That's just crap. Payback was far
more faithful to the plot of Stark's novel than Point Bank,
but the latter is a far better movie. I recently read PD
James's Children of Men after being very impressed with the
movie (got robbed in not being nominated for best picture). I
was surprised how little of the book was in the movie. In
fact, given how much of the book was interior to a
character's mind, I doubt a faithful rendition would have
worked nearly as well as a movie. This is not a criticism of
the book, which was quite good, but an admission that the two
media are best at different things (and that the book and
movie were created on different sides of 9/11 and the impact
it has had on our view of the future world). And each of
these took advantage of its medium's strengths.
Nor is it an assertion that movies are best when they part
with their sources. Plenty of good (and bad) movies have been
made each way.
As for Jim's claim that Sidney Greenstreet's nomination was a
reward for Huston's faithful adaptation, no, it's a reward
for Greenstreet's acting, which may or may not have been as
good if the movie had followed the book less closely.
Mark
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