Book 2 Film - the Good, the Bad and the Polemical
The Movie Tipper Suggests that Sometimes
You are Better Off Just Reading the Damn Book.
A Bunch of Book to Movie Treatments and One Brilliant Film
Movies in this Post:
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Atlas Shrugged: Part iii, Who Is John Galt
This Is Where I Leave You | The Maze Runner
The Movie Tipper Suggests that Sometimes
You are Better Off Just Reading the Damn Book.
A Bunch of Book to Movie Treatments and One Brilliant Film
Movies in this Post:
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Atlas Shrugged: Part iii, Who Is John Galt
This Is Where I Leave You | The Maze Runner
A Walk Among the Tombstones
from the novel by Lawrence Block
Movie Tipper Rating: A+
from the novel by Lawrence Block
Movie Tipper Rating: A+
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. - Raymond Chandler The Simple Art of Murder (1950) |
Be warned (be glad) A Walk Among the Tombstones in no way an extension of Liam Neeson’s Taken franchise. Based on a novel by top drawer crime novelist Lawrence Block this is another brooding, atmospheric and ultimately completely satisfying animal altogether. Block’s towering achievement, the Matthew Scudder character, is mercifully spared the unnerving soul evisceration and transplant that was visited on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character. Under Scott Frank’s direction Neeson hews very close to the spirit of Block’s creation. Naturally, I like watching Neeson giving some miscreants the thrashing that they deserve as much as the next filmgoer, but this … this is another thing. |
This is a return to both the honorable private dick of Humphrey Bogart’s noir era that Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett created for the screen and that quickly became part of the very fiber of the American soul and the hardboiled verite creations of the 1970s heyday of American movie making. These are good things, trust me on that. It’s also an AA movie, which is to say that it speaks to the redemption and frailty of recovery very directly in the character of ex-cop, unlicensed private eye, and recovering alcoholic Matthew Scudder. That too, astonishingly, is a good thing. Downton Abbey fans might be unnerved to see a curiously emaciated Dan Stevens in this gritty New York milieu, but fear not - he doesn’t embarrass himself. What a refreshing and great thing it is to be engaged by a movie that is adult, witty, dour and intelligent. That may seem an odd thing to say about a film with this grimy palate and genuinely grisly thriller elements, but I like a real crime drama not just an ass-kicking; I always have. Though, (good Lord) talk about grim. Every single character in this movie has a dark side even if only by accident, it’s chilling. By all means read the book, or rather books - there are 17 Scudder novels (of which this is the 10th), but ...
The Movie Tipper suggests that you SEE THIS MOVIE.
The Movie Tipper suggests that you SEE THIS MOVIE.
~~~~~~~~
Buy Tickets:
http://www.fandango.com/awalkamongthetombstones_175426/movieoverview
Rated: R strong violence, disturbing images, language, and brief nudity
Metacritic Score: 57 (ridiculous)
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-walk-among-the-tombstones
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 66% (way too low, a crime!)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_walk_among_the_tombstones/
Official Site:
http://www.awalkamongthetombstones.net
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/WalkAmongTheTombstones
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AmongTombstones
Buy Tickets:
http://www.fandango.com/awalkamongthetombstones_175426/movieoverview
Rated: R strong violence, disturbing images, language, and brief nudity
Metacritic Score: 57 (ridiculous)
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-walk-among-the-tombstones
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 66% (way too low, a crime!)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_walk_among_the_tombstones/
Official Site:
http://www.awalkamongthetombstones.net
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/WalkAmongTheTombstones
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AmongTombstones
Atlas Shrugged: Part III, Who Is John Galt
from the work of Ayn Rand
Movie Tipper Rating: C
from the work of Ayn Rand
Movie Tipper Rating: C
Not the worst film ever made after all. Pretty much a straight literal reading of the denouement of Rand's last and most thematically literal novel this do-it-yourself production is entirely in keeping with Rand’s own philosophy. Referred to on its own site as a mission, it is in essence a polemical work and that’s all just fine. I mean, why not.
Atlas Shrugged is not an easy book to translate to film, and the need for three installments just to cover the narrative is certainly a tip-off that writers, directors and three entirely different casts of actors playing the same parts had their work cut out for them. Really I don’t envy them this herculean task. Then add to that that for this last installment they had to struggle to put it on screen for less than one third of the budget of even the most conventional Hollywood production, and things start to get a bit strained. Like so strained that they are resorting to stock footage and voice over ... a lot. The end result is a serene sameness interspersed with slideshow like exposition and no glimmer of an auteurist style at all; though in fairness to all concerned the technical aspects of the film are completely serviceable and maybe even amazing when you consider the micro-budget that they had to work with.
Atlas Shrugged is not an easy book to translate to film, and the need for three installments just to cover the narrative is certainly a tip-off that writers, directors and three entirely different casts of actors playing the same parts had their work cut out for them. Really I don’t envy them this herculean task. Then add to that that for this last installment they had to struggle to put it on screen for less than one third of the budget of even the most conventional Hollywood production, and things start to get a bit strained. Like so strained that they are resorting to stock footage and voice over ... a lot. The end result is a serene sameness interspersed with slideshow like exposition and no glimmer of an auteurist style at all; though in fairness to all concerned the technical aspects of the film are completely serviceable and maybe even amazing when you consider the micro-budget that they had to work with.
Those aren’t the only problems. Rand troweled pages and pages of her Objectivist philosophy in between the plot point bricks of her novel that in a film get reduced to plodding non sequiturs like “It’s amazing what can be accomplished without red tape!” Also, the sexy soap component so essential to any Ayn Rand plot suffers in the person of Kristoffer Polaha. He is just not the stuff that dreams are made of. Don’t even think of comparing him to the casually virile, classically handsome genuine movie star Gary Cooper in the 1948 film of Rand’s real masterpiece The Fountainhead. He’s just not handsome or charismatic enough. Not to mention that showing Galt in an actual crucifixion pose was bit over the top, even in a film struggling this hard to make its point. Still, Laura Regan as Dagny Taggart demonstrates that there is a lot more to her than she was able to show on Mad Men with some feisty hair flipping and striding around; even if they did rob her of almost all of her good speeches from the book and replace them with dialogue that might actually have been lifted from a rejected script for some TV show. There are some other odd casting choices too; when Rob Morrow briefly appears it is disconcertingly as though his Dr Fleischman character were still harboring a grudge against Big Government for shipping him to Alaska. |
The basic narrative of personal freedom defiant in the face of government overreach is still there. In Rand’s book it was framed by a story of railroads, steel and valuable metals; all trappings that have lost their sovereignty and thus their metaphoric power now. Actually the familiar seeming narrative of corrupt, collectivist, self-destructive and dysfunctional government seems more in keeping with the dystopian YA stories that have flooded the cineplexes recently. Maybe demonstrating with period detail how the real-life rise of these forces took shape in the early part of the last century would have been pretty cool and maybe attracted some young minds to the ideas being set forth. The insistence on setting the action in something that looks a bit like the present day or near future instead of making a period drama suited to the actual story was I think a grave error; even if it was obviously for budgetary reasons. Still, I think they did an ok job. As a capitalism of the individual vs the reductive forces of big government agitprop film it works, but the production demerits are so evident that beyond the initiated this movie will struggle to spread its message. The Movie Tipper suggests that you just Read the Book. If you are interested in Ayn Rand and her ideas you are just gonna have to do the heavy lifting yourself. |
~~~~~~~~ Buy Tickets: http://www.fandango.com/atlasshrugged:whoisjohngalt_175730/movieoverview Rated: PG-13 Metacritic Score:11 (I’d call that a tad rough) http://www.metacritic.com/movie/atlas-shrugged-iii-who-is-john-galt Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 0% (I wouldn’t call this fair really) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_who_is_john_galt/ Official Site: http://www.atlasshruggedmovie.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AtlasShruggedMovie Twitter: https://twitter.com/AtlasShrugged |
This Is Where I Leave You
from the novel by Jonathan Tropper
Movie Tipper Rating: C
from the novel by Jonathan Tropper
Movie Tipper Rating: C
This movie should have been called Sitting Shiva with the Stars. Here’s a jolly tag line actually deployed to promote this film “There's nothing like an awkward family silence to set the mood”. Hummm … it’s interesting that you mention that; pinging wildly from humourous set pieces to striking moments of emotional truth, struggling to find its own tone this sometimes curiously entertaining large-format sitcom just doesn’t seem to know what mood it’s in from one moment to the next. There is certainly something attractive about the funeral trappings movie made glorious by the brilliant Four Weddings and a Funeral (even Chris Rock was tempted by it), but it’s harder to pull off than it looks. This one just seems to be a pretext for a bunch of really very good actors to have a series of tantrums and act out some completely improbable seeming family squabbles. Sex of course is de rigueur in all funeral comedies, as is face slapping in ways that people just don’t actually do in real life, but this movie requires an acceptance of silliness mixed with angst that I just don’t have. August: Osage County certainly comes to mind, and not in a good way. Jason Bateman distinguishes himself enough that I think it may be time to start calling him underrated, though surely even he is tired of being the only human being in yet another unhinged film. Also, as the tone attempts to deepen he finds himself out of his depth
The Movie Tipper suggests that you just Read the Book. OK he’s not Tolstoy, he’s not even Wally Lamb, still on paper (or Kindle screen) a lot of this guff holds up pretty well.
The Movie Tipper suggests that you just Read the Book. OK he’s not Tolstoy, he’s not even Wally Lamb, still on paper (or Kindle screen) a lot of this guff holds up pretty well.
~~~~~~~~ Buy Tickets: http://www.fandango.com/thisiswhereileaveyou_170257/movieoverview Rated: R Metacritic Score: 44 (oy!) http://www.metacritic.com/movie/this-is-where-i-leave-you Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 43% (I’d call that a tad harsh) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_is_where_i_leave_you/ Official Site: http://thisiswhereileaveyou.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThisisWhereILeaveYou Twitter: https://twitter.com/wbpictures |
The Maze Runner
from James Dashner's Book
Movie Tipper Rating: D
from James Dashner's Book
Movie Tipper Rating: D
Dare we hope that this movie is signaling the end of the YA dystopian movie fad? Since I am an adult I have not read these books. The Maze Runner is the first book in a young-adult post-apocalyptic science fiction trilogy of the same name by James Dashner. Surely I am not the only filmgoer whose heart is chilled by the letters YA followed by the word dystopia. This particular mainly testosterone driven iteration of the basic exceptional teen meets destiny in the dimly lit future trope is just exactly as tedious as you think it will be. Including right there in the dialogue (just in case you hadn’t glommed onto it) the rallying cry of all disaffected teen literature “You’re not like the others, you’re different” … ::groan::
It has a few bright spots, a very few. The design of the thing is neat and tingly, and it has some fun scares. Both Dylan O'Brien and Will Poulter are being nicely set up to have real movie careers, so that’s nice. and … well, that’s about it actually. Then there’s the ending. I suppose that it’s supposed to be setting you up for the next installments of the trilogy (and recent box office numbers pretty much assure that there will be one), but what a thud and a dud.
The Movie Tipper suggests that you Read the Book if you are 12 years old and you feel that you must, and that if you are that age or shepherding around someone who is that you could do worse than See the Movie. I’m not sure how, but you could.
It has a few bright spots, a very few. The design of the thing is neat and tingly, and it has some fun scares. Both Dylan O'Brien and Will Poulter are being nicely set up to have real movie careers, so that’s nice. and … well, that’s about it actually. Then there’s the ending. I suppose that it’s supposed to be setting you up for the next installments of the trilogy (and recent box office numbers pretty much assure that there will be one), but what a thud and a dud.
The Movie Tipper suggests that you Read the Book if you are 12 years old and you feel that you must, and that if you are that age or shepherding around someone who is that you could do worse than See the Movie. I’m not sure how, but you could.
~~~~~~~~ Buy Tickets: http://www.fandango.com/themazerunner_163444/movieoverview Rated: super-violent PG-13 Metacritic Score: 56 http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-maze-runner Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 63% (I’d call this generous) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_maze_runner/ Official Site: http://themazerunnermovie.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MazeRunnerMovie Twitter: https://twitter.com/MazeRunnerMovie |