Sherrie Lee wrote:
> On Mar 29, 4:19 am, "Dennis M. Hammes"
arvig.net> wrote:
> >>Sherrie Lee wrote:
>
>
> [...]
>
>
>>>Do you own a DVD player? Have you seen Adaptation?
>>
>>Yes. No.
>
>
> Thanks. I didn't want to say before in case you're the modest type,
> but I have a very simple DVD player (and a great box with styro-
> popcorn
> from jrcigar that it could have fit in) that I don't need any more,
> and I'd have given it to you if you'd have needed it. That's a reason
> I asked.
The one thing I hate about JR is the styropop. Fills the trashcan in
one shipment. One place uses wadded paper, I just wad it harder.
The rest use bubblebags, one poke and they're flat.
I should tell JR to get a roll of newsprint from the local
printer. Roll it on, off, a pickup truck, roll it where needed.
Cheaper'n plastic, just rip it off and wad it.
>
> I should have probably asked you whether it was a "working" DVD
> player.
>
> Mine is.
>
My favorite old RCA (with the Functions) is sitting under the kitchen
humidor waiting to be ripped apart and cleaned with great violence.
The Guk replacement "works" after a fashion, i.e., well enough
after a Sufficient Number of Words, but I'm gonna hafta talk myself
into fixing the "good" one before the new one turns into a pile of
Dockery.
>
>>>I can't recommend the book The Orchid Thief, but I'm likely to read it
>>>(Adaptation is a screenwriter's struggle to be faithful to the
>>>book ... though he never says it, but he had to have worries about
>>>how, "The book is always better than the movie" stuff running through
>>>his head).
>>
>>The narrator voices over the whole book, telling us stuff that can't
>>even be /seen/ by a camera, let alone explained. It results in most
>>books being at least quite different works from their movies, in most
>>cases better.
>
>
> I watched it again (for the maybe 6th time) last night
> after having read what passages from the book are available
> on line (and during which I paused to search the online script
> for a line I couldn't quite get after repeated rewinds and playbacks)
>
> and I'll tell ya, this repeated watching is having me see more and
> more,
> if it's only to see that I can see through the camera's lens in some
> now
> obvious scenes that I know were meant to be, but lost on me the first
> few
> go arounds. For me, the movie is repeatable.
>
For me, /all/ movies are repeatble, and for the reasons you cite.
From a very early age, we useta go to the first show for the
story, and sit through the second showing for the Whuffo.
("Whuffo He Do Dat?")
>
>> If a story is to be told in narrative prose, one cannot turn the
>>mention of a parking incident on page 257 into a quarter of the movie
>>without at least a material imbalance of intents and importances.
>> One must remember, ALWAYS, that the single page of the comic book
>>screen is functionally illiterate. Thus, the audience, along with
>>its nickels, most attracted to the medium will be "same."
>>
>>Once there was a book, "Flight 402," that was turned into the movie,
>>"Runway Zero-Eight," with the material collaboration of the author as
>>screenwriter.
>> But airplanes are expensive, see, and jumping onto them from
>>helicopters doesn't really appeal to me, see (they should have used a
>>KC-134), so I've got this idea, see. This apparently-ordinary woman
>>is on a bus, and the driver gets sick. And his cell rings, and she
>>answers, see. And a Voice tells her that if the bus goes slower than
>>50 mph, see, this bomb, see, which the Voice has put on the bus, see,
>>will go BOOM.
>> You can see how there just isn't the ability to develop the
>>woman's character, see, about how she'd driven ambulances under fire
>>in the war, see, until a tragic accident that hurt a puppy's paw
>>caused her to swear she'd never drive again.
>> Does she or doesn't she?
>> Only her hairdresser will ever know for sure, because she's got
>>about sixteen frames to do the entire PTSD flashbackie and grab the
>>wheel.
>> And now she's sitting at the wheel, and you've got about 83
>>minutes of screen time to fill.
>
>
> The best thing about that is the Voice who announces the warning.
> Why not just let the bus blow up? Cuz there'd be no movie?
Oya, but it'd be only about 20 frames long and you've still got 82
minutes to fill.
> The Voice has to be the friggen ego-filled power with its own purpose,
> to drive the movie forward, fast, and dangerous, in a secret laugh of,
> "I love effing with you, mother-effer!" He
>
John Malkovich.
Just the lips.
Full-screen.
>
> gets off on the puppet
> strings
> in his hands; meanwhile, everyone else is trying to get off!
>
> Well, except for the movie-go-er filled with hope and promise
Tsk. He's trying to get off, too.
Just -- on the movie.
> that he'll get his money's worth, that the movie can drag out
> another 83 minutes during which time maybe a guy can
> lick the butter off his girlfriend's fingers. And if she likes him
> she probably can't wait for the stupid movie to end so she can
> reciprocate. Because isn't that how it's supposed to work?
"Fingers?"
Come, now, there are better uses for butter.
'Specially in movies.
Get /lots/ more than 83 minutes out 'em, too.
>
> I like you, you like me. I help you, you help me.
I can just hear that.
"Butter!"
"Par/ka-ay/..."
>
> And we get really pissed if we waste $10.00 plus popcorn and Mountain
> Dew,
> not to mention TIME, if the movie doesn't give what it promised in the
> trailer hype.
Ah. I was wondering why you brought the magazine.
(I bring a Fast-Forward Button.)
>
> The girl's bored. You try to be funny and make the most of it. She's
> understanding.
Only if she wants to he his underlying reason for everything.
If she doesn't wanna be underlying, she will /not/ be understanding.
>
> So off you go for an icecream cone and a round of Putt-Putt golf,
> where you're
> secretly hoping she won't slap you for slipping in behind her to show
> her a few
> of your putt-putt moves.
>
Why I have a VCR/etc.
If alone, I can turn it off or put in something else.
If in understanding company, I can fall asleep in My Chair.
If not, I can talk (well, write) back at the screen.
