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[jfb]

Montmartre as post-Amélie tourist destination.

Griping about the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. The seats are too small! The lines are too long! I can hear the subway when it goes by! New Yorkers are spoiled rotten.

A.O. Scott reveals that movies are different from books. Why are we still having this conversation?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, thinking of cover songs was what made me point out that remaking a movie was different. If you're doing the same thing in the same medium, there does need to be something different about the new version or else there's not much point. Ride's cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model" struck me as rather pointless, since it sounds almost identical to the original (although the fact that Ride usually sounds nothing like Kraftwerk makes it somewhat impressive). I didn't see Gus Van Sant's Psycho but I'm guessing that's either an example or a counterexample...

Anyway, you're right, there are plenty of gray areas. I enjoyed Clueless more than Emma, for instance, and it's hard to even compare the two versions of The Shining. I guess it's just that when I read a book and enjoy it, I really want to see it the way the author would want it to be seen, just once. I'm happy to see other interpretations after that.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Psycho is a great example of why you should never go to horror movies on opening night, even if they're really art-house experiments marketed as horror movies.

But seriously: It's exactly an example of a cover version so like the original that there's no point to it--except for the sort of meta point that no one had ever made a remake that uninteresting before. You'll recognize the Martin Gardner reference (http://www.wordsmith.demon.co.uk/paradoxes/#interesting).

[bnewmark.livejournal.com]

just because it seems sort of on topic, i watched "adaptation" the other night, which is based on _the orchid thief_, which i read, and i have to say, i thought it was very creative and unique, given that adapting that book would be... incredibly difficult, to say the least.