redfiona99

During the Spanish trip (see posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11) I was reading LA Confidential.

It is an awesome book. It's thick and dark and rich (like good goulash) and I want to return to it to spend more time in that world. James Ellroy puts words together in a pleasing way.

This bit is more about how well they adapted it because yeah, I can see why they said it was unadaptable (see also there are many bad goulashes out there).

What interests me is how well they caught the characters even when they really changed them (especially Jack Vincennes). Because they really get how Bud White is a great hulking brute with a giant squishy heart and that's both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. (And that he adds the heart that Ed Exley, bless his cotton socks, does not have. He is a great man, not a good man.)

They do cut the bit where it's not his violent qualities which help him hunt down the bad guy, but the brains that everyone assumes he doesn't have because he's a hulking brute. (Also Russell Crowe is perfect as him. Like actually perfect.)

They also cut a lot of Inez but I can see why because to do everything in the book, you'd have to make it a mini-series.

Jack Vincennes is interesting because they make him both less relatable (corrupted by fame vs hiding a terrible secret) and a lot more (because his secret makes him a terrible human being while you know corrupted by fame is at least relatable). I'm presuming they had to to hook a big name actor (I am eliding for a reason).

I think it's that actually getting the characters to feel right is the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one. It's like Ran and King Lear, they get the important bits of the characters so all the changes work. This is versus say the Disney Musketeers, which gets Milady and the Cardinal so wrong that the whole thing cannot work, no matter how closely (or not) they stick to the rest of it.

Because L assures me that sometimes my post should be up to date and my film reviews are now running 5-6 years late.

I start with some caveats:
1 - in my comic book days, I was very much a Marvel girl. Make mine Marvel etc. The nearest I got to DC was Batman.

2 - James Gunn is one of those creative types who appears to have a direct line to my soul. He is responsible for an excessive amount of me crying in cinemas; somewhat famously, the time Guardians of the Galaxy made me cry so hard I gave L a migraine.

I have very little skin in this game (Superman) and I know that I will enjoy it anyway.

That being said, it's so nice to see a friendly Superman on screen.

I blame a mixture of Quentin Tarantino and the comics' Dark Age for the dour Supermen we have been having on the big screen recently (this applies to big screen only, the cartoons have been suitable).

Quentin Tarantino because of the whole which of Clark Kent's identities is the "real" one spiel, and everyone wanting to be an auteur like him and ape him in every possible way. (Said with affection for his films)

The Dark Age for that period of comics were everything had to be bleaker than bleak. And fellas, I understand the appeal, because those were the comics of my teenage years too. But they were a short blip in a long lifetime of the Superman character.

Superman is the best of us and happens to be an übermensch, not just an übermensch.

You know how I was the only person not hyped for Deadpool. I feel like I'm the only person not hyped for Good Omens. Because I think the leads are horribly mis-cast and I've seen the costume photos and think they look horribly, horribly wrong too.

I will do most of my Eeyoring in private :) but I had an urge to shout this at the universe just once.

( The Adventures of Tintin )

It's perfectly competently made, but it's absolutely lacking in anything that resembles heart or soul.

( TT : Closer To The Edge )

Definitely worth a watch.

Then I rewatched Games of Shadows, and still feel about it the same way I did when I first watched it and then the first half hour of the Sherlock Scandal in Bohemia/Belgravia. I will get round to writing about Sherlock's second season. I think I am finally capable of not flailing about the end of the third episode.

On the way back I watched Pirates: An Adventure With Scientists! which is a bit slow to get going but is lots of fun once it does.

I also watched the US version of ( The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo )

Virgin flights also have TV shows on now, so I got to try out

Smash: I got bored half-way through the first episode. I think I'd like it more if there was more of Anjelica Huston's character. And less wangst. Also, more realism. Because yeah, there's no way Megan Hilty's character wouldn't easily have got the role because Katharine McPhee's character hasn't the vocal power or presence. Not amount of Jack Davenport being a Cowell-esque bastard will make up for that.

Alcatraz: Didn't get further than the first six minutes of the first episode. I've figured out my problem with JJ Abrams and his productions, it's like Vince Russo, I know his kind of twists already and there's nothing behind the twists for me to enjoy.

Hit And Miss: Very good. But a bit too Tony Abbot making everyone suffer for a transatlantic flight. Because Abbot is a master at making the characters believably good, bad, horrible, nice, messed up and human.

Once Upon A Time: Which I didn't watch when it was broadcast because it was on on Thursdays and Thursday is fencing day and will not be interfered with. I liked it, and can see why everyone else enjoys it so much, and if they ever show it on normal TV not on Thursdays, I'm definitely giving this a go. If only to see what the hell Gold's deal is. And yes, I know, I'm focussing on the wrong thing, but 1) I love Robert Carlyle and have ever since Hamish MacBeth, 2) I have been primed to enjoy him being cranky, tormented and not so nice by Stargate Universe, 3) Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin is the kind of character I ping for.

I'm incredibly sad to hear about Neil Armstrong's death. He belonged to a time where we had fear and terror, of the cold war and nuclear war, but also hope, and he helped to bring that hope.

RL:

Things that are good - discovering, much to your surprise, that this is a Bank Holiday weekend.

Things that are better - because of this, you get paid a weekend early.

Challenge Cup Final:

I'm just hoping it's a good match, because while neither side are Saints, neither side are Wigan either. (They are the forces of good and the forces of evil respectively.)

Rugby is a lot less terrifying when it's not your team playing.

Why is Rat-boy on my TV when Wigan aren't playing. Once again the BBC are biased in favour of Wigan.

If Warrington win, we're not going to hear the end of the complaining about that knock on.

The Germans have taken to Rugby League. We will convert the world. I know there's an Austrian league already.

Interviewer: "At 30 minutes gone, a storm hit. That could have distracted you."
Lee Briers: "Do you mean Leeds or the weather?"

Adrian Morley is Northern. With a capital N.
Interviewer: "You being an old geezer, do you appreciate these more?"
Adrian Morley: "No. Because you know you've not got that many opportunities left." The famous Northern no that means yes.

It pleases me that Stephen Ratchford has got a shiny, because he's been very impressive in lots of teams that haven't won things.

While I totally agree that Brett Hodgson deserves the Lance Todd, I would have given it to Richie Myler. It pleases me to no end to have Ian Millward agree with what I said.

Paralympics:

As I have been informed by the papers that this is the first time that any US channel is covering the Paralympics (even if it is only online), I feel I should put in an advert for Wheelchair Fencing.

While not as well known as wheelchair basketball and murderball (wheelchair rugby), both of which are stupid amounts of fun to watch - no lie, I prefer wheelchair basketball to the other one, it is fantastic to watch, and the true heir to schlager fencing.

The rules are the same as non-wheelchair fencing, except there is no moving back beyond the movement of the trunk.

So yes, definitely give it a watch if you can.

Moto GP:

You will all love Ben Spies. I mean, he's loveable enough anyway (it is not his fault he's riding against my beloved Texas Tornado and Dovi), but he speaks such sense on the topic of his mother. I feel I should explain. His manager, agent and general person of greatest advice giving is his mother. People occasionally suggest that this is odd, or label him a mama's boy. He points out that plenty of the other racers have their father's in this position and nobody bats an eyelid. He says it's because a lot of men are threatened when women break into areas that they consider to be men's areas. Also that people commenting doesn't bother him, because it doesn't bother his mother.

The Armstrong Affair:

Other than the question of actual evidence, when they've never been able to catch Armstrong on anything (to quote my mother, "you know if they could have done, the French would have"), and a lot of the people willing to testify against him are people who have previously been caught doping and how much you're willing to believe them. Personally, my line is "I believe what George Hincapie and Tyler Hamilton say", but I'm a huge fan of both men, so I may be biased.

There is another problem, other than actually, USADA, you can't remove Armstrong's titles, only the UCI can (never mind that the UCI don't actually run the Tour and would probably need the ASO's agreement*). It's not like anyone immediately behind Armstrong wasn't doping too. Seriously, reading the data here - http://www.brettluelling.com/post/3435612945/armstrongs-tdf-victories, you're having to go to the guys who finished 10-30th before you hit people who probably weren't doping. And that's only probably. From the evidence and testimony produced from questioning previous doping offenders, doping was team-wide and systematic, so if we asterisk anyone that was, in that given year**, on a team with anyone who has been caught, that drops us down to the people finishing 30th - 50th. If we're lucky. The French might get their Tour winner after all.

What I'd do is just asterisk everything after Indurain***, up to the one Contador won, and say we can't tell who won because they were all on something. Defeatist, yes, but it makes more sense than having to try to figure out who was and wasn't when it was mostly was.

* yes, cycling's governing body don't run cycling's blue ribbon event. No, it makes no sense. Yes, there have been many, many hilarious arguments.

** I'm being nice, for once.

*** Indurain may or may not have doped, but he never got caught and all of his old teammates aren't lining up to declaim he did. Possibly because Big Mig was slightly less abrasive. Fair, no, but it is what it is.

( Football: )

Anna Karenina:

The new Anna Karenina looks like it will be terrible, but given that Joe Wright couldn't get the social structure of Regency England right (Pride and Prejudice) when most of the books are in a language he reads, I have my doubts about him being able to do pre-Revolutionary Russia any justice. Also, Jude Law as sour-faced, rotten toothed Karenin?! Also, Aaron Johnston is ~10 years too young for Vronsky.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/

So I went to watch it because I decided I couldn't complain about it if I didn't.

I was wrong. It wasn't a total ruination.

The short, twitter-version of the review goes - TinkerTailorSoldierSpy - Oldman exceptional, everything else (with a couple of honourable exceptions) a bit meh.

Gary Oldman is exceptional, really, I mean, even by his high standards ( spoilers ) and I'd be cool with him getting the Oscar, but if the rest of it (poss. exception set design) gets Oscars it'll just show how bad this year's set of films have been.

The honourable exceptions previously mentioned are ( spoilers )

The major problem is that, because it only runs to 2 hours 7 minutes, they've had to squash things and bend things, which is not going to work when your original book is 440-ish pages. But for some unknown reason, it's the female characters who have been hit hardest by these changes. ( Spoilery specifics )

I mean, there were some points where the film gets mega props, you know, actually engaging Russian speakers to play Russian speaking characters. I can't comment on the quality of the Russian or the Hungarian but I have hopes.

( Discussion of some location changes )

As I said previously, the changes in plot/character/stuff have been forced on them due to running time. Some of the choices made are thoroughly reasonable ( spoilers )

Some of them I'm neutral about ( Spoilers ) and some of them I just don't get ( spoilers )

Then there's the ones I understand why but dislike ( And here we get more spoilers )

( I will defend the film on one point )

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

I mean, one of my favourites, Tommy Voeckler is in yellow. There is nothing there not to be happy about.

But at the same time, my absolute favourite, Vinokourov, has finished his last tour in the back of an ambulance and not in Paris. The yellow jersey is the only one of the great tour jerseys he's never worn and now he won't have a chance to.

That's before you even get to Johnny Hoogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha who got knocked over by one of the TV cars. And they're both remarkably calm about the whole thing, given. I really do hope Hoogerland can carry on after the rest day.

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The F1 was less upsetting than that, other than McLaren once again managing to stuff up their own chances.

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Another week, another book to film adaptation that looks like it's going to go horribly wrong - http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/223543/the-adventures-of-tintin-secret-of-the-unicornexclusive-trailer.html

Nothing against the style, but um, half of that is 'The Crab With The Golden Claws' not 'The Secret of the Unicorn'.

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Book Meme - Day 5 - A book that makes you happy

I like a lot of books, but I don't think there's any I read because they make me happy. I think they sort of distract me and entrance me instead. That doesn't mean that there's not a lot that I re-read because I know they will have that effect.

( The Other Days )

For fileg, my unpopular LOTR opinions. Very Hobbit-centric at the moment because a lot of my RL friends are presently bemoaning and bewailing said adaptation.

1 - Re: aformentioned film - Breathe people. Really. While it is possible to have a film with v. good actors (they have got all my favourite actors who are not already in Game of Thrones), good directors and a solid production crew turn out bad, it's unusual.

2 - Also re: the Hobbit - Maybe the dwarves will finally get some of the recognition they deserve for they are awesome. Um, yeah, I'm an intrinsically dwarf-sort of person.

3 - Again, re: the Hobbit - some changes will be made. This is so people who are not already enmeshed in Middle Earth will watch the film, because, rightly or wrongly, a lot of people view The Hobbit as a children's book and will therefore not go and watch it unless they have children. Some of these people previously watched the LOTR trilogy, and would therefore be lost custom unless they're attracted to the cinema. We want them to keep making fantasy films, don't we?

4 - An oldie, but it remains the truth - Tom Bombadil is scarier than Sauron.

For saruwatari, my unpopular Star Trek: TOS opinions.

1 - TOS will always be my favourite. Because I love it so. I know it's not perfect but it has a high awesomeness per episode. Unpopular because, well, I know I ought to like DS9 better, and it's definitely my second favourite, but I just love TOS more.

2 - Kirk is not the skirt-chaser popular culture portrays him as. Or not the way it does. He'll give up a girl for the mission without a second shot. (Damn it, you're making me stick up for Kirk)

3 - Best Trek film remains The Undiscovered Country. I like the way it ties things up without cutting the threads. And that ending. And Worf's grandfather. And pretty much everything about it.

4 - I still don't get why everyone has such a hatred for season 3. It's not that bad, people.

Apparently Being Human, the US version, is premiering tonight. If anyone who watches it feels like telling me whether it's bad, good or indifferent, I'd be obliged. Being Human (UK version) is a show I love rather a lot, and I'm worried that a bad US version might sour people on the UK one. I have seen photos of the cast, and, I shall admit, it does not look promising. They seem to have missed something important with George/Josh at least, which is very sad-making because he is my favourite character. And they seem to have made Herrick/Bishop far too obviously evil. Herrick's everyday evil (imagine if the Mayor from BTVS was a Bristol policeman) was one of my other favourite things.

Have seen nothing about who won what at the Golden Globes, but a lot about Ricky Gervais. No, US, you're supposed to like him, because if you do, you'll keep him and I won't have to put up with him being everywhere over here. On the matter of Ricky Gervais, I want two things known. 1) He wasn't funny when he was on the radio and he's not funny now. 2) When invited to perform at the Secret Policeman's Ball, he turned it down. In an interview later, he said that, as a comedian, it was his job to entertain and therefore he didn't do politics. In that vein, as a viewer, it is my job to be entertained, and therefore, I don't do Ricky Gervais.

The Golden Globes did lead to me gaining a love for Robert Downey Jr ("Aside from the fact that it's been hugely mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far, wouldn't you?") and Tim Allen and Tom Hanks (Tom Hanks - "We recall when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby but very kind comedian." Tim Allen - "Neither of which he is now.").

On to happier things, an Austrian won in Wengen :D I now fully expect a Swiss skier to win in Kitzbuehel, but I'd love for Michael Walchhoffer to win there.

Well it's either that or me getting enraged at the Tories making it impossible for anyone from the working class to go to university. And get angrily amused at the people who are shocked, shocked they tell you to find a Tory government would do this.

Film Meme Day 2 - A Film That Is Underrated

The Three Musketeers, the Gene Kelly version - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_%281948_film%29

Which remains my favourite version (although I haven't seen the Douglas Fairbanks version).

There's so many things in favour of it, the fact that MGM seem to have spent money on it helps because everything looks rich and it's filmed in glorious technicolour. I love technicolour.

Gene Kelly's dancing background means that he can sword-fight well, and the fight behind the nunnery is brilliant, and witty and well choreographed. He's also got such puppyish charm that when the plot progresses, it hurts to see him lose it.

( And, since it's my entry, here have that swordfight. All hail Youtube! )

Van Heflin as Athos is remarkable, because he and the script get the balance right between Athos who is a witty and entertaining, if perpetually drunk, Musketeer and the Comte de la Fere who is still not sure he did the right thing in regards to his wife and is in bitter and perpetual mourning.

I grant the remaining musketeers are only lightly sketched, but at least they're sketched with respect. I, for one, am sick of versions where one of the Musketeers is a dunderhead. They give them all such light and shade.

Milady is played by Lana Turner at her most stunning and ravishing, and dangerous. Technicolour almost does her justice.

Cardinal Richlieu is played by Vincent Price, being the affable charming kind of sneaky evil. And, this is something else they get right, it's not that he's actually evil, he's just against the musketeers, and it's nothing personal there either (he doesn't want to kill D'Artagnan), he just wants to have power over France. And of course Vincent Price is awesome.

I have seen this film more times than I can remember and yet, each time I find something new in it. It's wonderful.

The reason I say it's underrated is that, if you have heard of it, you probably only know it as the film that donated some of it's scenes to Singing In The Rain, for the bits that constitute The Laughing Cavalier. It deserves better than that.

( The Other Days )