December 28, 2007
mental vacation over
Christmas was a little gruelling. Have hung out, gone on long walks (Living in Thorndon is cool. Walking to town through the botanical gardens is better than walking home from town through the gardens.) and watched movies lately instead of being productive.
Dune was okay, and very eye candy. Without having read the book I didn’t get what wasn’t meant to make sense about the Lynch version of Dune. It was a bit choppy and summary at times, with voice over excising years at a time, but what was going on was relatively coherent, though on the whole the set up was better than the delivery.
Felt like reading a fantasy novel and didn’t have one around so went to see The Golden Compass. It was okay. Very much part one. The novels are probably way more interesting, cos there is the definite potential for depth in the world; the supporting cast in particular suffering in adaptation, at a guess.
A Scanner Darkly was well adapted. And boy is it downbeat as a film. I’d forgotten. No wonder it didn’t get a general release. Rotoscoped scatter suits are funky. PKD would be happy. Oddly, the best anti-drug
movie ever? Just through the realness of druggie loserdom.
Time to move on and do stuff.
Merry time of year.
Filed by billy at 10:35 am under 
1 Comment
I like ‘Dune’ (the movie). I’m a major fan of the book, and the movie doesn’t really stay true to the book in some ways that would irritate me if I thought of it as the movie of the book, but as a slightly spacy and very, very pretty movie, I just really enjoy it.
It’s like ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ — great book, enjoyable movie, obvious themes and images and characters borrowed from the book to make the movie, but in no way a movie ‘of’ the book.
One just has to accept secondary works for what they are — independent artworks inspired by the original, not new versions of that original — sometimes, to enjoy them.