| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Jaws. More? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
The general consensus is THE GODFATHER by Mario Puzo is a pretty lousy novel, but I've not read it, so.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
I read some Puzo and found it . . . episodic. More like a series of anecdotes strung together than an unfolding narrative. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
The Exorcist. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Vertigo. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Psycho. (Ooh, controversial.) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.27.143.72 |
Not controversial, Gary, just blatantly wrong. What's original and suspenseful and disturbing in the film comes from the novel, what's showy and brittle and obvious comes from Hitchcock. People who overpraise the film and belittle the novel make me angry. So angry I could just... where were we? Oh yes, good films from bad books. Any early James Bond film. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Oh, okay. I can't argue with such assuredness. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
I actually liked several of Puzo's novels, like The Godfather, The Sicilian and (particularly) The Fortunate Pilgrim. I've never read the novel Badge Of Evil by Wade Miller, but I understand it was fairly underwhelming; Touch Of Evil, on the other hand, is pretty special. It's been years since I read Jaws, so I can't comment on it. Need to dig up a copy. I remember liking it though. Mind you, I was about twelve. Oh, and I agree with Joel re Psycho. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.31.24 |
I'd make a cases for JURASSIC PARK and FIGHT CLUB, not because they're classic films, but just because of the huge gulf in quality between the book and film. Also, and this one will be controversial: SOLARIS (the Soderberg version). The novel is bafflingly dry. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Crossed posts there. I agree that Psycho's a good book, I mean; not so sure about the film being showy, brittle and obvious. Again, it's been a while. Time to order another new DVD, methinks. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I saw an interview with Blatty from just a few weeks back, I believe. He said he intended THE EXORCIST as a novel of (pro-) faith, wrapped in a suspenseful tale of horror, and never dreamed it would associate him almost solely with the horror genre. I've not read it or any Blatty, but for that one novella of his from 999, which I found... singularly unexceptional.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.31.24 |
Golly. I'd say TOUCH OF EVIL is one of the most over-rated films and the praise for PSYCHO is just about right. Compare the perfornaces of Dennis Weaver with that of Anthony Perkins. I mean, golly! (reprise) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.151.149.225 |
Bringing out the Dead - the Nick Cage film about the ambulance driver. I couldn't bring myself to finish the book. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.102.208 |
I prefer both the '50s and '70s films of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Jack Finney's original story. I also prefer Roeg's Don't Look Now to du Maurier's. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.184 |
"...what's showy and brittle and obvious comes from Hitchcock..." Such as...? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
"Showy" - the shower scene? The difference between the Hitch and Bloch version is immense in terms of craft, ingenuity and power. I'm sure I don't need to add whose is the superior version. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I'll take the Psycho screenplay over the book, any day. It's a very good book - but nowhere near as artful as the film. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Ramsey – the absence of a meaningful motive for Mary's theft, meaning that she is set up as 'bad' and hence has her cards marked; the omission of clues to Norman's psychosis in order to set up a patronisingly lengthy explanation by a psychiatric authority figure; the casting of Norman Bates as young and good-looking in order to heighten the shock value of the final revelation. Hitchcock's film makes excellent use of the symbolic power of the setting, and is visually strong as you would expect – but its attitude towards the characters and the audience is wholly manipulative. Bloch wants you to understand a tortured mind, Hitchcock just wants to make you jump out of your skin. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
"Moby Dick" (the black and white Gregory Peck version, the Patrick Stewart re-make is okay but too shouty). The film is basically the first and last hundred pages. The other ten million pages in between are an ordeal with occasional flashes of brilliance. I know because I've read it. Cheers Terry | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
I must take issue with both "The Godfather" and "The Exorcist", both of which I thoroughly enjoyed as novels. I agree that they are both classic films. Cheers Terry | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.184 |
I'm surprised, Joel. The "patronisingly lengthy explanation by a psychiatric authority figure" comes almost word for word from Sam Loomis's speech at the end of the novel - many of the actor's emphases are based on Bloch's italics, even. I don't accept that Mary is set up as "bad" at all - I think our sympathies are very much with her, against the man whose money she steals. And for the record, Bob Bloch told me that he liked the casting of Perkins, even his youthfulness. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.30.184 |
I only just read Moby Dick in full (on holiday on the beach in Crete) and I loved it - I was glad there are still masterpieces for me to discover. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
You have my admiration Ramsey. I love long and complex books, and I loved the near Biblical feel of the novel (and film), but I found the endless essays on whales and whaling very trying after a while. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
>>>Bloch wants you to understand a tortured mind, Hitchcock just wants to make you jump out of your skin. I find that statement almost absurd. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Once Upon A Time In America. A strange coincidence this talk of Robert Bloch's famous novel as I'd just decided to read it to tie in with a little project I'm working on... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
A strange coincidence this talk of Robert Bloch's famous novel as I'd just decided to read it to tie in with a little project I'm working on... Er... dare we ask?...  I had to read MOBY DICK twice as an undergrad, in the space of two years. It is a great novel indeed. A flop in the author's lifetime, and only resurrected later on by devoted critics (including Lawrence). There is that great, you could almost say Lovecraftian moment, where I think it's Ahab describing the entire world and everything in it as, sans color, all being the same revolting white as the demon whale, if you could see things as they really are... a disturbingly dark reflection.... | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
It's been so long since I read it- and I was probably too young to fully appreciate it, that I think I'm dig my copy out again. Please note how I manfully resisted the temptation to make any puerile jokes about 'getting my Dick out.' | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Oh, wait.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
What's long and hard and full of seamen? The Pequod!  ... Yeah? Well, it was hilarious back in 1851.... | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
Okay, okay, I'll read it again. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Moby Dick' is a book I read in my early 30s and loved every visionary word of it. At once a thrilling realist adventure, detailing the perils, hardships and camaraderie of life at sea in the great days of sail, in astonishing sensory detail, and a fabulous gothic fantasy tackling the big question of mankind's need to find meaning and a purpose to his existence beyond mere survival with fearless ambition and remarkably sustained Poe-like intensity throughout its vast length, as well as being the greatest depiction of an obsessive descent into the contagion of demonic madness and group hysteria in literature. Unsurprisingly, it's one of my Top 10 Novels of all time. Once read and digested this epic voyage into the maelstrom haunts the soul like no other novel, imho. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Yeah, but is it any good? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Yeah, stop fence-sitting man. Express your opinion lucidly. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
He's always like this. So fucking wishy-washy. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
 | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Yeah, whatever happened to effusiveness, to unbridled enthusiasm? (We're only jealous, Stevie. I wish I still felt as passionate about stuff as you clearly do. I've "gone wrong".) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
It passed a few months, Zed. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Stevie's favourite composers: 1. Liszt. Hahaha. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.111.66 |
I prefer the film of The Princess Bride to the novel. I also prefer Night of the Eagle to Conjure Wife. In both cases the reason is the same, namely that the books may be more intelligent but the films are more entertaining. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Still haven't had a chance to get into Liszt, Gary. Actually they're: 1. Igor Stravinsky 2. Johann Sebastian Bach 3. Claude Debussy 4. Fryderyk Chopin 5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 6. Ludwig Van Beethoven 7. Arnold Schoenberg 8. Bohuslav Martinu 9. Leos Janacek 10. Anton Webern Generally I'm not a great one for the romantic period. A bit too much bombast for my liking. That thunderously emotive style of classical music peaked with Beethoven, imo, and a return to delicately beautiful intricacy was called for... hence my love of Chopin & Debussy. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
RE-ANIMATOR?  Bit harsh against the novel of THE EXORCIST. It has a few pointless sub-plots, which the movie wisely - erm - exorcised, but it's solidly written and much of the dialogue in the film comes word for word from the original. I've a soft spot (right in the middle of my head, probably) for Blatty's sequel, LEGION. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.254.46 |
I prefer Angel Heart to Falling Angel, although the latter's not a bad book as such. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.208.112.245 |
I think Christopher Priest's The Prestige is an excellent book, but the film version trims out certain sections to improve on it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
John - Legion is one of my favourite novels. Has been since I first read it about 25 years ago... Mick - Angel Heart; that's a good call. The novel's not bad at all but the film is sensational. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.75.249 |
I read someone say somewhere (you can probably look it up from that reference) that the long, bland explanation of the psychiatrist in PSYCHO lulls us before so that we're struck hard by that superimposed skull at the end. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.75.249 |
ack, nix "before" please. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
John - Legion is one of my favourite novels. Has been since I first read it about 25 years ago... I still have my fingers crossed that someone will turn up the missing footage from the EXORCIST III so that Blatty can assemble his original cut which, if you read the screenplay, is much closer to the novel. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Read back-to-back 'The Exorcist/Legion' is arguably the most terrifying work of horror fiction of the 20th Century. Those novels are masterpieces of existential horror that reveal the full "reality warping" power of religious faith, and its lack, like no other works in the genre. Jung clashes head on with Thomas Aquinas in those pages... and they both knock some sense into each other. That's my next reading plan sorted! 'Psycho' (1959) along with 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane' (1966) - in which much the same furrow is, I believe, ploughed. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Gary and Ramsey, sorry, I was overreacting to disparagement of the Bloch novel – I don't have any serious criticisms of the film version, which I think is very effective, it just upsets me when people regard Hitchcock as an alchemist who transmuted the lead of the book to the gold of the film. The book, to my mind, is an authentic noir masterpiece that changed its genre. Without it there's no Thomas Harris, no James Ellroy, no Derek Raymond. I don't feel the same way about the film. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
It was probably my fault for including it here as a "bad book". I didn't mean that. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
>>>Generally I'm not a great one for the romantic period. A bit too much bombast for my liking. That thunderously emotive style of classical music peaked with Beethoven, imo, and a return to delicately beautiful intricacy was called for... hence my love of Chopin & Debussy. But then you miss out on Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, and a lot of Liszt. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Indeed. I've taken a self-imposed crash course on each of the great composers over the years - thanks to the influence of Frank Zappa, free concerts at the Ulster Hall, Naxos & Radio 3 - and homed in on the stuff that instantly appealed to me, most of which tends to be from the baroque period and last century, when the classical music world experienced its very own "punk revolution", led, of course, by that man Stravinsky. I'd be the first to admit that my knowledge of the romantic period is sketchy at best and based on the better known works that everyone has been subconsciously exposed to. I'd need to delve into the obscurer, and arguably more subtle, stuff for a better appreciation. I was drawn to Berlioz, Dvorak & Mussorgsky. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
http://www.amazon.com/Liszt-Ann%C3%A9es-P%C3%A8lerinage-Vol-Third/dp/B0000013TT | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
I love the romantic composers, particularly Sibelius. Cheers Terry | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Sibelius...wasn't she in Moonlighting with Bruce Willis? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
You're Finnished, man. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The "big name" romantic composers of the 19th Century have always been, to me, the equivalent of those impossibly talented but insufferably po-faced prog rock bands of the 1970s that The Sex Pistols quite rightly consigned to the dustbin of history. That's not to say I dislike all prog rock but only admire and enjoy the artists who represent the absolute pinnacle of that movement i.e. Frank Zappa & Pink Floyd. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
You don't half talk a lorra borrocks sometimes. Or have watched too many Ken Russell's biopics. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Bach would be The Beatles, Vivaldi would be The Kinks, Mozart would be The Rolling Stones, Haydn would be Eric Clapton, Beethoven would be Pink Floyd, Wagner would be Yes, Stravinsky would be The Sex Pistols, Varese would be PiL, Martinu would be REM, Rodrigo would be Oasis, Cage would be The Flaming Lips, etc, etc... Give me some more people. This is fun! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
I do, don't I... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
 | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.33.242.34 |
THE HOWLING is a vast improvement on the Gary Brandner novel of the same name. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.27.9.228 |
Boy, the book must be bad, then. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 195.59.153.201 |
While the source materials are by absolutely no means "bad", both George Sluizer's The Vanishing and Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now are far superior to the stories on which they were based. I think so, anyway. | ||
| Matthew Fryer (Matthew_fryer) Username: Matthew_fryer Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 90.200.140.60 |
I adore the film Deliverance. Didn't care so much for the book. I wouldn't call it "bad", but I recall wading through much description of leaves and water. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
James Dickey's Deliverance is a masterpiece - a poet writing a thriller. Brilliant. The novel of The Vanishing (The Golden Egg) is a wonderful book; economical, chilling, beautifully written. Here's one: the film version of Fight Club is much better than the book - which is basically a novella, and pretty superficial. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.155.217.108 |
BUt it's not actually a bad book. Just short and lacking real substance. I'd have to say Starship Troopers and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
At last Weber tells a good joke! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
What about Last of the Mohicans. I'll admit to not having read the book but apparently Mark Twain wasn't a fan. “Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn’t satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can’t do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.” Mark Twain Mark Twain also noted that the Deerslayer, the previous book in the series “in the restricted space of two thirds of a page, scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115, a new record.” |