[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

Opposite response here. I'm familiar with the book, and I was really looking forward to this, although I (like many) did kind of wonder how the hell a film adaptation of this thing was going to turnout. It's about as adaptable as Catcher in the Rye or Finnegan's Wake. But I saw the previews and liked what I saw, and I think PTA is one of the best directors out there.

But I thought it dragged and stuttered and was an overall disappointment. I think Jaquin Phoenix did a mostly great job as doc: his walk, his presence etc. but something about his delivery was offbeat in a literal way. Like, out of synch somehow. It got aggravating. Joanna Newsom was the best part. Brolin was ok, but there were some missed would-be great moments for his Bigfoot.

All in all, it probably shouldn't have been made. I did not dig.

yeah, whenever someone tries to make a movie about a book i love it's a massive disappointment. or almost-- i know there are exceptions but i can't recall what they are at the moment.

but since i don't really love pynchon, i saw this purely as a film-- and as such, it works really well. i do not worship in the cult of PTA, so i have no positive bias towards him, but i agree with most critics this is a very good movie--81% favorable on metacritic is no small feat, even in the face of marketing machineries. i don't mean to make an appeal to authority as a valid argument, but it has to count for something as in "i don't think i'm totally off the mark here."

though i get your personal view as well-- you already had pictures in your mind the movie had to live up to, and books are made of words, no movie can live up to that to that challenge.

i thought joaquín is pretty great, don't know what out of sync means. as for moments brolin missed, i suppose you mean abridgements in the plot-- but those are indispensable in film adaptations.

serial formats like TV are best to bring novels to the screen, whereas feature films are closer in structure to the short story or at most the novella. that is the one fundamental problem of book adaptations to feature films-- extreme time compression requires major butchery.