Malamud Is The Case
by Levi Asher on Friday, February 3, 2006 04:00 pm
I'm too busy to put together a proper LitKicks posting today, but I have to report that Snoop Dogg is starring in a new movie, The Tenants, based on a 1972 novel by Bernard Malamud. I like to see Snoop taking on a serious role (not that I had any problem with Soul Plane, because I didn't) and I'm sure this film will be better than the last attempt at filming Malamud, the dreadful The Natural, in which a middle-aged Robert Redford portrayed a rookie baseball player whose every home run managed to smash a spotlight for maximal cinematic effect.
I haven't seen The Tenants yet, nor have I seen Factotum (Matt Dillon as Charles Bukowski), A Good Woman (based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windemere's Fan) or Tristam Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (though I did find the time to visit this last film's suitably metafictional website).
Let's be truthful -- I almost never get to a movie theatre, and if I ever see one of these new films it will be because they play it on some late-night indie cable channel. Which is how I just now finally got to see the 1998 version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawke and Robert DeNiro and set, incongruously, in and around a sprawling Florida estate. I was surprised how affecting this film was; it reminded me why this is my favorite Dickens novel.
At this rate, I guess I'll get to see Factotum and the Snoop Dogg movie around 2014.
I haven't seen The Tenants yet, nor have I seen Factotum (Matt Dillon as Charles Bukowski), A Good Woman (based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windemere's Fan) or Tristam Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (though I did find the time to visit this last film's suitably metafictional website).
Let's be truthful -- I almost never get to a movie theatre, and if I ever see one of these new films it will be because they play it on some late-night indie cable channel. Which is how I just now finally got to see the 1998 version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawke and Robert DeNiro and set, incongruously, in and around a sprawling Florida estate. I was surprised how affecting this film was; it reminded me why this is my favorite Dickens novel.
At this rate, I guess I'll get to see Factotum and the Snoop Dogg movie around 2014.
5 reponses to "Malamud Is The Case"
FactotumI'll probably have to wait to see "Factotum" on DVD- my town only has one small cinema and they normally only show the most mainstream stuff. I actually was very fond of "The Natural" film when it first came out in the 80's, but tried to rewatch it 2 or 3 years ago and found it very ponderous.
DVDs & good books=good moviesIf you have a laptop and a projector you can watch films with the same silver screen feeling as many a multiplex in the USA. All the movies I see nowadays are DVDs and many aren't worth the US$ .62that I pay for them but the last one I saw, The Human Stain, definitely was.I'm not trying to hijack the thread but wondered how many posters here could list good books that made good movies, e.g., Last Picture Show. I saw Great Expectations but could never get into the book which I owned until I sold it. I liked Wolfe's Boy's life and the film with DeNiro and Leonardo. I also liked Ordinary People, the book and the film.
Another one starring DiCaprio- Jim Carroll's "Basketball Diaries" was quite decent as was the film adaptation of Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides"--in my opinion.
Sticking with the DiCaprio thread, Total Eclipse is a great movie based upon the Rimbaud/Verlaine relationship.
Tristram ShandyNearly every book-adapted movie is doubted by fans of the original as "this could never be adapted to the screen" or "what a terrible idea." With Tristram Shandy, I cannot be cynical. It's just not in the spirit of the book. I would much rather be disappointed later, and with my expectations I almost certainly will.Soul Plane 4ever!