Friday, May 05, 2006

Books to movies

It seems that Hollywood has recently become either brilliant or plain fucking lazy. The adaptations of books and old movies is a wise one, given our culture's predilection for consuming re-packaged items. Though a good number movies out there are brand-new (superficially, anyways), we're in an era of film nostalgia, or coupling the written with the audio-visual. Hell, they're even making video games into movies! Reference: Doom, Hitman (maybe), Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy. What next? Is there anything left for them to adapt to movies?

They re-made Texas Chainsaw Massacre, re-made Amityville Horror (blegh), Poseidon [Adventure], The Fog, etc etc. These tend to suck.

On the other side of the re-packaging coin are adaptations: Fight Club, Blade Runner (and a dozen other Philip K. Dick stories), From the Mouth of Madness, The Stand, Dune... The Da'Vinci Code.

I just recently bought the paperback of the Da'Vinci Code. I'm anti-excited (yeah, you heard me) to read it because of the hype that surrounded its original hardcover release, and now the Tom Hanks movie adaptation. I'm sure the movie will be good, but will the book be? With numerous other movies (at least sci-fi), I've read the books before being aware that a movie was in the works. A Scanner Darkly, for example. I read that back in 2nd year when I was in my ravenous Philip K. Dick frenzy. (he's the guy who wrote Paycheck, Total Recall, Imposter, Blade Runner, and Minority Report) The motion-capture animation film promises to kick ass.

So to get back to the point, I'm not sure if I should bother reading the Da'Vinci Code. I know I will read it, but should I? I can already sense myself being underwhelmed.

On a meta-existential level... I have such a tough life filled with gruelling decisions, huh? Back to reading.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Prepare to be underwhelmed. IMO, it started off on a good note but deflated into a dull predictable throb about a quarter of the way through. I could see it being a good movie though.

-spurkis