Friday, February 24, 2006

Am now collapsing far too much. And too violently. And food seems to make me ill. This is not fair.
"The West Wing" faces me with the age old dilemma of "Oh, god, I am actually right wing in terms of ideals". Damn them for having a plausible articulate republican.

I am trying to read a book by a physicist, and officially ill. Very annoying.

Oh, and if someone could explain to my sister that "you might have to shoot someone" is not a valid argument against joining the argument, it would be nice.

Thank you.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

I have now read all of Bret Easton Ellis' books. Hurrah! "Lunar Park" is very, very good and he should be an icon, (I think only one of his books is iconic so far) because anyone that self referential deserves to be. Honestly, writing a novel about yourself-but-not-actually being haunted by-possibly-his-younger-self-or-his-father's? In which he does lit crit on his own work?

Also, I worry about the similarity between my musical tastes and Ellis'. Smiths, Talking Heads etc. are fine, but someone else liking both C&C Music Factory and Zevon.

And there were minimal eviscerations! And he almost fainted a lot.

'tis very good and an argument for America and when someone returns my copy of "Rules of Attraction" I will lend it to people. (Book not film. The film is a textbook case in "how not to adapt a novel".)

Monday, February 20, 2006

What is wrong with the Merchant-Ivory film of E.M. Forster's "Maurice"

(I am going to write this up before I faint. I am)

They deal with Cambridge in twenty minutes, during which they do nothing without doors. People open doors, close doors, stand in doorways and rush through doors. Probably deeply symbolic and all that, but hardly right. Also, it is impossible to prep Sophocles without a Liddell and Scott, which they all seem to do.

HG was appalling casting, and he hardly convinces. He is not nearly good enough a Classicist. You do not look at him and think "That man could do Aeschylus unseen!" Nor do you hear him talk, as he hardly talks about classics for the entire film. And they drop the Symposium reference (it is referred to as those books. Not the same thing). He also cannot do the romance scenes at all.

The London part of the book involves too much socialising and they attend large Bloomsbury type parties, which is not what happens in the novel. In an attempt to make the film interesting the invent a subplot involving Risley being arrested. They drop the telegram during Greece as well. And all the times Clive says "Maurice, dear" in the latter part of the novel (giving the impression that he is rather confused, which is true, and odd that they dropped it). They do at least keep the strange hand kissing scene.

Finally, Alec is the major love affair! Pourquoi? And you are supposed to find him deeply sexy because of the improbable accent and the exploding hair. They spend about an hour and a half on the Alec plot. It makes no sense. (the plot or how they filmed it). Two and a half hours is far too long anyway.

Righto, I may faint.