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  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    The fact that great books make shit or average movies is yawningly obvious. Likewise the fact that average books (with good plots) make the best films. Directors feel overshadowed by majorly famous novels (cf the terrible adaptation of Catch 22); with less well known books move-makers have more artistic and psychic freedom and can create.

    The truly interesting exceptions are great books which ALSO make great movies, these are genuinely rare.

    I'd suggest the Exorcist: the book and movie are equally superb. Maybe also the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.*

    *Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was fabulous. but the Austen novel was a bit shit.

    The best films are short stories, not novels.
    A certain truth in that. Certainly big long novels are notoriously hard to film.

    Game of Thrones shows, however, how you do it? A big fat novel has to be a long scale TV drama, over several series. Then it can work.
    They are hard to film because with a novel 90% of what happens happens in your head. That wouldn't work as a film genre with very few exceptions (Jarman for me).
  • Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.
  • TOPPING said:

    SeanT said:

    The fact that great books make shit or average movies is yawningly obvious. Likewise the fact that average books (with good plots) make the best films. Directors feel overshadowed by majorly famous novels (cf the terrible adaptation of Catch 22); with less well known books move-makers have more artistic and psychic freedom and can create.

    The truly interesting exceptions are great books which ALSO make great movies, these are genuinely rare.

    I'd suggest the Exorcist: the book and movie are equally superb. Maybe also the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.*

    *Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was fabulous. but the Austen novel was a bit shit.

    Great Expectations ?
    Grapes of Wrath ?
    I don't think I'd want to see Grapes of Wrath as a film. I was even disappointed by To Kill a Mockingbird and that (the film) was an accepted classic.
    I'd say that GoW is a better film and closer to the book that TKaM.
  • Surely the best Dickens film adaptation is the Muppets Christmas Carol (and I am being serious here).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.

    Does Shakespeare count as poetry?

    In any case on that note it's late so good night (ladies. Good night, sweet ladies..etc)
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited December 2017
    TOPPING said:

    Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.

    Does Shakespeare count as poetry?

    In any case on that note it's late so good night (ladies. Good night, sweet ladies..etc)
    Only Richard II I think...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    TOPPING said:

    Maybe there should be a thread on films of books that were better than the books but I can't think of any.

    The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, and The Shawshank Redemption.
    Shawshank I'll give you, but the Godfather was better as a book and LOTR is a good trilogy of movies but doesn't come close to the books.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited December 2017

    Surely the best Dickens film adaptation is the Muppets Christmas Carol (and I am being serious here).

    I would have gone with Mickey's Christmas Carol personally (and I am being serious too).
  • Surely the best Dickens film adaptation is the Muppets Christmas Carol (and I am being serious here).

    I would have gone with Mickey's Christmas Carol personally (and I am being serious too).
    I'm ashamed to admit I don't think Ive seen that one.
  • JonnyJimmyJonnyJimmy Posts: 2,548

    Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.

    El Cid?
  • Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.

    El Cid?
    That looks like a proper epic film judging by IMDb.

    Anyway, time for bed.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    The fact that great books make shit or average movies is yawningly obvious. Likewise the fact that average books (with good plots) make the best films. Directors feel overshadowed by majorly famous novels (cf the terrible adaptation of Catch 22); with less well known books move-makers have more artistic and psychic freedom and can create.

    The truly interesting exceptions are great books which ALSO make great movies, these are genuinely rare.

    I'd suggest the Exorcist: the book and movie are equally superb. Maybe also the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.*

    *Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was fabulous. but the Austen novel was a bit shit.

    Great Expectations ?
    Grapes of Wrath ?
    Which versions??? I've only ever seen shit screen versions of the first, the second leaves me cold as a book AND a movie.

    However there is one great Dickens novel which WAS turned into an acknowledged worldwide masterpiece. Oliver Twist the famous novel became Oliver! the musical, maybe the best musical Britain has ever produced, fabulous on stage and screen. Perhaps turning the book into a sequence of songs gave Lionel Bart the creative freedom he needed.

    Oliver! is in my top ten favourite movies.

    Bullseye! Bullseye!!!
    By contrast Grapes of Wrath is a book I can pick up anytime and read a few pages with pleasure.

    Likewise 1984, In Cold Blood, The Comedians and The Naked and the Dead.

    They do seem a pretty grim set of mid 20C novels now that I group them together.
  • Surely the best Dickens film adaptation is the Muppets Christmas Carol (and I am being serious here).

    I would have gone with Mickey's Christmas Carol personally (and I am being serious too).
    I'm ashamed to admit I don't think Ive seen that one.
    Fair's fair, I've not seen the Muppets version.

    I first saw Mickey's Christmas Carol at school (it came out 83, I was born 82) and I've seen it many times since, played it for my daughters earlier this year. Its a very engaging and faithful rendition of the classic story while also working with the characters used to portray the story.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789

    Have there been any good films based on poems? I'm not sure if Troy or Jaberwocky (sp?) count.

    Tarkovsky's Mirror is the closest I can think of. One of the rare films where as @TOPPING said, most of what happens happens in your head.
  • SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    The fact that great books make shit or average movies is yawningly obvious. Likewise the fact that average books (with good plots) make the best films. Directors feel overshadowed by majorly famous novels (cf the terrible adaptation of Catch 22); with less well known books move-makers have more artistic and psychic freedom and can create.

    The truly interesting exceptions are great books which ALSO make great movies, these are genuinely rare.

    I'd suggest the Exorcist: the book and movie are equally superb. Maybe also the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.*

    *Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was fabulous. but the Austen novel was a bit shit.

    The best films are short stories, not novels.
    A certain truth in that. Certainly big long novels are notoriously hard to film.

    Game of Thrones shows, however, how you do it? A big fat novel has to be a long scale TV drama, over several series. Then it can work.
    Not just long novels. The BBC's Pride and Prejudice was a good series and took 6 episodes spanning a total of 5.5 hours to do justice to a regular sized novel.
  • OchEyeOchEye Posts: 1,469
    I've always found books and the written word more stirring of the imagination than the film versions. Everybody will interpret a book differently, whereas with the film, you are actually concentrating on the interpretation of the the film maker/director/producer, the actors, the costume and set designers.... Similarly, a radio play allows you to design your own own version of the actors based on what their voice sounds like, where you think they are, how they dress, which is why when you meet them in real life, you can be very surprised at the reality.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2017
    The Russians don't even need to get you in a honey-trap anymore....

    Deepfakes told me he’s not a professional researcher, just a programmer with an interest in machine learning.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn

    If some chump off reddit with a normal pc can do this, nation states are not going to have a problem doing this properly!
  • RhubarbRhubarb Posts: 359

    The Russians don't even need to get you in a honey-trap anymore....

    Deepfakes told me he’s not a professional researcher, just a programmer with an interest in machine learning.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn

    If some chump off reddit with a normal pc can do this, nation states are not going to have a problem doing this properly!

    Along a similar theme, have you seen this?

    https://youtu.be/3AIpPlzM_qs
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2017
    Rhubarb said:

    The Russians don't even need to get you in a honey-trap anymore....

    Deepfakes told me he’s not a professional researcher, just a programmer with an interest in machine learning.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gydydm/gal-gadot-fake-ai-porn

    If some chump off reddit with a normal pc can do this, nation states are not going to have a problem doing this properly!

    Along a similar theme, have you seen this?

    https://youtu.be/3AIpPlzM_qs
    I haven't, but I am interested. Thanks. Going to read the paper in a bit. GANs are all the rage at the moment.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,576
    Pollsters confident that they don't have much of a clue about the Alabama senate race oitcome...
    https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/11/alabama-senate-moore-jones-polls-290501
  • TOPPING said:

    Maybe there should be a thread on films of books that were better than the books but I can't think of any.

    The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, and The Shawshank Redemption.
    Bladerunner.

    Much as I like 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', Bladerunner is a far more coherent rendering of the basic story and the concepts explored in it.
  • , losing Damian Green would not only have been very symbolic but very damaging to Mrs May and her government.

    Which is why News International have pursued this vendetta and flimsy tale with a vigour without peer.

    Once it’s sorted I hope the police officers involved are properly investigated and if appropriate prosecuted. This has been a disgrace from the start
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2017
    And your daily because of Brexit news...

    Fears grow across the Atlantic over Brexit fallout

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42315280
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    HYUFD said:

    Given how wrong YouGov VI polls were at the general election, calm down.

    Aren’t you a Tory? You might as well be happy about this poll.
    TSE wants the Tories to crash and burn so that the annointed one (GO) can come back to save them and the country.
    Don't be as stupid as HYUFD.
    There is nothing stupid about it. You are an in the closet classically Liberal, fiscally dry as dust Orange Book LD, republican non Unionist (the latter two prevent you being a true Tory)
    Classic Liberals (aka Gladstonian Radicals) *are* part of the Conservative Party
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_P said:
    Putting my CFO hat on for a second, the current draft of the US tax treaty would cause many multinationals (even very small ones like us) some serious problems.

    The basic tenet of international tax treaties is that the same chunk of profit should only get taxes once. Now, we can argue about where economic substance is, and where ultimately profits should accrue, but this is central.

    If the US tax bill were to be passed in full, today, it would mean that many companies would need to choose between operations in the UK and the US. Having operations in both, and having economic value generated in both runs the very real risk of seeing the same dollar (or pound) or earnings taxed twice.

    Isn't that the point?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    Surely the best Dickens film adaptation is the Muppets Christmas Carol (and I am being serious here).

    Yes absolutely.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    Given how wrong YouGov VI polls were at the general election, calm down.

    Aren’t you a Tory? You might as well be happy about this poll.
    TSE wants the Tories to crash and burn so that the annointed one (GO) can come back to save them and the country.
    Don't be as stupid as HYUFD.
    There is nothing stupid about it. You are an in the closet classically Liberal, fiscally dry as dust Orange Book LD, republican non Unionist (the latter two prevent you being a true Tory)
    Classic Liberals (aka Gladstonian Radicals) *are* part of the Conservative Party
    They are also part of the Liberal Party, Disraeli of course who actually was a Tory was more monarchist than he was classical liberal
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    SeanT said:

    SeanT said:

    The fact that great books make shit or average movies is yawningly obvious. Likewise the fact that average books (with good plots) make the best films. Directors feel overshadowed by majorly famous novels (cf the terrible adaptation of Catch 22); with less well known books move-makers have more artistic and psychic freedom and can create.

    The truly interesting exceptions are great books which ALSO make great movies, these are genuinely rare.

    I'd suggest the Exorcist: the book and movie are equally superb. Maybe also the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.*

    *Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility was fabulous. but the Austen novel was a bit shit.

    The best films are short stories, not novels.
    A certain truth in that. Certainly big long novels are notoriously hard to film.

    Game of Thrones shows, however, how you do it? A big fat novel has to be a long scale TV drama, over several series. Then it can work.
    Not just long novels. The BBC's Pride and Prejudice was a good series and took 6 episodes spanning a total of 5.5 hours to do justice to a regular sized novel.
    The unabridged Pride and Prejudice runs to between 10 to 15 hours when read aloud, depending on diction speed. Allowing for a fair proportion of that being descriptive narrative that is essentially redundant in a film or TV version, 5.5 hours seems about right, and indeed the 1995 BBC P&P was very good.

    But then so was the 2005 film running at just over 2 hours. Abridged versions of P&P in audio format can be <5 hours duration so maybe it is reasonable to film the 'abridged' novel in 2 hours.

    Personally for me the success of adaptations depends on a lot more than the duration. That said if the quality is good enjoy it for longer - I could have put up with many more hours of Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett!
This discussion has been closed.