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The movie I have never been able to get through. The acting was wooden, the fear of the stunt man is not there, there is little to draw the viewer into the movie, and Peter O'Toole as the director in the movie is not despicable enough. Further, the ending is nothing like the book.
The movie I have never been able to get through. The acting was wooden, the fear of the stunt man is not there, there is little to draw the viewer into the movie, and Peter O'Toole as the director in the movie is not despicable enough. Further, the ending is nothing like the book.
O.M.G. I'm so sorry that you read the book first. You TOTALLY miss the allegory and Jungian themes in the film in expecting it to be like the book. Seriously, if I had to choose one film as THE best film made on a small budget, it would be "Stunt Man."
From the start, where O'Toole (playing a capricious G*d) tosses a half-eaten apple (think of the expulsion from the garden of Eden) where it causes only mild confusion, to the image of the dog (Diogenes) basking in the sun and complaining about being disturbed by authority (as Diogenes was by Alexander) to the laughing vulture, amused that all the actors will come to be the food of carrion eaters, dodging when an apple is tossed at it), to the circular time travel aspect of the film where the end may be the beginning, it is a masterwork.
It is a movie that, if you only follow the surface, is a seemingly meaningless romp. If you dig deeper though, like understanding the line that O'Toole makes, relating that someone had made a great anti-war film and enlistment went UP after it was screened (which can happen), you begin to see the brilliance.
There are a number of movies that work on similar levels and are simply not aimed at the general public. "Landscapes in the Mist" and "Meetings with Remarkable Men" are just a couple of those.
CASINO ROYALE. The book is okay at best. The movie is the best of the Bond films.
Most Fleming was pretty great, but you could argue that the film version of Goldfinger is - believe it or not - more realistic than the very outrageous book.
Also, the original book of Live & Let Die may have been better written than the movie but the book was waaaay more racist.
Most Fleming was pretty great, but you could argue that the film version of Goldfinger is - believe it or not - more realistic than the very outrageous book.
Also, the original book of Live & Let Die may have been better written than the movie but the book was waaaay more racist.
The only one of the Bond books I have ever read was CASINO ROYALE. It was okay. I'm sure my perceptions and expectations were colored by 40 years worth of movies first. But I was surprised at how boring it was, not only in terms of plot, but character. In the book, James Bond was more James Bland.
The only one of the Bond books I have ever read was CASINO ROYALE. It was okay. I'm sure my perceptions and expectations were colored by 40 years worth of movies first. But I was surprised at how boring it was, not only in terms of plot, but character. In the book, James Bond was more James Bland.
This was one of those things between movies and books. Timothy Dalton played a book Bond and it is rather known how well he did in the franchise.
Critics tend to rate that the closest movie to the book was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I tend to agree with that though I ought to reread Goldfinger just to be sure.
One thing about Casino Royale is that to play that Bond in the movies, one can only go so far. The lines in the book, of Bond's thoughts, that women were for entertainment, may not fly that far today if they were directly expressed. Indirectly expressed as a Bond film does, yes, but directly expressed?
Not to say that our culture doesn't have that view for didn't Stevie Nicks say that women, they will come and they will go? In Lee Falk's The Mystery of the Sea Horse, when Diana Palmer is supposedly killed, the villain expresses brief regret at her demise.....but, oh well, there are many more women to be had in this world.
Books tend to have their own excitement because there is the power of imagination. I remember reading Lee Falk's The Mysterious Ambassador (The Phantom) around 12 with absolute hormone dripping excitement. Trying to translate that character from the book or comics, however, into the movies was a bummer.
Alistair Maclean wrote a good book (at least in his Fear is the Key) phase, but the movies were mediocre. Fear is the Key was good, Puppet on the Chain was fair, Ice Station Zebra was a disappointment, and When Eight Bells Toll was terrible......when compared to the book, that is.
Why? IMHO it was because the human emotions such as fear, dread, sadism, hurt and love that are found in the book are difficult to create on the movie screen, especially when one only has 90 minutes to two hours to do so. All the misery that the enemy caused in the book of Ice Station Zebra really was not there in the flick.
Wilbur Smith writes great books and sometimes, the movie is great (Shout at the Devil) and sometimes so-so (Goldmine (movie Gold)). All various factors of the story, the cast, the budget, the director.
Which comes down to two views, mine, of movie making. There can be where the director and for that matter, the cast, are given the story and are essentially told, see what you can make of it. That is what I am taught as an actress, make the character your own. From that aspect, it can be "understandable" when things don't quite match up to the book.
THEN, there is "In Name Only". One might often see this in sequels such as "Beyond The Valley of the Dolls", "Deathstalker II", "American Psycho II" but it can occur in books as well, such as in "The Spy Who Loved Me". In the last case,that is probably just as well since Bond doesn't show up till around page 88.
Hence, to be fair and with what I know, I must say that the version of "The Stunt Man" that Harry Chickpea presented falls into the first category. It may not have been the book that was written, but it was the movie that was made.
The Hobbit (except for the first one, which was pretty good. The best memorable thing in the other two was when Bard the bowman was reassuring his son not to be afraid of the dragon and Smaug was all so proud right before Bard shot the bowman. That scene plus the soundtrack were the best in the saga and up there with the original LOTR movies.)
Voyage of the Don Treader (total bastardization of the book)
Harry Potter 3-8. (7 and 8 were the best of the later ones. 3-6 left out too much of the books and seemed poor. 1 and 2 were probably equal, if not better than, the books.)
After the Lord of the Rings adaptation which was excellent, the Hobbit was fairly disappointing. Maybe not an all time worst, but for the budget and the people involved, especially relative to LOTR, I was disappointed.
The worst I’ve seen is the old adaptation of Narnia. I think it was done by the BBC. Actually, I don’t remember if it was more of a mini series then a series of movies. That was about the worst thing I have ever tried to watch.
It was done in the 1980's or 1990's when CGI and stuff wasn't around yet. Cut them some slack. (Not that an earlier movie of that time frame couldn't be awesome with special effects for its time. The Ten Commandments is a classic despite being made decades ago without any CGI.)
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