trailer park, part deux

More trailers for you guys to watch, but I'm still having trouble embedding the videos, so I had to post links again. Sorry, again.


Towelhead (Aug. 8)
This seems to have the same kind of unsettling quality that Little Children had, and it is not totally thematically different, with pedophilia and alienation coming to the fore. This seems like one of those movies that's good, and makes you think, but leaves you with a really unpleasant feeling in your stomach. But then, could we expect any less from director Alan Ball?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZngC-tNfmG0

Tropic Thunder (Aug. 15)
War satire that isn't Delta Farce? Check. Steve Coogan? Check. Robert Downey, Jr. playing an Australian actor who undergoes a surgical procedure to look African-American, and then method acting as a black man for the entire film? Check. A movie exciting enough to prompt me to make the controversial statement that, other than Dodgeball, Ben Stiller hasn't been in a funny movie since The Royal Tenenbaums (appearances as Tony Wonder don't count)? Check. Making fun of Academy Award nominated Norbit? Check.
Red band: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tSI15ltIacI


Hamlet 2 (Aug. 22)
It's got Steve Coogan (again) and Catherine Keener, and centers on a high school rock opera with the song "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" as its hit. What more could I ask for?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z-OEuXR4_P4


The House Bunny (Aug. 22)
This one just looks stupid and funny enough to join the ranks of Grandma's Boy in my guiltiest guilty pleasures vault. When my roommate and I told her dad the premise of this movie, he countered with a story about how a few years before he went to college, the frat that he would eventually join had a live-in prostitute and her pimp serve jointly as their house mother. Touche.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9aOSrQEqd4

Blindness (Sep. 19)
It's kind of tough for me to talk about this movie because I spent a few months out of my life lovingly adapting Jose Saramago's excellent book into my very first feature-length screenplay. I have a copy of the script that Fernando Meirelles used for his upcoming film, and I haven't been able to bring myself to read it yet. I can only say that Saramago's story is excellent, and so is Julianne Moore, so I'm sure this film will be winning every award from here to Texas. Sigh.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9EHg0SJfYeU

Australia (Nov. 14)
I have been looking forward to this movie for quite some time now, and as a devoted fan of Baz Luhrmann's Red Curtain trilogy, I'm really excited to see how he's going to apply his incredible talent and skill to a pastoral epic. I think that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are well matched, even if it was an interesting choice to cast her as a Brit (she'll be fine, it's still kind of interesting), and the trailer gives me shivers when they kiss. I think the style and the setting are going to make this movie old-school magical, and I have a feeling that it's going to be about 1,000 times better than Ron Howard's Tom-and-Nicole epic Far and Away, which I've seen like 3 times and is crazy entertaining for a horrible movie.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7gtKcr_W_fc

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Dec. 19)
I hadn't been interested in this movie at all when I'd only heard Brad Pitt's name and the curious title together, but when I realized it was a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, my interest grew. Upon viewing the trailer, which does a lot with music and lack of dialogue, it has become one of my most eagerly-anticipated films of 2008. Brad Pitt can act quite well when he's not being totally boring-looking, and I think that this movie will be what Big Fish almost was, and reach just beyond the edge of imagination to give us something totally crazy to think about.
Low quality Spanish trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1v3V5KAIyM4

fish out of water

I first heard of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones when I was a high school freshman, and read an excerpt from it in a girls' magazine - I want to say it was "Girl's Life," but I can't be sure. I knew the premise was that narrator Susie had been raped and murdered, and that the bulk of the novel consisted of her watching her family cope from heaven. I certainly remember being fascinated by the concept of Susie watching her earthbound younger sister, who has had the opportunity to grow up, losing her virginity while at summer camp. "'I'm ready,' my sister said. At fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I'd never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood. In the walls of hers there were windows." (P. 125)

I loved the novel when I first read it, so much so that I convinced both of my parents to read it as well. Despite the fact that it was geared and marketed to young women, I believe both of them were as struck by it as I was. The relationships between Susie's parents and sister compete with the observations of the murdered girl to be the most captivating theme in the book.

Jeremy Smith's article on CHUD let me know that Peter Jackson will be turning the novel into a film. Those familiar with Jackson's work will know that he can make a movie that isn't a blockbuster heavy on special effects. So I'm willing to believe that Jackson can reign himself in and give us this story without layering it on too thick. But I'm really not sure about how this novel will translate to the screen. It's difficult for well-written narration to come across as too hokey or obvious in film, I think. Little Children did a good job of not going too heavy on the narration while keeping the storybook feeling of the novel. But even with that and the wonderful performances, there was still something off for me after having enjoyed the book.

This is a common problem for adaptations: that fans of the written narrative will always be let down by the film. The Harry Potter movies, for example, have always disappointed me, because there are too many omissions and changes. Then there's something like The Grapes of Wrath, where I could never expect a filmmaker to come close to the brilliance of Steinbeck's prose (I'm a little obsessed with Steinbeck, by the way), so the movie is still impressive on its own. But it pleases me to see Peter Jackson on the project, because The Lord of the Rings is the only novel whose film adaptations have exceeded my expectations. Even Gone With the Wind leaves me wishing that so many things hadn't been changed, and I love that movie.

However, there is a scene in the novel The Lovely Bones which I won't spoil, because I highly recommend reading it, which I just do not understand how it could be translated to the screen. It morphs narration with the visually and intellectually complex concept of corporeality, and I really don't know if they'll even keep it in the adaptation. Though I guess Jackson would be the man to try, so we'll see.

How do you feel about novel adaptations onscreen? Any outstanding ones you'd like to recommend?