A film rant.
Okay I'm one who rarely rants about films and books. There are many fans and geeks who do a far better job at this than I. However, I'm currently having a gripe about the remake of a film and this is my blog and I'll rant if I want to. (Thanks to both LastCall & Nevryn who endured my ranting this afternoon).
Fever Pitch which is based on a novel by Nick Hornby (the guy who brought us High Fidelity, About A Boy, How To Be Good and 31 Songs). He is one of my favourite authors. I have read his books time and time again and he is one of the few authors I'll buy books of before reading the blurb of the book. His characters are enjoyable despite their neurosis and he has a clever way of dropping characters and locations from one book into another (for example one of the settings in About A Boy is the record store from High Fidelity). His short stories are great as well. He makes me laugh as well as pointing out some of the most beautiful and tragic aspects of human relationships.
I saw High Fidelity (the film with John Cusack) on multiple occassions (at least 5 times in the cinema) and it is the only dvd I own, the soundtrack is one of my current travelling cds. I enjoyed the screen adaptation of About A Boy, despite my inital hesitation of Hugh Grant as Will. The screen adaption of Fever Pitch with Colin Firth was great, and the soundtrack was compiled by Nick Hornby himself (it's very good too). So far these adaptions have been fairly faithful to the stories and still capture the important issues the books raise.
But you see there's a problem. Americans can't watch a film made outside of America. No, those funny English accents make it too difficult to understand. And football? Soccer? Arsenal? What's that? No we only understand good American sports like baseball.
So there is a remake of Fever Pitch. With baseball instead of soccer. And Jimmy Fallon instead of Colin Firth. And Drew Barrymore. And depending on which website you read Nancy Juvonen or the Farrelly brother's directing.
Jimmy Fallon instead of Colin Firth.
Saturday Night Live guy instead of Mr Darcy!
At least it seems Nick Hornby has given his blessing, so there's hope. I guess.
Fever Pitch which is based on a novel by Nick Hornby (the guy who brought us High Fidelity, About A Boy, How To Be Good and 31 Songs). He is one of my favourite authors. I have read his books time and time again and he is one of the few authors I'll buy books of before reading the blurb of the book. His characters are enjoyable despite their neurosis and he has a clever way of dropping characters and locations from one book into another (for example one of the settings in About A Boy is the record store from High Fidelity). His short stories are great as well. He makes me laugh as well as pointing out some of the most beautiful and tragic aspects of human relationships.
I saw High Fidelity (the film with John Cusack) on multiple occassions (at least 5 times in the cinema) and it is the only dvd I own, the soundtrack is one of my current travelling cds. I enjoyed the screen adaptation of About A Boy, despite my inital hesitation of Hugh Grant as Will. The screen adaption of Fever Pitch with Colin Firth was great, and the soundtrack was compiled by Nick Hornby himself (it's very good too). So far these adaptions have been fairly faithful to the stories and still capture the important issues the books raise.
But you see there's a problem. Americans can't watch a film made outside of America. No, those funny English accents make it too difficult to understand. And football? Soccer? Arsenal? What's that? No we only understand good American sports like baseball.
So there is a remake of Fever Pitch. With baseball instead of soccer. And Jimmy Fallon instead of Colin Firth. And Drew Barrymore. And depending on which website you read Nancy Juvonen or the Farrelly brother's directing.
Jimmy Fallon instead of Colin Firth.
Saturday Night Live guy instead of Mr Darcy!
At least it seems Nick Hornby has given his blessing, so there's hope. I guess.
posted by moonbug @ Saturday, September 11, 2004
2 Comments:
At Sunday, September 12, 2004 2:58:00 am,
Simon said…
I'm not sure endure is the right word. I quite like your ranting.
*kiss*
See you tomorrow!
At Tuesday, September 14, 2004 1:28:00 pm,
Grant said…
I think High Fidelity is ample proof that one can not mis-judge a Hollywood adaptation of a decidedly non-American novel without giving it a look first.
And Fever Pitch is gonna star Drew. DREW!!!, I tells ya.
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