Author Topic: Movies & Books Into Movies (Read 590648 times)

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #3640 on:** January 24, 2014, 02:27:13 PM »

How many of you have read a book,
then watched a movie that was based on that same book?

Were you disappointed?
Or elated that they hadn't made any significant changes?
Or even surprised to discover the movie was even better than the book?

_______________________________

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Your Discussion Leader: pedln

I suppose everything's relative, but yes, it does seem that your prices are generally lower. We always have a shock when we see how much everything costs on mainland Europe (France especially) and in Ireland. My husband says the prices in Scandinavia are unbelievably high, but they seem to enjoy a high standard of living so maybe they get paid more.

Rosemary

marjifay · « **Reply #3641 on:** January 24, 2014, 03:01:03 PM »

$8 for a movie ticket here in Southern California. $4 on Wednesdays for Seniors.

What I can't afford anymore are plays. $60 and up per seat. I walked out after the first act a while back on two different plays that were boring. Can't do that very often.

There is a really nice small theater we like in Burbank, CA owned by Garry Marshall (Happy Days). They do mostly romantic, humorous plays, often with stars from older TV dramas or sitcoms. All the seats are about $35 and parking is free in a nice area.

Marj

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #3642 on:** January 24, 2014, 04:13:00 PM »

I think "entertainment prices" are much higher than regular cost of living items; i.e. Groceries, utilities, vehicles, appliances. But, and this is a big but, it would depend on where you live in the U.S. Some states have horrendous prices with huge sales taxes to go along with it. I think California and New York would be the most expensive. Some states have a "State Income Tax" which further muddies the waters and makes cost of living so high. Long ago, I used to hear that one could travel to Europe for very little money. I doubt that is the case with most places there now.

JoanK · « **Reply #3643 on:** January 24, 2014, 04:32:37 PM »

Back in the 60s when my husband and I traveled in Europe, it was much cheaper than traveling in the US. We could get a luxury hotel room on the Riviera overlooking the Mediterranean for half of what a fleabag in Pittsburg cost. But that's because of the exchange rate -- not because it would be that cheap to locals. Now, with the exchange rate equal, we couldn't touch that room.

Prices in the US do vary by location. Especially real estate prices (and hotels). Restaurants: there are so many inexpensive food chains and moderately priced restaurants, everyone can afford to eat out sometimes. That has become a health problem. Busy working people can (and do) afford to get cheap takeout instead of cooking healthy meals: it may even cost less. That's a large part of the growing obesity problem we have in this country.

Marj" are you near Burbank? Here slightly South in Torrance movies are more than $8 at the theatre. But you can buy discount tickets in some discount stores.

ginny · « **Reply #3644 on:** January 24, 2014, 06:36:42 PM »

Except for Meds.

I just got a refill of a month's worth of Bystolic which my part on Blue Cross was $110.99. I was in London two years ago and needed some because I spilled mine on the street and they said well you'll have to have a month's worth (I only needed 4 days worth), and I thought darn, it's expensive, and the cost then two years ago of Nebivilol (sp) (the generic name) at the drug store in Victoria Station was 9 pounds, today's $12 and change.

That was the total price of it then, I think I was paying $90 co pay then, not a co pay like my $110 now is.

JeanneP · « **Reply #3645 on:** January 24, 2014, 07:01:36 PM »

Yes, we always notice how things cost just half of what they are in U.K. Everytime my daughter goes with me and we go to the grocery store she gets a shock. The price of home really shocked her but then they shock me also. I see houses that I knew many years ago. People paid about 5000 pounds then. now selling in the hundreds thousand.
Small cottages in village family live . My aunts sold last for 134 Thousand pounds. when they bought about 35 years ago paid 10 thousand and then remodeled it. She didnt own in. I sure wish I had bought it when she sold. Think for 39 thousand.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #3646 on:** January 26, 2014, 04:02:25 PM »

Had the pleasure of seeing "Philomena" yesterday. A very, very good movie. Sad but moments of humor. Judi Dench is a wonder. And the guy that plays "Sixsmith" wrote, produced and acted in the movie.

marjifay · « **Reply #3647 on:** January 27, 2014, 12:23:25 PM »

No, Joan, I live in northern Orange County. But we go to the Regency movie theater in Laguna Niguel because they show only good movies, not the loud bang-bang stuff kids like, so there are mostly middle-aged or older people. We go during the daytime because there are fewer people then, (sometimes only us and another two or four people). So maybe the daytime price of $8 is cheaper. I think we've paid $11 for the evening movies.

Marj

JoanK · « **Reply #3648 on:** January 27, 2014, 05:51:13 PM »

Rats. I mapquested it and it's too far from Torrance to be practical.

pedln · « **Reply #3649 on:** January 27, 2014, 09:42:48 PM »

Because I rely on captions or subtitles, I go to movie theatres very infrequently. And I really don't miss that except I do enjoy the large screen production every once in a while, usually for a foreign film when I'm visiting a large city.

But for the most part, there are a lot of advantages to watching films at home, and many of the currents ones are available in some format or other within a three or four month period. A film at home doesn't begin until you give the word. And you can have intermissions when you so choose. And it's an easy way to entertain. We potluck our pre-movie dinners. (My son says they have cheese fondue on movie nights.) And then it's on with the show. Netflix has many different plans. For now I'm sticking with the 3 DVD at a time, unlimited number per month for $17 per month. Probably much cheaper than movie and pizza or out for dinner once a month.

Regarding theatre and concert tickets, opera also. The prices make it prohibitve for a family to enjoy together. I've heard others express concern about how difficult it is to develop future audiences. When we lived in Puerto Rico a million years ago we always attended the Casals Festival each year. And many of the performing artists allowed people to sit in on rehearsals, free of charge. I remember watching Leonard Bernstein conduct that way. It was a great way to expose children because you could go and sit for one or two numbers and then leave before the kid got restless.

ginny · « **Reply #3650 on:** January 28, 2014, 11:12:00 AM »

And nobody will shoot you if you text before the movie.

I really enjoy watching movies at home. I know people have giant screens now which is very similar to the experience, but I watch them, because of the set up on our TV's, on a tiny little DVD player and really enjoy it anyway. It takes a special movie for me to give in and go.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #3651 on:** January 28, 2014, 01:19:02 PM »

Pedln - what do you mean when you say 'we potluck our dinners'? I thought a potluck supper was when lots of people all brought different dishes (as to a social event) - is it different in the US?

pedln · « **Reply #3652 on:** January 29, 2014, 08:29:50 PM »

It's the same here. Three to five of us get together periodically to watch films and everyone brings something to share for the evening meal.

Every once in a while we'll go out to dinner first, but that usually means a later start and half of us are asleep before the end of the movie. LOL!!

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #3653 on:** January 30, 2014, 03:11:08 AM »

Oh that would be me! I really struggle to stay awake after a big meal. Your idea sounds much better.

pedln · « **Reply #3654 on:** February 07, 2014, 12:16:34 PM »

Just saw this on Facebook -- posted by Helen Simonson.

Quote

Bill Nighy to play Major Pettigrew! Direct from the website of my producers, Mazur Kaplan (in association with Langley Park Productions), the talented and funny Mr. Nighy is the man! This will put a stop to people asking me how tall the major is and emailing me their casting lists. Also a relief to my husband who worried that movies take so long to make that Daniel Radcliffe would be old enough to play the Major. Could not be happier. The only question that remains - will they ask Mr. Nighy to trim those signature flowing locks to fit a more military comportment?

MaryPage · « **Reply #3655 on:** February 07, 2014, 05:19:08 PM »

Oh, wonderful!
Adored Major Pettigrew!
Adore Bill Nighy!
No, the real Bill Nighy does not fit my image of the Major at all, at all.
But!
But Bill Nighy can become ANYone!
Whee!

ginny · « **Reply #3656 on:** February 07, 2014, 06:09:04 PM »

I just saw Monuments Men and I do have the book but have not read it yet. i think it's a movie which might appeal more to men, it's a splendid ensemble cast but somehow it seemed..... I dunno. There's not an actor there that I don't like very much, and they all did a good job, but, again...I dunno. It's a good movie about something most people including me knew nothing about, so it's time well spent. The book looks interesting too.

Frybabe · « **Reply #3657 on:** February 11, 2014, 07:36:18 AM »

Shirley Temple Black just passed away at 85.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/shirley-temple-dead-child-star-ambassador-dies_n_4765333.html

pedln · « **Reply #3658 on:** February 11, 2014, 11:14:49 AM »

Thanks, Frybabe.

After reading your post I went to Netflix just to look at reviews of some of her films. A Little Miss Marker review caught my attention with this --

Quote

This film is noteworthy for a particular scene that is legend in film history. The scene called for Shirley to cry. A simple thing for her in later films, but this was the first film that called for her to do it on cue. She couldn't do it & she didn't know how to fake it. The director decided to play a cruel joke on her when, with cameras rolling, he took Shirley by the hand, led her to the bed, and then told her that her new pet puppy had just got run over in the parking lot and was killed! She burst into tears, the director jumped out of the scene and the cameras recorded the child's real-life crying. Egads! Oh yeah, Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard are in this film too.

from Netflix

I remember my Shirley Temple doll, with eyes that opened and shut.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #3659 on:** February 11, 2014, 01:48:41 PM »

Ginny, our Dallas Morning News movie Critic kind of nicely bashed "Monuments Men". I can't put my hand on the section of paper, but he said it didn't really "come together" despite the several delays in getting the movie finished and released. I still want to see it though. If I find the column on line, I will come back and post it here.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #3660 on:** February 11, 2014, 02:18:58 PM »

I found the review; here it is:

George Clooney's WWII movie 'The Monuments Men' never finds a cohesive identity (C)

25

By CHRIS VOGNAR
Movie Critic
cvognar@dallasnews.com
Published: 06 February 2014 12:47 PM

There’s a good movie dying to bust out of The Monuments Men, the strangely torpid new World War II movie about the fight to rescue masterpieces of world art from Nazi clutches.

Based on the nonfiction book by Dallas’ Robert Edsel and Bret Witter, the movie has the settings for a feast: charming stars, far-flung locales, high cultural stakes. When you realize it’s not coming together, your first impulse is to ask: What happened?

There were signs of trouble when The Monuments Men was bumped from the prestigious year-end schedule and set aside for reconstructive surgery. Apparently the procedure didn’t take. Sequences of the jocular male bonding we expect from director-star George Clooney collide with grave tales of war’s sacrifice and civics-lesson lectures on art’s cultural necessity. A movie that should be fraught with urgency instead sputters from

episode to episode.

None of it is particularly terrible; small pieces are quite compelling. But a movie with even half The Monuments Men’s aspirations needs a personality and a swift narrative thrust. As it is, the movie feels as scattered as the Rembrandts, Picassos and other art jewels strewn throughout Germany.

It’s hard to blame Clooney for seeing the premise’s potential for fun. The assembled art experts (Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban) are classic fish out of water, unaccustomed to firearms, combat, commanding officers or other staples of This Man’s Army. They’re a little like the Hollywood filmmakers who join the war effort to shoot high-grade propaganda in Mark Harris’ upcoming nonfiction book Five Came Back. They have an important job, and they have the passion to carry it out.

Most of that passion gets lost on the way to the screen, though you can still locate the fragments here

and there. Cate Blanchett smolders as Claire Simone, based on the French art historian and Resistance fighter Rose Valland. Greta Garbo would love this performance. She might also wonder why it seems to exist in a different universe from everyone else in the movie.

That’s what The Monuments Men needs: cohesion, glue, a unifying vision of what it wants to be and how to get there. If that sounds simple, it really isn’t. When you think about it, with so many moving parts and personalities in the mix, it’s a marvel that any movie comes out feeling fully cooked — even when the ingredients are the best available.

THE MONUMENTS MEN (C)

ginny · « **Reply #3661 on:** February 11, 2014, 02:56:18 PM »

Yes, that's about it. I really looked forward to seeing it, and I'm glad I did, but ....as he said.

Thank you for putting that here.

JoanK · « **Reply #3662 on:** February 12, 2014, 03:43:05 PM »

If I thought of it, I guess I assumed that Shirley temple was long gone. It's nice for once to hear of a movie star who lived a long life. I wonder what she did with herself?

maryz · « **Reply #3663 on:** February 12, 2014, 05:33:02 PM »

Joan, she was active in the Republican party - was an ambassador to two different countries - and very well thought of.

Frybabe · « **Reply #3664 on:** February 13, 2014, 07:23:31 AM »

Now we just lost Sid Caesar. He was 91.

pedln · « **Reply #3665 on:** February 13, 2014, 10:20:21 AM »

It seems we've lost a lot of these folks lately. Sad with some, when you think of what could have been, sad for others, when you think the end of an era, the end of a bit of life as we knew it.

MaryPage · « **Reply #3666 on:** February 13, 2014, 11:01:48 AM »

I am so disappointed Shirley Temple has died.

This all feels like a game of musical chairs, and the music is still playing and I still manage to grab a chair and stay here while all the time the chairs get fewer and there are more people standing around the room no longer playing than there are left in the game.

I really miss those who are no longer playing. I adored and admired Shirley Temple. Sid Caesar gave me many a laugh of a Saturday night. With Imogene Coco. Remember? He had a genius that will be lost with him, I am afraid. And few of the newscasters relating his passing even knew who he was. As Chris Matthews said, one last time let's say "Hail, Caesar!"

I would also say this to him: "Thank you."

Frybabe · « **Reply #3667 on:** February 14, 2014, 07:36:36 AM »

Yet another actor has passed away, Ralph Waite of The Waltons fame, at 85. I didn't know he ran for congress three time. The last two times were against Mary Bono (Sunny Bono's widow).

MaryPage · « **Reply #3668 on:** February 14, 2014, 01:01:14 PM »

I did not know that either.

I only saw The Waltons a couple of times, and then probably just a bit of the show. Never caught my fancy. Plus I was not in a situation of much leisure time back in those days. Working full time and raising a passel of kids. Wore me out, and it was all I could do to try to keep up with the news of the day and catch Masterpiece Theatre on PBS on Sunday nights.

I missed a lot of the TV shows people speak of with nostalgia these days. I am aware of which they speak, but left wondering how in the world they found time for them.

But then again, there ARE folk who have the telly on almost 24/7 and keep up with just about everything. Now that I am an ancient crone (think the one in the original Snow White!), I can spend hours in my easy chair with the television going, but I choose not to. I like quiet, classical music on the radio or CDs, and a good book. I have never, ever, been a fan of those daytime audience shows with all the screaming and carrying on. Eeeeeek! Save me! Save me!

pedln · « **Reply #3669 on:** February 15, 2014, 11:03:02 AM »

It seems like we've lost so many entertainers these past few weeks. I loved the Waltons and have about the first three seasons now on DVD, to watch at leisure.

My daughter works in an office with cubicles and as congenial co-workers leave for the day you often hear "Goodnight, Judy; Goodnight Olivia; Goodnight Barbara, etc. etc. My daughter said to one of her much younger co-workers -- "We sound like the Waltons, don't we?" and got a complete blank stare. The woman had never heard of them, didn't know what my daughter was talking about.

How quickly culture comes and goes.

JeanneP · « **Reply #3670 on:** February 15, 2014, 01:07:54 PM »

Oh! How I hated those cubicles. Our company put them in every dept. I had a job where I could go to other dept . Other than that it would have driven me craz. Size not bad but to small and walls to high for me. I don't believe got people to work more. They just talked more on phone.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #3671 on:** February 17, 2014, 02:16:51 PM »

Not all Monuments Men were men.......

http://museumethics.org/2014/02/not-all-monuments-men-were-men/

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #3672 on:** February 17, 2014, 05:08:45 PM »

Very nice article, mabel. Thanks for sending. But don't we just ordinarily assume there had to be "women behind the men" working on gigantic important projects such as this?

Dana · « **Reply #3673 on:** February 23, 2014, 12:24:11 PM »

Saw a really mesmerizing movie---Once Upon a Time in Anatolia--Turkish, subtitles, lo..o..ong, about this group of guys driving thru Anatolia in search of a body, the cinematography I guess and the dialogue made it completely gripping...anyone seen it? If not, its probably too late on Netflix because it goes on the 24th.

Dana · « **Reply #3674 on:** February 23, 2014, 07:15:49 PM »

Just watched that movie AGAIN....wanted to see why I thought it was so good.
Its just a slice of life I think, no deep message, just life and people living but expressed in a way that it seems real, rather than hyped up or whatever.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #3675 on:** February 24, 2014, 02:50:37 PM »

Tomereader - yes, it's often true that women have been behind the scenes of important events or projects, but i don't agree that MOST people assume that to be true. (I think there is a unique, informed group on SL

) Too few people have any concept of women throughout history. Thank goodness there is a growing cache of information about how important women have been at every time and in every event, but i'm not sure many are taking the opportunity to learn about this new knowledge.

I recently gave a presentation on "Some of the Invisible Women in the Civil Rights Movement." I had to title it "Some" because there were thousands!! A really good, easy to read book on the subject is "Freedom's Daughters" by Lynne Olsen, but even it includes only "some........."

Jean

MaryPage · « **Reply #3676 on:** February 25, 2014, 08:43:14 AM »

Speaking and/or thinking about Monument Men, if you were fascinated by that story you might want to catch a copy of the January 2014 issue of SMITHSONIAN magazine. An article in there tells and shows an equally great tale about saving ART in Italy: THE VENUS FIXERS. Lovely reading.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #3677 on:** February 27, 2014, 01:11:40 PM »

Edsel, author of Monument Men, also wrote a book about saving Italy's art.

http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Italy-Rescue-Nations-Treasures/dp/0393082415

maryz · « **Reply #3678 on:** February 27, 2014, 09:38:38 PM »

We went to see The Monuments Men this evening. It's a pretty good movie, but a great story.

marjifay · « **Reply #3679 on:** March 03, 2014, 12:05:15 PM »

Don't know what you all thought of the Oscar show last night, but I agree with the article in the New Yorker magazine that knocked the show, with a few exceptions, saying that it was done with safety and dullness, the presenters reading their lines like zombies. It also said that two of the best movies, Nebraska and The Wolf of Wall Street, went home empty-handed. I don't know about Wolf, as I've yet to see it, but I thought Nebraska should have won for best film, and its star, Bruce Dern, for best actor.

Marj

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Author Topic: Movies & Books Into Movies (Read 590648 times)