The Monk (1796) by Matthew Lewis is a quintessential Gothic novel and easily the best book I ever had to read in college. It has been filmed 3 times. I’ve seen the 1972 version starring Euro-woodblock Franco Nero, with a script by Buñuel and his longtime writing partner Jean-Claude Carrière. Buñuel was supposed to direct, but sadly, didn’t. Although the film substitutes an audacious non-ending for the book’s epic ownage ending, the rest of the flick is remarkably dull. I have also seen the 2011 version with Vincent Cassell, which telegraphed a major plot twist, restored all but the coolest parts of the book’s ending and was similarly dull (IMO, the best performance was given by a CG centipede). I have not seen the 1990 version, but don’t hold out much hope it is significantly better.
Death and the Compass is my favorite Borges short story. It was adapted for the BBC in 1992 by Alex Cox (of Repo Man fame), who later expanded it to feature-length. Regrettably, he botched it, miscasting Peter Boyle as the detective and filling it in with too many static exposition scenes featuring a Pablo Escobar lookalike. Watching it hurt, but Mr. Cox later redeemed himself with his excellent 2002 adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s 1607 play Revengers Tragedy…but that is for another thread.
Considering that they got the original cast back, got Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still! The Andromeda Strain!) to direct, Isaac Asimov as science advisor, and alan Dean Foster to do the story, you’d think that they’d do better. Heck, they even had Orson Welles – Orson Freakin’ War of the Worlds Welles – to do the voice-over on the original trailer. But the story was basically a retread of “The Changeling” from the original series (with a bit of “Immunity Syndrome”, with that Cloud hiding everything), which was a disappointment. The effects were gorgeous, but the whole thing felt monumentally overblown.
I’m glad that they wrested control of the franchise away from Roddenbery and got Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer to do they next three films. I think it saved the franchise.
as for Conan the Barbarian, my complain isn’t with Arnold – he looks perfect for the part. John Buscema could’ve drawn him. My complaint is that there wasn’t enough Howard in in it – that character onscreen didn’t seem to have anything in common with the hero of Tower of the Elephant or Rogues I the House or Red Nails. The cheapie flick Sword and the Sorceror, which came out a couple of months earlier, felt much more like a Conan film, because they liberally stole the best parts from Conan stories – the resuscitation of Xuthltan from “Hour of the Dragon/Conan the Conqueror”, Conan’s rucifiction, and other parts. Despite being a much worse film and having a lower budget, it grossed almost exactly as much as Conan the Barbarian did.
Yeah, same here. (I assume you’re referring to “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”)
I was a trekkie kid and a science fiction kid. Watched the reruns of the original series when I could. This should have been great and it ever so… wasn’t.
Agree with this also. I’d heard (from someone here on SDMB in fact) that it was better than the critics said and worth seeing. It wasn’t. I couldn’t even stick it out to the halfway point.
Plus one for Last Jedi. Oh boy. At times it felt like a parody. When Luke drank the creature’s milk it seemed to me like a gag Family Guy would make - without the involvement of a bottle obviously. From the opening ‘I’m on hold for General Gleeson’ or whatever I thought ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
Ugh. Such a let down. Almost in Phantom Menace territory.
The film adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was just painful to watch. Despite being based upon a partially completed screenplay and notes by Douglas Adams and drawing heavily on the source material it seemed to miss the point of every single joke, failing to execute the punchlines. Despite a cast of uniformly good (if utterly miscast) actors, and with special effects and set design were wasted on one pointless scene after another until it finally struggled to a conclusion that made no sense, it wasn’t funny in the slightest. It was as if someone remade Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the cast of Friends doing an initial line reading and not understanding the humor.
I’m a big Coen Brothers fan, and a big Ealing Studios fan. My favorite Ealing Studios movie is 1955’s The Ladykillers.
When I heard that the Coen Brothers were doing a remake of this movie, I had high hopes. However, it turned out a big bust. Tom Hanks was miscast, his partners in crime were mostly just annoying, and the old lady somehow fell flat.
The book was raunchy raucous fun with outrageous characters.
The movie blanded them all down to limpness and completely left some of them out and confused most of the context. And Clint Eastwood’s daughter as Mandy was a travesty.
I once rented “the unrated version” of Electra, starring Shannon Tweed.
Why was it unrated, you ask? Because, if you put “PG” on a Shannon Tweed movie, nobody would ever rent the d— thing.
The movie was made in 1996. Ms Tweed was getting older, and attempting to branch out from the Erotic Thriller genre. It was not a successful attempt.
With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget sci-fi film.
With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget detective film.
With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget action film.
With a little work, it could have been a decent erotic thriller.
I was in Germany when this film came out, and saw it in a German theater. It was dubbed, and I don’t speak German. But you’re right, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at.
Saw it again a couple months later, on my flight home, on a tiny screen on the seatback ahead of me. But it was in English. I liked it better the first time.
But it was an interesting failure, and I have tried to figure out exactly why it didn’t work. Despite the alternate-1930s aesthetic, I think the special effects are too video-gamey; hundreds of enemies buzzing around and it’s rather like swatting at gnats. And the character of Polly is all wrong. She should have been a smart, decisive, spunky reporter type (like they might have had in a 1930s movie), but instead she was hesitant and dithering. I don’t know if the fault goes to Gwyneth Paltrow (also gorgeous to look at) or the director.
