Burning Questions: To Read Or Not To Read

Michael C. here to tackle a major philosophical issue. No poking fun at Ghost Rider this week. There are some questions a movie lover ponders for a lifetime. The big questions like where to sit in the theater (close enough to fill my field of vision but not so close I crane my neck) or Godfather Part I or Part II (Part I. You Part II people can have at me in the comments)

This week I thought I’d dive into one such big question the imminent release of Hunger Games has me contemplating. Is it better to read the book first or watch the movie?

For the purposes of this discussion let us assume that both book and movie are excellent. When one is clearly superior then the call is obvious. Better version first. Read I, Robot, The Road, Breakfast of Champions. Watch Jaws, Sideways, Wonder Boys. The lesser version can be an interesting bonus at best, a horrible afterthought at worst.

The real dilemma is when both versions promise to be excellent and one experience will inevitably compromises the purity of the other. I’ll state right up front that when put to it I’m a movie first guy. I watched the entirety of the Lord of the Rings not knowing if Frodo would make it back alive (I had read The Hobbit, which was made for an ideal balance of acquainting myself with the world and preserving suspense. I recommend it)

So in the interest of fairness let me play Devil’s Advocate and make the case for book first to see if I can shake my position.

Books provide context

Book to film adaptations inevitably lop off huge chunks of backstory on the trip to the screen. When entire chapters of family history are reduced to a five seconds of Lisbeth Salander scrolling through pics on a laptop, having read the book becomes invaluable.

My response:  A movie should stand on its own. “That was explained in the novel” is not a legitimate defense as far as I’m concerned. Also...

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Q&A Pt. 1: Sexy Time, Big Scares, Grace Casting, Favorite Kubrick

As an apology for always taking so damn long with these Q & A columns, I'm doing two this week, but shorter just so I can get some questions done. I'm glad the feature is so popular so thanks for your patience when your questions aren't selected or delayed a week. Here we go. You asked. I select eight to answer... for now. Part Two in a day or three.

MARK: Do you think the success of The Help and Bridesmaids will get more female oriented films made, black or white?

Sadly I do not. It's actually not that rare for a female-driven film to become a big success. Everyone in positions of power just has collective amnesia about it the following year or assumes that it's a novelty even though novelty should imply "one off" and not something that occurs pretty much a couple of times a year. ;) 

KOKOLO: What is your favorite Kubrick film?
I haven't been a completist about everyone's favorite director but mine. But of those that I've seen my preference is The Shining. I don't like the ending very much but otherwise I love everything about it and I think it's spectacularly creepy. But this could be because I saw it in a spectacularly creepy way for a first time in (wait for it) a cabin in the woods without another house around for miles, surrounded by the pitch black of a forest. I was SO scared. And don't you think that the circumstances in which you first view a movie have a real longlasting impact on you (provided it's a great movie to begin with)?

As for Kubrick in general, I find his films somewhat alienating which I suppose is the point but he's just not a favorite of mine. We're all allowed our off-consensus feelings about "the masters" aren't we? I actively dislike Eyes Wide Shut (1999), hate its faux shocking orgy sequence and cheesy-ass pay cable looking fantasies and the molasses performance beats drive me utterly wild... not in the good way. No, I don't even like Kidman in it very much. I keep meaning to give it a second chance but... every time I see a scene out of context I hate it all over again. I do however worship the opening sequence with Nicole Kidman stripping in front of the mirror.

But because I have never written about Kubrick I will now allow of you to choose one of the following (I skipped ones I didn't feel like writing about) and I will rent and write about whichever one you choose before the end of November. Drum roll... GO!

poll by twiigs.com

BIA: Which actresses would you put on a shortlist for this new Grace Kelly movie?

Please god no. We don't need this movie! Unless it's an alternate reality fantasy in which Kelly loses the Oscar to Garland. Hee. But in all seriousness, I did look at my list of actresses in the right age range -- yes I keep age range lists like I'm some casting director! I am an actress nerd. I couldn't come up with anyone suitable - Grace Kelly was 25 at the peak of her movie fame and 27 when she married the prince and retired. [If you're curious some blondes in the 20something age range -- I'm not endorsing them just listing them...

Grace casting, Sexy & Scary movies and more after the jump...

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Links: 2011 Lists, Avatar Rides, W.E. Edits, Drive Colors,

The Wrap have you heard this big news? Florida is getting an Avatar theme park. Florida is just overrun with theme parks, yes? How can they work in the hair sex thing? 
Movie|Line Madonna's W.E. will be reedited following festival savaging.
In Contention Now officially moved to the HitFix family. Check it out.
Movie|Line the movie Brad Pitt wants to be remembered for is... ??? Really? A personal pick I see.
Fuck Yeah Dementia I loled at this reworked moment from The Shining. [via]
Ultra Culture on Crazy, Stupid, Love. It's okay to want to f*** Ryan Gosling. Society says so! 

My New Plaid Pants discovers the Evil Gay (Rob James Collier) in the Emmy winning Dowton Abbey. And loves him.
Han Cinema we've been wondering if we'd see any foreign animated films in Oscar's weak animated eligible pool this year? Wonder if this could be one King of Pigs from South Korea. 
The AV Club and PopWatch both wonder if it isn't time that we all let go of Star Wars. As someone who grew up with them, seeing them in first release, I understand this issue too well.
Low Resolution, taking Nick's Flick Picks cue, is making a best of the first 50 he saw this year. Interesting and fine choices for acting honors including my Higher Ground gals (see previous interview) 
Some Came Running on Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method and the notion of what's cinematic. Interesting read for sure though I quit halfway through as it'll be better once i've seen the movie in question. My online reading is increasingly developing this pattern so my link lists are becoming cataloguing lists given that bloggers tend to write about movies so far in advance of your ability to actually see them.

Finally... since we're obsessed with Drive this week

Her breasts aren't real! Just sayin'.

Scanners I was just about to post this very framegrab from the Drive trailer. I hadn't noticed it until I accidently freeze-framed at this moment the other day and saw all the blurry breasts. LOL. It's a very breasty setpiece in the movie (and one of my favorite scenes; the strippers collective zombie like performances are perfection) But here it kicks off a host of observations about the color palette of Drive: teals, pinks, oranges and its orgasmic but nonsexual relationship with red.

Fool For Link

Vogue Vibes on the duel era fashions of Midnight in Paris
Acidemic free ranging piece on the images and scoring of The Tree of Life
Nick's Flick Picks, never one to shy away from a massive project, has decided to recreate Cannes 1986 (25th anniversary) and write all about it. First...
Nick's Flick Picks Robert Altman's Fool For Love. Nick thinks Kim Basinger is sensational in it (so do I).
Guardian on the ever thorny topic of how to "date" a motion picture, production date, release date, initial screening?
Basket of Kisses Mad Men's Aaron Staton (we love him) is the lead in the new video game L.A. Noire
Movie|Line loves Ari Graynor -- they're always trying to claim actresses we also champion damn them -- so must share this clip from the upcoming comedy Lucky.

Stale Popcorn with another halfway mark listicle: the good, the bad and the ugly of 2011
Pajiba advice for screenwriters willing to sell their souls from those who've made billions at the box office with almost no discernible talent whatsoever.
Awards Daily Oscar's blind David Cronenberg spot. Recently I've been thinking that I wanted to do a whole comprehensive review of one director's every film. Maybe it should be him? Although maybe he's made to many. Never mind.

the divas
The Advocate Lady Gaga profile on her connection to the gays and those comparisons to legendary performers like Barbra Streisand, Debbie Harry and Madonna.
Boy Culture EEK. Proof that Madonna is finally back in the recording studio. As of yesterday.
The Broadway Blog honors Marin Mazzie, about to take on the iconic Mrs White role in the revival of Carrie the Musical (yes that musical based on the 1976 pig-blooded classic)

sorry. back to the movies...
ion cinema has a bunch of halfway point top ten lists. Can't get enough of this topic, can you? Or am I just speaking for myself?
PopMatters 10 insane lessons that Transformers Dark of the Moon is trying to teach us
Old Hollywood omg, yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the "Overlook Hotel Ball" (immortalized in The Shining) We MUST remember this in ten years time for the centennial.

Would you like The Film Experience to be around in 2021? LOL, I know I know. We're getting ahead of ourselves. But if you'd like TFE to be around in 2012, please consider subscribing from the sidebar link
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Take Three: Shelley Duvall

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Shelley Duvall

Take One: 3 Women (1977)

There aren’t very many characters like Millie Lammoreaux in the movies. Watching Robert Altman’s 1977 masterpiece 3 Women you can see why. Essentially there are two reasons: she’s a hard sell, commercially speaking, and Duvall has played her perfectly well here already; there’s no need for an imitation version from anyone else. Duvall made Millie so singularly and categorically her own. It’s her signature performance; the centrepiece on her C.V. As per the title, she shares the film with two other women: Sissy Spacek, as her new roommate and care-home co-worker Pinky Rose, and Janice Rule as Willie Hart, a local (to Millie’s apartment complex, the Purple Sage, where much of the film takes place) artist – the one who paints the mysterious swimming pool mural which seems so significant to these 3 Women, and (metaphorically?) permeates it with an uncommon atmosphere.

Millie’s unconventional in her desire to be the picture of conventionality, and therefore slightly barking by “normal” folks’ standards. She is awkward to be around, obsessed with women’s magazines and being the girl with the utmost social purpose, to an almost unhealthy degree; she’s too-brightly presented for her own good (literally and psychologically – her yellow and purple outfits cover a multitude of personality shortfalls), self-regarding, scared of tomatoes and is passive-aggressive 23 hours a day. But she’s never less than individual. A one-off. She’s also one of the most riveting, uncontainable and unique creations in all ‘70s American cinema. There’s humour in the awkwardness and then a wrenching sadness. We see Millie change, vividly and complexly, toward the film’s last scenes – just before the film waltzes gloriously off into its own unfathomable illogicality. Duvall quite rightly won Best Actress at Cannes and the LAFCAA for 3 Women. But she should have won much more.

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