Book adaptations

Soylent Green

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Soylent Green. Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer 1973.

Before watching the movie:

Maybe the only thing most people know about this movie is the big reveal. It’s probably more spoiled than Citizen Kane but less than Darth Vader’s true identity. So what else do I know about it? Well, there’s a lot of other colors Soylent comes in, and Green is the newest. I think before I saw the poster just now I could’ve said we’ve already passed the future date of the movie.

I do have to say that naming a real life nutrition company “Soylent” after the fictional megacorporation committing brain-breaking sins against humanity is one of the most direct examples of geniuses who missed the point of their favorite story deciding to build the Torment Nexus.

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The Man Who Fell to Earth

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The Man Who Fell to Earth. British Lion Films 1976.

Before watching the movie:

Once again I’m realizing I know even less about this than I realized. I had some inkling of a story about an alien landing on earth played by David Bowie, but I think more of the details are from Ziggy Stardust. Turns out Bowie didn’t even end up contributing music to this movie. I believe I recall being told something about the story, but I can’t recall anything more than what’s told by the title. From the summary I’ve glanced at now, it looks like what I was told would’ve glossed over a lot to make it appropriate for the age I was when it was discussed.

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World War Z

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World War Z. Plan B Entertainment 2013.

Before watching the movie:

I have a fairly clear memory of this movie’s promotion as being the point where it seemed that any big zombie movie needs to have a thing that you’ve never seen zombies do before. They were talking about how after Fast Zombies, the new innovation of this movie is climbing/swarming zombies. I don’t know what else can be done to make zombies more threatening now that they can be fast and crash over you like a tide and still be nonsapient enough to be playing the trope straight, but if somebody figures it out, they’ll probably have the next blockbuster zombie movie, or at least that was the impression the marketing for WWZ gave me.

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Les Misérables

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Les Miserables. Relativity Media 2012.

Before watching the movie:

I’m decently acquainted with the plot of the book, but somehow more through osmosis than from actually having watched the 1998 movie in class. I also recall attempting to read the book, but when I picked up the distressingly large tome with shockingly small text I was already having second thoughts, and then when this supposed English translation began with five pages in Latin, I put the book down and gave up.

I’ve wanted to experience the musical for a long time, and it’s always been a disappointment to me that the 1998 version was not based on the musical and that the musical was never properly filmed on stage (though there was an “original cast in concert” film just lined up on the stage performing the music, which I saw some of possibly in the same class that watched the other movie). When I decided to include Les Mis in this run of musicals, I was hoping there would’ve been another version because I’ve heard mostly bad things about Tom Hooper’s directorial decisions. But somehow this monumentally popular show has only been done on film the one time.

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Rent

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Rent. Revolution Studios 2005.

Before watching the movie:

There was a brief period in the 2000s when a lot of the great Broadway musicals of the last few decades were brought to movie theaters. Rent is one of the most modern musicals in that sweep, but what I know about it is basically “a bunch of young friends trying to keep going when their high rent is starving them” and “the AIDS musical”.

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Airport

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Airport. Universal Pictures 1970.

Before watching the movie:

I almost certainly wouldn’t have known about this movie if it wasn’t for Airplane!, which is nominally a parody of the sequel Airport ’77 (but supposedly more directly riffing on the plot of Zero Hour). What I never understood is how movies about airplane disasters get titled after the airport, so I don’t know if I really know what I’m in for (Airplane but without the farce) or not.

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Let the Right One In

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Let the Right One In. EFTI 2008.

Before watching the movie:

I’m pretty sure I remember promotion for this movie, which is strange because foreign films hardly ever get significant US advertising campaigns. However, I have very clear memories of ads for the subsequent English-language remake with a slightly different title confusing me because wasn’t this the same story that came out a couple years ago?

I remember a lot of window knocking and vampires in the snow. I think it’s a coming of age movie, so it would center around children? The title sounds like there are good vampires and bad vampires and you have to know which one to invite inside (a vampire rule I think this movie introduced to me).

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All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

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All Quiet on the Western Front. Universal Studios 1930.

Before watching the movie:

While this movie’s copyright has not expired, the book is as of this year in the public domain (and so is the original English translation, which I hadn’t realized came so quickly after). I’ve considered coming to this one a few times when an antiwar story would have topical currency, but I never made it all the way.

I mostly know only in vague terms how directly this story illustrates the hell and futility of war, aside from having heard of the scene where a protagonist kills an enemy soldier in a foxhole and, on examining the dead man’s pockets, realizes just how relatably human the “enemy” really is.

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The Shawshank Redemption

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The Shawshank Redemption. Castle Rock Entertainment 1994.

Before watching the movie:

There are two things this movie is famous for: the tunnel escape from the end of the movie, and Morgan Freeman’s distinctive narration. I want to say this is the movie that cemented Freeman’s reputation as an actor but I’d have to study his filmography more to say for sure.

Freeman’s role is so large in the popular consciousness that I couldn’t even tell you who the guy he’s narrating about is played by.

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The Prestige

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The Prestige. Newmarket Films/Syncopy 2006.

Before watching the movie:

I think the main thing I know about this movie is the big secret that drives the plot. The core mystery is about finding out how a magic trick is done, so I suppose it’s about a younger or rival magician trying to learn the master’s secrets. I’m not sure how an entire movie can come out of that, so I don’t know what’s going on around it.

I believe I’ve heard there’s a lot of Christopher Nolan’s philosophy of moviemaking in how the character approaches being a magician. I recall some discussion of looking through this movie for clues of what Nolan was going to do with the Dark Knight trilogy, or that The Dark Knight Rises was going to be Nolan’s Prestige in the trick he was performing with Batman. I’m not sure that panned out, but speculation drives engagement.

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