Hola, Sneakers. Welcome to Episode 456 of our penal servitude!
This week: deja dum-dum episode; super spanking; woeful ignorance; surprise career; likeably dead; terrible or meh; Short career; Talking Talking Talking Simpsons; hey, boss; condescending; bucket of smallpox; surprise wins; Rippey tales; let’s talk Lovecraft Country; let’s talk Dr. Sleep; redemption vs. corruption; under-utilized R-rating; DJ blather; too much for shorts; self-interested; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; GALAP!; hula hoopsters; facsimile themes; now he gets it; evil psychiatrists; more about exorbitant pizza; deep-fried don’ts; Diners, Drive Inns, and Pubs; terrible clue; famous background worker; apprehensive; and, finally, eaten by orcas.
Thanks for listening.
Question of the week: What made your summers for you as a kid? Did you have a favourite summer activity or destination?
Sub-question of the week: What is your favourite book to movie or TV show adaptation?
Sub-sub-question of the week: How are you doing right now? Have you learned to live in our new now or are you still apprehensive about leaving the house?
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I think David was thinking of the season 4 ep “A Streetcar Named Marge.”
Hi guys, long time no comment,
After being totally lost during your Doctor Sleep/The Shinning discussion, I decided it’s probably time I see it (the shinning). I never watch horror movies, but luckily this was more creepy and less scary. Every camera shot was so beautiful to look at, it really felt like a film makers film, but man the ending plot was confusing. Like I thought only people with the shinning could see the people, but then Wendy can? Why is Jack limping, Wendy hurt is hand not his foot? And why was there a man in a bear costume?? I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Anyway, back to the questions I’m supposed to be answering, as previously mentioned, I live in Pennsylvania, but I am very close to New Jersey, so when I was younger my family would go to the Jersey shore for vacation. My grandparents used to have a summer home down the shore, and we would always spend a couple weekends there. I really loved swimming in the ocean, and eating all the junk food from the boardwalk. I certainly don’t miss the jellyfish that would wash up the shore, or the needles. https://www.nj.com/news/2018/08/more_syringes_are_showing_up_on_jersey_beaches_her.html
I actually thought I wouldn’t get the chance to go to the shore, but we went on an off day and were able to distance (though the actual water was filled with people very close to each other). The only two trips I’ve made were that and one trip I had to take into the city. So I’ve been quite cautious this summer. I’ll be moving soon into Philadelphia, so I imagine I’ll have to get used to more human interaction. I’m not worried about myself at all, but I really don’t want to harm anyone else.
Favorite book to movie adaptation: speaking of Lovecraft, in 2005 a group called the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society did a short film adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu, filmed as if it were made during the 1920s, when Lovecraft originally wrote the story. So it’s a black-and-white, silent movie with German expressionist sets, and when Cthulhu appears at the end, he’s depicted via stop motion animation like the original King Kong. It gives everything a suitably surreal atmosphere, and helps skip over the fact that there’s not really much actual dialogue in the original story. For my money, it’s still probably the most effective direct adaptation of a Lovecraft story.
Hi,
Summer = tractors. I spent several years siting on tractor fenders before being able to drive them. And oh boy, did I love driving tractors. I collected them too… not real ones but die cast models. Got someting like one hundred.
Wanted to be a farmer, and being realistic and taking in account that my passion was nearly only for tractors, I was going to make some agricultural mecanics studies. But that was not very realistic to my familly. So I became an IT ingineer… After all, computers are the 21th century tractors.
And I got a collection of them too. Twenty or something like that, mine’s plus, the ones I bougth back in the 90’s, those I couldn’t afford 10 years before. 8bits computers with whopping 16KB of memories.
All the collectables are know in cardboards. But I’m still able to tell the brand of, pretty, any tractor several hundred meters away… Maybe i’m a sort of a super hero with a useless power. Anyway…
For the best TV shows adaptation : for literality “Good Omens”. Clear, simple and direct adaptation of a very funny book. Very good cast too.
Close ones but more on the essence : The Corner and Generation Kill. I’m a big fan of David Simon.
After seeing The Wire which was a revelation (best show ever), I read the raw material, “Homicide” and the “Corner” the two Simons books.
Then recently I watched The Corner which is very close to the book and just finished Homicide which connection with the book is more anecdotical, both of them are great shows. The acting is phenomenal, for both, in case for the second, at the point that during the two crossovers with Order and Law the difference of acting level of the two casts is obvious (it’s more about the style and actor directing of the shows, but it reflects on the acting when put together).
For Generation Kill, I saw the show then read the Evan Wright’s book, and the adaptation is close. Then recently I rewatch the show, discover that one of the character, Lt Nathaniel Fick, in real life had written a book, One Bullet Away, on his military career in the Marines in which he tell the same story from his point of view. So I reread Generation Kill. It’s a great experience to compare an adaptation to its book and compare both with an other point of view. Same story but not the same details, or not always. And all three are telling a great lot about America, the men who makes its army and the absurdity of modern war. Trully enlightning.
And for the sub, sub, sub and maybe sub answer, no problem getting back in the street when I’m not forgetting this @#%* mask.
In Paris I find that people are respecting the bearing, but as the law authorise, at lunch you see bunch of colleagues eating together sitting next to each other, without, obviously, the mask… and in close spaces… soooooo. But it’s authorized…. So well…. No problem ?
For me the mask is more of a reminder of the present crisis than a sanitary requirement (as nobody can really tell how the virus propagate itself, and in this case always apply simple profilactic solution, if its doing no good it’s not doing any arm ).
Personnaly, I’m getting out a burn out which had coincided with the start of the pandemics so it had been a very, very peculiar period. And I lost my job in the process. But the forced “vacations” that has ensued were a relief.
So, my turn! I have a question for you two and for listeners, men and women. Do you think that you have achieve full grown adult status ? I mean, for exemple, David said that is father was not too into movies but a lot of us still play (video games), read comics and have hobby related to toys like RC modelling. The generation before us (I have roughly the same age as you , I think) could be passionate by the cinema as a cultural thing (good excuse) but less prone to more childish hobbies, and I don’t even talk about the grand parents. They’re hobbies were gardening (which was still a way of getting someting to eat) or reparing stuff, mostly their own homes. I know that it’s not completly true but if they had real hobbies (different than sport or fishing) they mostly kept them private.
And some time I still feels like a child. And I had my own company so it’s not in term of responsabiliies. Does the modernity do the same thing to us, that we did to our pet, keeping them partly with infant behaviours (the cats still meows when they are living with humans, which is a behaviour they normally have only with their mothers)
Waddaya think ?
And as always excuse my french.
I guess it’s no coincidence that at some point in every episode I tell the characters in Lovecraft Country to “Get Out!” Now that I’ve seen the first three episodes, it looks like the show’s formula is to match up an evil of racism with a different horror trope: (minor spoilers) segregation and monsters in the woods, wealth based on slave labour and a magic cult, medical experimentation and a haunted house. I find it a little clunky stylistically when they shift between scenes of the real dangers of living in a racist society and scenes of supernatural horror. But I like that the vengeance on the wrong-doers comes in the form of the monsters the system itself has created. So come for the maulings, burnings and decapitations but stay for the themes of empowerment and social justice.
I thought the HBO series Big Little Lies was a great adaptation of Australian writer Liane Moriarty’s novel. Stars Reece Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman were co-executive producers along with screenwriter David E. Kelley and director Jean-Marc Vallée. The female cast members got most of the attention, but the male cast is equally strong, especially Alexander Skarsgård as a bad husband and Iain Armitage as a sensitive boy, a character so different from his Young Sheldon that you realize what a really gifted actor he is.
The best summers in my mind were the ones when I was old enough to watch my Brother while both my folks worked. Our activities all started on foot, whether we were hiking in the field at the end of the neighborhood or walking down the street to Toys R Us, we were always walking somewhere. We had a pool at the end of the other side of the neighborhood, which my Mom bought us season passes to, so when it was too hot to walk somewhere we could go swimming. It seemed like everything we needed was within a short walking distance. We had our pick of two different movie theaters we could walk to from home. I lost count of how many times we saw “The Empire Strikes Back” during the summer of 1980, still the hottest Texas summer on record. Usually around July 4th, we would usually plan a road trip to Chicago to visit family. The drive took us through the Ozarks and maybe Memphis so we could see Graceland. This was the perfect summer template for me as a kid, the sweet spot where you had responsibility but didn’t need to get a job yet.
I worked at Lone Star Comics during the entire run of Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” comic series. We used to sit in the store and hypothetically imagine how something like “Watchmen” could ever even be filmed, much less work as a single movie. When Zack Snyder accepted the challenge to bring “Watchmen” to life in 2009, I made a silent vow to myself. I said that if this works….and I REALLY wanted “Watchmen” to work, I would never complain about any other comic or superhero film from that point on. My two college roommates, who I’d turned into fellow “Watchmen” fans by bringing the graphic novel to our dorms, agreed to meet me in Dallas for the premiere of the film. We had agreed years before, when we were in college together that if “Watchmen” ever were made into a film, we’d see it together for the first time. So opening day 2009, one roomie drove up from Houston and the other drove in from north of Dallas and we all saw “Watchmen” together. It was great enough to keep my vow and even though the ending was changed to work better as a film, I still consider “Watchmen” the most faithful comic adaptation into film.
How about worst comic to film adaptation, any come to mind? “Howard the Duck” came way before “Watchmen”, so my vow doesn’t apply retroactively.
My office is still trying to form a plan of when to return to work again. It seems like whenever they get close to a plan, someone gets sick or is in contact with someone who’s tested positive, so we have to push out the date to return even more. A lot of kiddos are being sent home from college down here, both mine are safe and out of the dorms thankfully. As much as everyone wants it back to normal, I fear it’s becoming a way of life with no turning back. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s proven to be the safest way of life this far.
Hi Ian and Dave
Firstly on the subject of Scottish takeaway food you need to check out munchy
boxes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchy_box
Secondly one of my favourite book adaptations is About a Boy by Nick Hornby, I have always enjoyed the film and especially the soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy.
I have finally bought the first Sparks book for my son and I to read at bedtime, we’re both really enjoying it, keep up the good work!
James and the Giant Peach was a great adaptation.