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Apparently, Trump is “locked and loaded” and ready to go to war with Iran to keep those gasoline pump prices from rising too drastically before the 2020 Presidential election.
Sitting presidents always get blamed for gasoline pump prices.
I, for one, am reluctant for my tax dollars to support a Saudi Arabian sociopath who had a journalist hacked to death in a Turkish consulate. Even if Bill Clinton, Oprah, Morgan Freeman and Trump love the guy.
Just so you know, Mohammed bin Salman is also fully onboard with the death camps in Xinjiang that the Chinese government has set up for his co-religionists.
I’m not sure whether it’s the looming inevitability of another Middle East War or the cloudy weather that has me in such a fretful, anxious mood this morning.
But I am fretful.
###
When The Goldfinch was published, I checked out of Life, locked myself in my bedroom and did nothing but pee, sleep, nibble, and read for 72 hours. I’m not sure how great the book was, but it was an extraordinary pleasure to read. Kind of a Dickens novel reimagined for the 21st century.
There was no way I wasn’t going to see the movie—despite the fact that the movie has garnered really dreadful reviews.
It helps, of course, that the local movie theater shows first-run flicks but only charges $6. Why, you can even afford a box of Raisinettes at that price point.
The movie wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Which is not to say it was good.
The problem is that when you compress an 800-page book into two and a half hours of screen time, all you’re left with on screen is the bare bones of the plot.
And The Goldfinch is not about its plot. Rather, it’s about the characterizations, the details, the sardonic repartee. And, in the end, it’s about its protagonist’s despair, which makes him an unreliable narrator.
A film that uses the actual plot points as scaffolding turns that despair into a kind of buffoonish sentimentality.
The book’s best invention is the character Boris, Theo’s Ukrainian partner in sex, drugs and nihilism. Boris is practically obliterated in the film.
The movie was actually financed by Amazon, which has a prominent streaming platform. You really have to wonder about the decision to turn the book into a movie when it would have worked so much better as an 8-hour miniseries.
Also, the casting was just wrong/wrong/wrong. Ansel Elgort as Theo? Pul-eeze. The kid who plays the youthful Theo is actually quite good, but the wrong age; he looks to be about 11, and Theo in the book is 13 or so. That two years is important because Theo’s misadventures are the misadventures of a young adolescent.
So, no. Not worth seeing. Unless you’re an avid Goldfinch fan.
Sitting presidents always get blamed for gasoline pump prices.
I, for one, am reluctant for my tax dollars to support a Saudi Arabian sociopath who had a journalist hacked to death in a Turkish consulate. Even if Bill Clinton, Oprah, Morgan Freeman and Trump love the guy.
Just so you know, Mohammed bin Salman is also fully onboard with the death camps in Xinjiang that the Chinese government has set up for his co-religionists.
I’m not sure whether it’s the looming inevitability of another Middle East War or the cloudy weather that has me in such a fretful, anxious mood this morning.
But I am fretful.
###
When The Goldfinch was published, I checked out of Life, locked myself in my bedroom and did nothing but pee, sleep, nibble, and read for 72 hours. I’m not sure how great the book was, but it was an extraordinary pleasure to read. Kind of a Dickens novel reimagined for the 21st century.
There was no way I wasn’t going to see the movie—despite the fact that the movie has garnered really dreadful reviews.
It helps, of course, that the local movie theater shows first-run flicks but only charges $6. Why, you can even afford a box of Raisinettes at that price point.
The movie wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Which is not to say it was good.
The problem is that when you compress an 800-page book into two and a half hours of screen time, all you’re left with on screen is the bare bones of the plot.
And The Goldfinch is not about its plot. Rather, it’s about the characterizations, the details, the sardonic repartee. And, in the end, it’s about its protagonist’s despair, which makes him an unreliable narrator.
A film that uses the actual plot points as scaffolding turns that despair into a kind of buffoonish sentimentality.
The book’s best invention is the character Boris, Theo’s Ukrainian partner in sex, drugs and nihilism. Boris is practically obliterated in the film.
The movie was actually financed by Amazon, which has a prominent streaming platform. You really have to wonder about the decision to turn the book into a movie when it would have worked so much better as an 8-hour miniseries.
Also, the casting was just wrong/wrong/wrong. Ansel Elgort as Theo? Pul-eeze. The kid who plays the youthful Theo is actually quite good, but the wrong age; he looks to be about 11, and Theo in the book is 13 or so. That two years is important because Theo’s misadventures are the misadventures of a young adolescent.
So, no. Not worth seeing. Unless you’re an avid Goldfinch fan.
