Nov 21 2006

The Virgin Suicides

Last night I watched Sophia Coppola’s version of The Virgin Suicides before I had to return it today. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have simply accepted the movie and been done with it. However, in the midst of taking her own approach to the story, she really butchered the overall tone and themes, not to mention the inconsistencies with the book.

Firstly, the Lisbon parents seemed way too cheerful and perky in the movie when compared to the characterisation presented in Jeffrey Eugenides’s book. I couldn’t understand why Coppola would try to create a joyful tone that wasn’t there. While the book was a dark comedy, there wasn’t any evidence that the Lisbon parents were perky or happy-go-lucky people.

Secondly, as I read the book, I saw the community as much more bleak and dreary than the one presented in the film. Maybe that was simply my interpretation, but I would have rather seen the movie as done by Tim Burton or another director of similar feel–that is, gloom and doom.

Thirdly, the sequence of the story was off in spots. Two aspects that really stuck out at me were: 1) she introduced the setting as “Michigan, 25 years ago” right in the beginning. However, in the book, the somewhat anonymity of the town made it more applicable to any situation. 2) She simply ended the movie with Mary dying in her first attempt. In the book, Mary was unsuccessful (as was Cecilia) her first time.

Fourthly, small errors like the misspelling of names were common. For instance, in the book, one of the boys was named Tim Winer, but in the movie, his name was spelled Tim Weiner. Simple mistakes like that are enough to drive me crazy and make me wonder how close attention Coppola paid to the book.

I can’t deny, despite all my criticisms, that Coppola did put her own spin and mood into the film. It was an interesting take on the story, but one that I feel inadequately tried to capture the spirit of the novel, let alone Eugenides’s beautiful diction and storytelling.

Overall, I can’t ethically give the movie more than a 4/10 because of its disregard for the original novel.

|:| Zach |:|

Nov 20 2006

Short and sweet

Well, there’s no need to make this an overly long entry. We all know that the Precious Moments dolls are simply that… precious. I think I may have found the cutest one there is though:

Click to enlarge:

Just wanted to share that with you because I’m in a sappy emotional overload.

|:| Zach |:|

Nov 20 2006

Neglect

Sorry I haven’t written much in the ol’ Z-Issue lately. I’ve been really busy with schoolwork and other things. I’ll try to bring you quickly up to date on everything that’s going on.

First, with regards to the car, I found out that my navigation won’t work again unless I get a speed pulse generator hooked up. That’s interesting because it will calculate my speed at the wheels, and any time I make a change (tire change or rotation), I’ll have to use my magic wand to remagnetize and calibrate the speed pulse generator. I’m also taking the car tomorrow to have it DYNO tuned, have the gauge cluster put in, have my other gauges hooked up, and hopefully have the bumper replaced. Once all that is done, things should be looking pretty good.

Second, I still have a huge amount of homework to get done before the end of the semester. I have a few projects left; a study on elementary teachers, an original book for kiddy lit, a couple papers for adolescent psych, and my research paper about the children’s literature conference. I already have a topic for my original book–I just have to sit down and actually work on it. I have about four weeks left to get everything done.

Third, I have a bunch of other unrelated things to get done. I have a couple computers that I still need to fix. I also am working on making the ultimate study course for college entrance exams (okay, maybe it isn’t the ultimate, but I hope it will be pretty good). 🙂

I’ll try to keep you posted as time goes on.

|:| Zach |:|