Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Film-Flam

I've been informed by reliable sources, specifically a friend-of-a-friend who I'll never see again and The Internet, that the film adaptation of Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh eliminates the character Arthur. At first I assumed this was a sawing-off of the gay part of the story's central love triangle, but apparently Art will have a gay thing going on with Cleveland instead.

This seemingly promises to send ripples of Not Being Nearly As Good through the story, but I guess we can wait and see. I'd reread the book to firm up the "real" version in my mind, but I must have lent it to someone a few years ago and forgotten who. Maybe not a huge loss; it was a paperback, and the text alignment on the pages was awful anyway.

Well, I s'pose books just up and change when they become movies. And Mysteries doesn't sound as badly butchered as the next Chabon adaptation, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay & Eddie Murphy in a Fatsuit."

Meanwhile, I'm very happy to report that Little Miss Sunshine satisfyingly stands up to a second viewing. The DVD extras include four alternative final scenes that they shot and then discarded; they're all fairly close in tone but not as good as what they went with. I suppose that if there was a superior ending that they subsequently replaced, they wouldn't put it on the DVD.

In the course of conversation at the viewing shindig, someone entertainingly described a movie that apparently hasn't aged as well, 1999's "Chill Factor." I trust that this videocassette trailer sums it up accurately.

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