May 14th, 2009 / 6:54 pm
Web Hype
God damn it: ‘The Road’ trailer
I mean, I knew they were going to fuck it, but… really? This hard in the A?
Sigh. Next they’ll be making ‘Suttree’ into a romantic comedy starring Luke Wilson and featuring Verne Troyer as the watermelon.
Tags: cormac mccarthy, the road trailer
This makes me sad.
Spoiler alert!
In the novel we have no idea what happened to the world outside of a couple og flashbacks and the wife is just a memory. This throws that out. I guess I am not without hope, it could be a good movie, but it isn’t McCarthy’s novel.
They should have gotten the Cohen brothers to direct it.
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Oh jesus.
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I wouldn’t write it off so quickly. The studios — correctly or not — have a tendency to think that the masses won’t see a film unless it involves a love interest. And a back story. I may be wrong, but the extensive footage of the wife / lead up to the apocalypse — both of which play such large roles in the trailer — may play as small a role in the film as they do in the book.
But I’m guessing that, subconsciously, your anger is focused elsewhere, Blake. Namely, that the survivor and his son speak with Northern accents, the filthy cannibal with a Southern.
Seems about right to me.
“Why’chall come on a’truck?”
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i hope the preview is misleading.
I wrote a lot of other words, but deleted them.
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May 14th, 2009 / 7:52 pmAndré—
Apparently it is misleading. I don’t remember where I heard that. Somewhere… reputable.
Oh god, this is the worst accidental internet rumour ever.
Seriously, I did read that though.
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May 14th, 2009 / 7:53 pmNathan (Nate) Tyree—
I hope you are right
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May 14th, 2009 / 8:01 pmBlake Butler—
regardless, the presence of these concepts is retarded, minor or no
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i don’t understand? Where’s Dean Moriarty?
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May 14th, 2009 / 7:46 pmNathan (Nate) Tyree—
Nicely played, sir
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The Road Has Eyes
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blake, you should make the suttree romantic comedy mix mesh up
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May 14th, 2009 / 10:40 pmBlake Butler—
i be on that kryptonite
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The director’s last film was The Proposition which was well done and had some McCarthian overtones to it (the writer, Nick Cave, obviously significantly influenced by McCarthy and Blood Meridian in particular)…so it has that going for it. Probably will read it this weekend. Been meaning to. Hope The Road adaptation isn’t to No Country what Choke was to Fight Club. Yikes!
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May 14th, 2009 / 9:33 pmchristian—
way off topic, but — cave definitely shares aesthetic similarities with mccarthy, but and the ass saw the angel came out only a few years after blood meridian. i don’t think it was really long enough for him to have read, absorbed, imitated, and published. nowhere near as good as mccarthy, but better than most career novelists.
as for the road (film version), yeah it looks terrible, but i’ll probably see it. makes me even more nervous about the ever-rumored adaptation of blood meridian.
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May 14th, 2009 / 10:02 pmLincoln—
I’ve never read Cave’s novels, but you don’t think 4 years is long enough for someone to imitate an acclaimed book? Gotta disagree, there are probably tons of people knocking out versions of stuff that came out last year.
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May 14th, 2009 / 10:58 pmchristian—
i hear you, and i wouldn’t argue about intention or authenticity without some real ammo, but and the ass saw the angel really seemed to be of a piece with cave’s own body of work. and you can trace them both back to faulkner. like i said, mccarthy’s better, but the cave novel (haven’t read any of his other stuff) is worth checking out, and definitely isn’t equivalent to, for ex, the barrage of occult thrillers that came out after da vinci code.
May 15th, 2009 / 4:48 pmpr—
They both are hardcore Christians. That to me is a big similiarity in their work.
May 15th, 2009 / 4:49 pmpr—
But Cave is funnier.
May 14th, 2009 / 10:41 pmBlake Butler—
blood meridian adaptation thoughts shrivel my skin, even if it is cronenberg
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May 14th, 2009 / 11:49 pmLincoln—
Cronenberg? It was Ridley Scott, now it is Todd Field.
and john goodman as the boat suttree lives on.
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May 14th, 2009 / 9:18 pmBlake Butler—
ha nice
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i thought this was “on the road”
it was confusing at first
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nick cave wrote a book who cares the firstborn is dead is great. i liked the proposition. i am going to give this a shot. i’ve made lots of bad decisions. i can add this one too that pile if i have to.
john goodman would be great as the boat
paul giammati and steve bouscemi could play the catfish.
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May 15th, 2009 / 12:05 amchristian—
“nick cave wrote a book who cares”
people who like good books and/or nick cave?
“the firstborn is dead is great”
agreed.
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The Road is a pretty good book but will probably be a better movie script.I thought the book lacked Cormac’s usual languagey spark.
I wonder how many times the kid’s gonna say, “Daddy, are we gonna die?” in the movie. Because he says it like 100 fucking times in the book. Maybe that’s why they fleshed out the female character. To add some smart talking.
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May 15th, 2009 / 12:03 amchristian—
i don’t know how tongue-in-cheek you’re being, but there’s precedent — no country for old men was way better as a book than a movie (since the book was shit).
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May 15th, 2009 / 8:01 amdavid erlewine—
ha, i loved the kid asking about them dying. i went back and counted, “Kevin S”, and it was only 97 times. care to issue a retraction? heh
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My guess is that the backstory is here to explain the movie to people who haven’t read the book–otherwise it’d just be two minutes of two people walking and starving to death, and that’s not going to pack the seats. Same thing with the wife– I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still a “memory” here, even if Viggo’s seeing her in scene (which is, obviously, kind of lame, but not really much worse than flashback or voice-over). He talks to her in this trailer like she’s not real, like he’s justifying his actions (at least in the second half) during his travels.
We’ll see. It won’t be as good as the book, I’m sure, but that was never really a possibility, was it?
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Needs more zombies.
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May 15th, 2009 / 11:32 amNathan Tyree—
Couldn’t that be said of everything?
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it seems like the (almost) overwhelming calm drone of the novel has been lost through adaptation. what a shame, cause in my opinion that’s what made the novel fun and interesting!
this feels like 1 part Armageddon, 1 part Deliverance, 1 part 28 days later,
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it seems like the (almost) overwhelming calm drone of the novel has been lost through adaptation. what a shame, cause in my opinion that’s what made the novel fun and interesting!
this feels like 1 part Armageddon, 1 part Deliverance, 1 part 28 days later, 1 part 28 days.
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awesome x1.9 post.
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they need that basement scene but hopefully won’t be played up any more than in the book. the reference to the stumpy guy still sits in my head.
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One event? It’s the Nothing, right? Where’s the Rock Eater and the fucking luck dragon?
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May 15th, 2009 / 3:42 pmBrian Allen Carr—
they look like big strong hands.
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Complete sadness. The only way this film would have been successful is if it were nearly silent and in grey(tone).
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did anybody see Time of the Wolf? how is this going to compare to Time of the Wolf?
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May 15th, 2009 / 6:46 pmKen Baumann—
Great question.
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Haha “epic adventure”.
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I think we’re all a bit naive to judge the film by its trailer. I’ve seen plenty of movies that are radically different from, and better than, the bait.
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May 15th, 2009 / 7:08 pmKen Baumann—
And by ‘we’re all’ I mean Blake. ;)
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May 15th, 2009 / 7:27 pmNathan (Nate) Tyree—
This is true. That’s the reason I am not totally without hope
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Big esquire article about said movie and trailer, explains much.
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Recently read THE ROAD, was wishing for more zombie action too. Oh and the movie ‘industry’ is so predictable. All they do anymore is remakes & ’sure things.’
Cool string of thoughts tho. Per Nick Cave – I’m a huge fan of his earlier music, picked up his AND THE ASS SAW THE ANGEL years ago & couldn’t get through it. Have his KING INK on the shelf somewhere…
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lame controversy.
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May 16th, 2009 / 11:11 pmRyan Call—
this is funny
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