Wednesday, April 01, 2009

On the Impending Movie Version of The Road

Interesting Cast But They Had Better Not Mess This Up. It won't lend itself to film quite so smoothly as No Country For Old Men did. For one thing it's a better novel. Just sayin', y'all. Don't mess it up.

The book cover, though, it's got some Rhetorical Pop. Harrogate will give it that.

Ohhh, Viggo.

STARRING: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert DuVal, Guy Pearce
DIRECTOR: John Hillcoat
STUDIO: The Wesinstein Co.
RATING: R (For graphic subject matter, including cannibalism and infanticide)
THEATER COUNT (Opening Weekend): TBD
RUNNING TIME: TBD
TOTAL DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE: TBD
U.S. DVD RELEASE DATE: TBD

12 comments:

M said...

Don't get your hopes up. I said exactly the same thing about the movie version of Beloved, and believe me, they screwed it up.

supadiscomama said...

Charlize Theron: Boring. Viggo Mortenson: Could be really good--or really bad. Robert DuVal: Always great (even in _Something to Talk About_).

The Roof Almighty said...

RATING: R (For graphic subject matter, including cannibalism and infanticide)

You know, as compared the the movies that get the R for saying "fuck" or have a tit in them.

It's all the same.

The Roof Almighty said...

The MPAA just has a problem with anything that could be categorized as "eating + baby"

harrogate said...

Roof: of course Harrogate thought of you in including that detail. "Heh," indeed.

The Roof Almighty said...

RATED R for making me weep while mowing the lawn at the image of them sharing the last warm can of Coke pried loose from a busted vending machine.

RATED R for graphic imagery, like the receding image of a dying man in a rear-view mirror clamped onto a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel.

RATED R for bones in dead campfire ash.

RATED R for the cries of the all-but-dead lifting from a below-ground abattoir.

RATED R for one bullet left.

harrogate said...

Roof, Harrogate is teaching it again this summer. Third time in the last two years. Harrogate is truly a masochist when it comes to The Road, for it hurts him newly each time that he thinks about it, let alone reads it. Indeed, in some ways _The Road_ even surpasses _Blood Meridian_ in its power to flat-out destroy--but with the added bonus that unlike Blood Meridian, The Road unashamedly tips its cap to Love.

Damn it is such a great book. Even the most laconic undergradas, Harrogate has noticed, tend to relent before its power.

harrogate said...

Hmmmm. A thought occurs.

Rated R for unashamedly tipping its cap to Love?

The Roof Almighty said...

It's so good that I hated All the Pretty Horses when I tried to read it.

Nihilistic, numb horror which toips its cap to love is beautiful, romantic melodrama which has a cameo of injustice is atonal.

harrogate said...

Roof, Harrogate would like to talk to ye about _All The Pretty_ sometime soon over cheap Scotch. He might be able to convince you that the book is up to something different altogether....

Still not the kick in the heart that The Road is, though.

nicheplayer said...

I read this over the summer on the beach in Mexico, and I've no intention of seeing the movie. Ever.

The Roof Almighty said...

Why would anyone read this on a beach?

This book ruins the concept of the beach.

That's like reading Misery while hobbled in a bed surrounded by Hummel figurines.