Movies and Books you've STRUGGLED with

[BeyondTheGrave]

yeah i feel the same way brian. i read books for fun but when college tells me to read a book i cant do it. thier either real boring or give u a deadline which i cant do it by.

"Dont be a fool for ur tool"

[Susan]

I don't get "I AM LEGEND" by matheson, i loved the way it started, then suddenly it leaped years ahead and completely away from the main character and turned boring

[AndyC]

I tried to read Moby Dick back when I was 10 or so. It was one long, slow book, and I barely got a few chapters into it. I've read much longer stories since (the Rama series and Harry Turtledove's Worldwar/Colonization series), so I think I could handle it now, but frankly, I have no interest in reading it.

I understand exactly what Vermin Boy means with his comparison of  LOTR and the Hobbit. The Hobbit moves along at a brisk pace, and is jam-packed with adventures. I breezed through that in a few evenings. I'm currently slogging through The Two Towers, and finding that for all the entertaining reading in LOTR, including stuff that wasn't in the movies, it's pretty tough going, especially when somebody launches into a song that goes on for three pages. It takes a long time for anything to happen.

As for movies, just htis week, Isaw two meandering pictures that took a lot of patience. One was Shine, a movie that just seems to go on and on without building to anything, and largely glosses over some important and interesting details. The story could have been told in half the time.

Then there was Jackie Brown, which I somehow went for years without seeing. I love Tarantino's other movies, and I was expecting some updated blaxploitation fun, but it was a hard movie to finish. Good story, good cast, good characters, good dialogue, good sountrack - it just took too long for anything to happen. By about halfway, we were both sitting there wondering when it was going to be wrapped up.

[Chopper]

What's up Deej! For me it would have to be Lawrence of Arabia. I've never been able to finisih this film, even though everyone's always talking about it and how great of a classic it is. I've sat through tons of slow films, but Lawrence gets me everytime.

[Deej]

Chopper wrote:

> What's up Deej! For me it would have to be Lawrence of Arabia.
> I've never been able to finisih this film, even though
> everyone's always talking about it and how great of a classic
> it is. I've sat through tons of slow films, but Lawrence gets
> me everytime.

I never had any problem with that one. It grabbed me right off, but it is long as hell.
Dr Zhivago, however, I still haven't been able to sit through more that an hour of. Haven't even attempted Solaris or Barry Lyndon yet.

[JohnL]

>Currently, psyching myself up for Gerald's Game

When you read it, pay attention to the physical descriptions of the location and the placement of objects. Maybe I'm picturing it wrong, but the way King described it, it just didn't sound plausible. In other words, it seemed to me that some of the things described as possible, weren't and some of the things described as impossible, were. I don't want to say more and ruin parts of the plot.

Books I have trouble getting through - Anything written more than about 50 years ago. I tried reading War of the Worlds, some stories by Washington Irving, including Rip Van Winkle and The headless Horseman, and just couldn't get through more than a few pages. I tried reading the Superman novel, which was written back in the 20s or 30s I think and it completely lost me when it had Lex Luther flying around on little hover platforms in supposedly present day. Also, the novelization of the movie Moonraker. I'm all for character developement, but there are like 10 pages devoted to what the pilot of the airliner did the night before the flight. I mean, the guy dies in the first 1% of the story, do I really need to know who he's sleeping with, or what his plans for the future are?

[Genetic Mishap]

I bought The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, which is all the Hitchhiker books in one volume. I ripped through the first four, but on the last (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) I just suddendly stopped. Dunno why.
Same thing with the first Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. I love the style, but again, dunno why, I never made it through.

A book that I made it through without understanding a bit- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Of course, I was around 12 at the time, so I might give it another go.

[Mofo Rising]

I really didn't enjoy reading THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING.  Then I saw the movie and thought it was great.  After that I ripped through THE TWO TOWERS and RETURN OF THE KING, which I thought were amazing.

I did struggle through most of the books I was assigned to read in high school and hated them.  THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE PEARL and, the horror, THE SCARLET LETTER.  I read the opening chapter of THE INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison in one of my literature books which blew me away.  Why couldn't we read that?

Anyway, for books, I attempt to read ULYSSES by James Joyce every few years or so and it defeats me every time.  It's so disheartening to read a hunded or so pages and realize you understood next to nothing.

As far as films, anything French New Wave usually bores me to tears.  But my friend keeps loaning them to me and I keep watching them.

It, uh, builds character.

[raj]

I did make it through Borring Lyndon, but then again, I was a young lad sitting in the theater when I saw it.  Even the fighting and naked breasts! weren't enough to keep me interested.  

I never made it through Rozencranz and Gildenstern are Dead, even seeing two or three times, but that was due more to the lateness of the hour, having seen 2-3 movies already, and imbibed a fair amount of beer.  Usually I will sit through a movie,   I even sat through Prospero's Books.  I do not recommend that for anyone not suffering insomnia.

[Deej]

raj wrote:

   I even sat through Prospero's Books.  I do not
> recommend that for anyone not suffering insomnia.

Oh,Hell! You're a stronger man than I am!! I'm comfortable with nudity, and male nudity doesn't freak me out...but John Gielgud, nude.....couldn't take it. Plus, the movie was hella dull!

[Grumpy Guy]

Personally, the most horrifying book I ever read was the Red Badge of Courage, by Crane.  It just kept going and going, without going anywhere...  And the Metaphors!  Oh, ye GODS!  "The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer."  How does s### like that get filed away as a literary classic?

Anything by Dickens besides A Tale of Two Cities (one of my favorite books of all time) and A Christmas Carol.  Everything else he wrote was dull, dull, dull, dull.

Anything by Faulkner.  Impenetrable, pretentious drivel.

I struggled all the way through the last two Lord of the Rings books, but they're definattely worth the work.  I'm not so sure about 2001, though.

As far as movies go, I have a bigger problem sitting down to see the movie than I do watching it.  There is a long list of movies that, whenever I'm at the rental store I look at them and go "Wow.  I'm going to have to check that out one of these days."  And then I rent something else.

I can't seem to stay awake through Solaris (the original - I haven't tried the George Clooney version yet), though.

[AndyC]

Yeah, the original Solaris was tough going. Very long, very slow, and the subtitles on the copy I rented were miniscule and shown too quickly to read. Couldn't get through it. Tried the Clooney version, and although I could at least understand what was said, it was equally boring. Paid $4.99 to see that piece of crap on pay-per-view.

My wife, on the other hand, managed to get halfway through a meandering four-hour Inuit movie before she even realized that she had to turn on the subtitles. She was actually able to piece together a good bit of the story. I joined her when she watched the whole thing over again with subtitles, and got through about an hour before giving up and going to bed.

An earlier post reminded me of a movie I'd almost forgotten. Back in the late 80s, I rented The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go. I barely remember it, except that it was narrated by "Buddha" and featured the titular crime boss, who is magically turned into a good man by Buddha at some point. Can't remember if it was trying to be action or comedy or what. One of those weird things you find in a small-town video store. A friend of mine warned me against it, telling me it was dull. Unfortunately, he happened to remark that there was "nothing but a bunch of topless Oriental women," and that got my interest.  In spite of that one benefit (which was not as good or as abundant as it sounded) I fell asleep halfway through, as did the friend who was watching with me.



Post Edited (05-04-04 16:15)

[raj]

Just imbibe enough beer so that you can't move.

[Chopper]

you know my grandma showed Dr. Zhivago my young siblings: and they loved it! Maybe that shows children have better attention span than us.

[Darkautumn]

In 10th grade English, I had to read "Ethan Frome" which has to be THE MOST BORING book EVER!! Absolutely nothing of interest characterwise, plotwise or anything. I think I finally just gave up and took the "F." It was less painful. Moviewise, I had a real tough time sitting through Bergman's "Persona" which seemed to go on forever. I had a similar problem with "The Thin Red Line" (I think that's it-the WWII movie with Sean Penn?) The first half was OK, but after a while it kept getting to points where we all thought "Alright, this has to be the ending," but it just kept going, hitting fake-climax after fake-climax and by the time it actually ended (84 hours later or whatever-maybe it just seemed like it) nobody cared anymore. I also, for some reason, have never made it all the way through "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" despite several attempts. Really weird, considering how much I liked the first two.