the street of the lifted lorax

[dilletante]

saw the new lorax movie. cute bokeh for an entirely-animated film...

also, acceptably cyberpunk, for dr seuss's most cyberpunk book. there's a romantic subplot i don't seem to recall from the original, but i think all movies are required to have one by some secretive guild or something.

Comments

[ukelele]

One of the things I most liked about Moneyball: we walked out of the theater, looked at each other, and said, wait, there was no romance plot, was there? (The book didn't have one. It would have made no sense in the story. And they didn't shoehorn it in. Near-miraculous.)

[harimad]

Near-miraculous.

Indeed. And most welcome. Ditto A Few Good Men. Demi Moore's role was originally written for a man, it was changed and they still didn't add a romance.

[ukelele]

...I'm going to have to watch that movie on that basis alone. Not succumbing to the temptation to add a romance plot when you have Demi Moore, no less? Well done.

[harimad]

More reasons to watch:
- written by Aaron Sorkin (West Wing, Sports Night), from his own play
- directed by Rob Reiner (too many good ones to list, my fave is The Princess Bride)
- uncredited rewrite by William Goldman (greastest living screenwriter, perhaps greatest of all; more good ones than Rob Reiner)

It's not the best courtroom drama ever, not even second after Twelve Angry Men, but it's very good.

[touchofgrey]

Wait. Cyberpunk?

Forget that. Romantic subplot? But... There's only... No, I can't. I just can't. I'm going to go hug my book now.

[dilletante]

the secretive, paranoid old guy who lives at the far end of the deserted part of the industrial wasteland can, if you somehow know where to go and what special coin to pay him in, tell you the buried story of how the world's environment was destroyed by corporate greed, leading to the grey smoggy arc-lit hellhole of a modern world... and the otherwise-unknown way to fix it? i think that would strike me as somewhat cyberpunk even without the artwork all looking like it was the inspiration for "abe's odyssey."

the romantic subplot in context isn't as crazy as i make it sound-- the original book is a story told to the reader, where in the movie it's a story told to a character, within the enclosing story of how that character comes to be at the far end of town where the grickle-grass grows and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows and no birds ever sing excepting old crows, and why he goes there.

[touchofgrey]

Ok, yeah, I can see the cyberpunk.

I think the idea of the movie just freaks me out so badly because it's my absolute favorite of his books, and if they hurt it, I'll cry. ;-)

[dilletante]

yeah, i could just read that first sentence over and over, out loud. sometimes i do.

the movie is not as unified or perfect as the book. and it goes on to resolve the enclosing plot, so it is ultimately way more up-beat than the book, which a friend described as ending on "a thin thread of hope." i don't know. but, we came home and natalie immediately wanted the book as one of her bedtime stories. :)