Conference bookie::movies

>    What novels (or stories) do you think would translate well to film?

    "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester, sometimes considered to be
    the best Science Fiction book of all time.  Might need a title change
    for the screen though.

    Gully Foyle is out for revenge on the freighter that ignored his
    distress call when he was stranded in space.  On the way to exacting 
    his revenge he runs into an assortment of oddball (by our norms) 
    friends and enemies.  Lots of FX work though many of the capabilities
    would be relatively low-cost to film.  And while it's not quite the
    Russian Revolution there's a backdrop of war starting between the
    Inner Planets and Outer Satellites.  Foyle doesn't know that HE is
    the chief weapon in the war...

      John

    Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.  If done right, and with good
    casting, it could be as good as Fried Green Tomatoes, I think.
    
    Lorna
    

    Re Cold Sassy Tree: it's been done (as a TV-movie, I think) - but since
    I haven't read the book, and didn't watch the movie, I couldn't say how
    well. ;-) Don't know if it's out on video, but you might take a look...
    
    -b

    re .3, TV movies don't count.  :-)  They're just never the same, IMO.
    
    But, since I almost never watch TV I wasn't aware it had been a TV
    movie.  I'm afraid I'd be dissapointed in it.  The TV movies never seem
    to get the actors that I would prefer to see, etc.
    
    Lorna
    

    Cold Sassy Tree was on one of the Cable-only stations (USA or A&E?)
    and is rerun fairly frequently. I may have a tape of it at home if you 
    would like to see it. It starred Henry Fonda as the grandfather and
    Faye Dunaway as Miss Love Simpson. 
    
    Linda
    

> Another movie that I have not seen, "Millennium", and which was panned
> by critics, also intrigues me as a choice for the big screen.  

Do not - I repeat - DO NOT rent this movie! It was just awful, worse than
you could ever imagine....


Considering the scope, it would probably be impossible, but someday I'd love 
to see Asimov's 'Foundation' series brought to the screen. Also, Tom Clancy's
'Red Storm Rising' would be cool....

alan

    re .5, it must've been quite awhile back that Cold Sassy Tree was a TV
    movie, if Henry Fonda was in it!  He's been dead for a few years,
    hasn't he, and was very old when he died, from what I recall.  In the
    book, Cold Sassy Tree, the grandfather is only 59 yrs. old.
    
    I would like to see Cold Sassy Tree made into a big screen movie, meant
    to be released in theaters, and starring current actors.  My
    suggestions for casting would be:
    
    Rucker Blakeslee (the grandfather) -  Robert Duvall
    Love Simpson -  Ellen Barkin
    Loma -  Bridget Fonda
    the kid's father - Aidan Quinn
    the kid's mother - the woman who played Ruth in Fried Green Tomatoes
                        (whatever her name is)
    Camp - Tim Roth
    the kid - the kid who is currently starring in This Boy's Life
    
    
    I'd still need to find actors to play the grandfather's first wife,
    Hosie, and Lightfoot.
    
    I just finished reading the book, and enjoyed it, that's why I thought
    of it.
    
    Lorna
    

    The grandfather in Cold Sassy Tree was played by Richard Widmark.
    
    Ann
    

"Necrom", by Mick Farren would make for some fairly absorbing entertainment,
but only if they cast Neil Young in the starring role.

William Gibson's "Neuromancer" could keep the F/X people employed into the
next century, but they'd be guaranteed to do something really stupid
like cast Keanu Reeves as the star instead of someone cool like Kyle McLaughlin.

Lisa

    re: .8
    
    You're right, I always get the two of them mixed up. Sorry.
    
    Linda

re .10

Linda,

You get Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark mixed up? Are you sure you're not
mixing Henry Fonda or Richard Widmark up with someone else? :^)


Randy

    
    
    	Steven Kings's  ' The Stand '
    
    	

    I just finished reading "Fatherland" by Robert Harris; I would love to
    see that book made into a movie.
    
    -- Mike

    Film-of-the-book buffs may be interested in "Filmed Books and Plays" 
    by A G S Enser (Andre Deutsch), which - as alphabetical lists go - 
    is a real page turner.
    
    My hot suggestion to Hollywood is a sultry adaptation of Homer (the 
    Greek author) titled "Ulysees - the Incredible Journey", co-directed 
    by Kurosawa and Fellini, script by Christopher Hampton, starring two 
    unknown blonde 14 year olds + 4000 Greek extras, underwritten by the 
    Turkish Tourist Office.  A diplomatic triumph!  Hell, you could even 
    have luxuriant flashforwards to Dublin.

>    Greek author) titled "Ulysees - the Incredible Journey", co-directed 
    
    Followed by the Stallone-directed sequel, "Champs Ulysees".
    
    Ray

    	THE TALISMAN by Peter Straub and Stephen King would make an
    excellent movie. It has magic, adventure, alternate universes.
    
    	

    I would love to see the novel "Waiting To Exhale" by Terry McMillan
    made into a movie, but only if it was done well.  Even as I read the
    book I found myself trying to cast the movie.  :-)  I thought Oprah
    Winfrey would be good as Gloria, but she would have to regain some of
    her lost weight for the role.  (something she might not want to do!!) 
    I think Angela Bassett (What's Love Got To Do With It and Malcolm X)
    would be good as the one whose husband leaves her for a white woman. 
    (I can't remember her character's name!)  That leaves Robin and
    Savannah, my two favorite characters.  I would want Alfre Woodard to
    play one of them.  I'd have to think some more before I could decide
    who to have play the other one.
    
    BTW, this novel is about 4 single, professional, Black women trying to
    find love and happiness in the 1990's, and it's a wonderful story.
    
    Lorna
    

    re .17, actually, personality-wise, Whoopi Goldberg would be good as
    Gloria, but the book makes a big deal about how overweight Gloria is
    and Whoopi is thin.
    
    Okay.  Maybe this.  Oprah Winfrey as Gloria.  Whoopi Goldberg as the
    one whose husband leaves her for a white woman, and then Angela Bassett
    as Savannah and Alfe Woodard as Robin.   
    
    Oh, I can see it now!!  I want to make this movie!  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    	Oh great, another male-bashing film. Yeah, that's what we need.

    re .19, Have you even *read* the book?  
    
    I did not consider it to be a "male-bashing" book.
    
    It seems that we have reached a point in time where women cannot even
    state any negative experiences, concerning men, without *some* men
    crying "male-bashing" and totally dismissing what the women have to
    say.
    
    I defy any man to read this book and then claim that no men do any of
    the things that are done by men in this book.  Like it or not, this
    book is about real life, and if some men don't like it then they just
    better make sure they don't act that way.
    
    I'm not black or a professional, but I am a single woman, and I related
    to this story.
    
    Lorna
    
    
    

RE bashing

  All right, so now we're curious (or at least I am), what happened? Did males
get bashed or did they do the bashing?



RE              <<< Note 188.21 by SMAUG::LEHMKUHL "H, V ii 216" >>>
>         -< how about fewer "women as objects/window dressing" films? >-

  If that's a book, it's a new one on me.

  George

         
    
   > I defy any man to read this book and then claim that no men do any of
   > the things that are done by men in this book.  Like it or not, this
   > book is about real life, and if some men don't like it then they just
   > better make sure they don't act that way.
    
     ...and of course I can not despute this fact. However if one wrote a
    book that had black people committing crimes, doing drugs and just
    being all out losers one could justify it as you justify WAITING TO
    EXHALE by saying, "it happens". The last thing black people need as
    well as anyone else is negative images. I am tired of seeing men being
    portrayed as irresponsible chauvinistic jerks, just as much as I am
    tired of women always being portrayed as submissive.
    
    

RE: <<< Note 188.23 by 3297::SAPP "It Takes A Village to raise a Child!" >>>

     Battle of the Negative Stereotype Movies !!  Sounds like a film about
"Waiting to Exhale" would promote stereotypes on a par with "Emotionally 
Scarred Feminazi Stormtroopers".  The misanthropes and misogynists will 
flock to the theaters.

                                   Greg

Re: .23

>						I am tired of seeing men being
>    portrayed as irresponsible chauvinistic jerks, 
    
    
but that's just reflecting real life, isn't it ?


:-)

    re .23, well, at least Waiting To Exhale portrays black *women* in a
    positive light.  No wellfare mothers, prostitutes or Aunt Jemima's in
    the lot!  So, at least that's something, and it was written by a black
    woman, so at least it's not a white person's take on what it's like to
    be black.
    
    In one of her other books, Disappearing Acts, one of the main
    characters is a black male who is portrayed in a very positive light.
    
    Lorna
    

    I thought Waiting To Exhale had a couple of decent guys in it, Micheal
    and the neighbor across the street sure are two people I wouldn't mind
    having in my life.  Besdies since it was from a woman's perspective of
    course a broken heart will make the guys sound much worse then they
    are.  Tarik's father wasn't a bad person just an aweful father.
    
    In general I thought this was an excellent book, with women I could
    really relate to.  None of the women were super rich or super poor they
    all had some type of financial problem but they all had enough money to
    pay their rent, eat and go out once in a while.  And like most women I
    know, have men in and out of their lives - for good or bad.
    
    ***** out of *****
    and would love to see this as a movie.
    
    Joyce

I thought DUNE would be great on screen, but when it hit the screen I was
very disappointed.   Too bad.

Judy

    My personal desire is for Ursula K. LeGuin's _Tombs_of_Atuan_
    to be made into a movie.  Not animated, full-length, black and
    white.  It'd be cool to have the actors speak something obscure
    or invented and use sub-titles (e.g. make it in Romania or some
    other cheap place, don't use Hollywood talent).
    
    The book is short, self-contained and full of great images, 
    with a small number of characters and relatively cheap sets.
    And the biggest set, the temple, can be re-used to make a
    movie (in color) of Peter Dickenson's _The_Blue_Hawk_.
    
    		-John Bishop

  I've been reading "The Witching Hour" and I've now started the sequel
"Lasher" by Ann Rice who wrote "Interview with the Vampire", the movie that's
being made with Tom Cruise. So far they seem to be just as good if not better
than the Vampire books and I believe that they would make better movies. 

  I'm surprised that they didn't start with the Witch books because they have
characters that are a bit more human with whom more people could more easily
identify. 

  I can see the casting for the Witch books now, Alex Balwin would make a good
Lasher, Harrison Ford as Michael Cury, Sharon Stone as Rowan Mayfield ... 

  George 

    I'm about 1/3 through "Lasher" and from his description, I thought
    Daniel Day-Lewis (with his Mohican hair) would be perfect as
    Lasher.
    
    Ford is too old for Michael, Alec Baldwin might be right for the
    role.  I can picture Sharon Stone as Rowan.
    
    Great books, to be sure.
    
    Richard

  Actually Michael is suppose to be older. He's suppose to be about 15 years
older than Rowan and she's suppose to be somewhere around 30 so it should
work.

  I'll have to go dig out the Talamasca report to get the exact ages.

  :*)}
  George

    >I can picture Sharon Stone as Rowan.
    Who would you cast for Martin? :-)
    

re .13: one of the English stations is doing a TV adaptation of Fatherland, with
Rutger Hauer (from Blade Runner).

re .14: sounds like a great film. One school of thought says Circe's island is
Ireland anyway, so you don't even need the flash forward to get the Bord Failte
dosh. 

Actually, it's already been done. I never saw the film, but I saw the poster for
it in Athens once (showing at the Pangrati Odeon):

	SEE the legendary beauty of Helen of Troy 
	SEE the ancient heroes locked in mortal combat
	SEE the cunning device of the wooden horse

and a big butch ome in skin, tin and leather wielding his sword. (Thinking about
it, this could also be the Iliad--Helen is in both poems. The wooden horse is
only in the Odyssey, but they could have put it in the Iliad to make something
happen.)

Maybe it's time for a remake....

Helen

    I would love to see the Carlotta Carlyle mystery novels by Linda Barnes
    made into a deries of movies.  Mariel Hemingway would be perfect as
    Carlotta (if he dyed her hair red).
    
    NAZZ

    
    maybe the discussion of wooden actors put this in my brain, but
    has anybody ever heard tell of making a film of asimov's robot/
    foundation books?
    

    re .36, I would rather have it not done at all than done poorly.
    
    Lorna
    

    
    Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine once ran a script treatment of
    *I, Robot* written by Harlan Ellison, and it would have made a
    *terrific* movie.  But this was at least ten years ago, and I don't
    believe the proposal ever went anywhere.
    
    As for the Barnes books, I agree, but I think Geena Davis is the
    obvious choice.
    
    DFW

    
    re:.36
    
    are you serious?????
    i would have thought you were the last person on the planet (after
    myself) to admit having even read them, let alone like them!!
    
    

    
    	Long night, or what?
    
    	I've spent some long days here, but you still won't see me replying
    	to myself.
    
    	8^)
    
    							GTI

    re .40, I think he meant me, .37.  :-)
    
    Yes, Joe, even though, in general, I'm not a Science Fiction fan, I
    absolutely *loved* Isaac Asimov's fiction.  I think I've read all of
    his fiction, with the exception of the last Foundation book that came
    out.  I especially loved the robot stories, and especially The
    Bicentennial Man.
    
    Lorna
    

    I agree, the original Foundation trilogy was great! A novel concept,
    brilliantly followed through. The characters were a bit wooden, but
    that's Asimov for you... It should have been left there. Was it? Noooo:
    Asaac Isimov just *had* to write a sequel, thirty years later, and he
    just *HAD* to throw in his damned robots! Now, the robots were great,
    in their place, but I was really annoyed to see them marching into
    Foundation's Edge. Authors sometimes get overly enamoured with their
    creations, and don't know when to just let them lie.
    
    I had the same feeling about Heinlein towards the end. The Future
    History series was great, and "Time enough for Love" was aptly
    described as the capstone to that series. Not satisfied with a
    capstone, though, Heinlein had to build a TV antenna on top of it with
    "The Number of the Beast". Then he put a birdhouse on the TV antenna
    with "The Cat who Walks Through Walls". Then.... ugh! One became sick
    of hearing about Lazarus Long and his happily horny family romping
    through all universes of time and space. One stopped reading Heinlein.
    
    To get topical, I think the Foundation Trilogy could be a great movie
    if competently done. Heinlein's "Methusulah's Children" would also
    translate well to the screen. Both are rather old-fashioned SF movie
    concepts compared to the types of SF movies made today.

    I would love to see a movie done on Spider Robinson's 
    "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon / Time Traveler's Strictly Cash" books!
    
    Michael
    

    
    re:.41
    
    gee, i rather liked 'the bicentennial man', too.
    
    

    I will agree - Geena Davis would be GREAT as Carlotta!  Don't know
    how I didn't think of her first.
    
    NAZZ

    
    
    I'm a big fan of the idea of 'alternate reality' books and I agree
    with .13 that 'Fatherland' (where the nazis won WWII) would make a
    great movie/ mini-series.  I like the idea of Rutgar Hauer, and the
    high probability that the story would get an ending from the makers.
    
    Also along those lines was William Gibson's 'The Difference Engine' where
    England gets a bizarre form of 'computer technology' 100 years before
    the rest of the world, altering history markedly.  'Anno Dracula' is in
    the same vein (heh - nice one) and, in this instance, the fanged one weds
    Queen Victoria and vampirism becomes a socially acceptable condition
    amongst the British public at the end of the Nineteenth Century.  Quite
    weird books and a 'suspension of belief' attitude may be required in the
    latter case, but I think both would translate well to the big screen.
    
    Alice Walker's 'Possessing the Secrets of Joy' would also be a good
    contender.  I think the flash back/ jump forward style of the book
    could be done really well in a film.  The message concerning some of
    the mutilation rituals that young women in some groups are forced to go
    through is also a powerful and thought provoking one.
    
    I would also love to see Bret Easton Ellis' other two books 'The Rules
    of Attraction' and 'American Psycho' made into movies but not so
    obscenely sanitised as 'Less Than Zero' was, a few years back.  (It
    sounds like the upcoming 'Threesome' film could be along the lines of
    TRoA).
    
    Other print I'd like to view:
    
    The Steven King story about the jet liner in 'Four Past Midnight'.
    
    Kim Stanley Robinson's 'The Gold Coast' and his Mars Trilogy.
    
    The Tom Clancy book (I forget the title) about the nuclear terrorist
    attack in Denver (hope Harrison is not too old by the time they get
    around to this).  It's the one that came after 'Clear and Present
    Danger' Can anyone remind me? - Very exciting stuff.  Oh wait...
    Was it called 'The Sum of All Fears'?  I think it was...
    
    Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' graphic novel (was in the works, but enthusiasm
    seems to have died away).
    
    Scott
    
    

    I just finished reading The Male Cross Dresser's Support Group by Tama
    Janowitz, and I think this could be made into a hysterically funny
    movie if it was done right.  (She, also, wrote The Slaves of New York,
    which was made into an ok - nothing special- movie.)  But, this new
    book is an absolutely crazily funny commentary on contemporary life,
    and I could really see it as a movie.
    
    I think Rosie O'Donnell would be good as the lead.
    
    Lorna
    

    re: .46
    
    In addition to the William Gibson novel that you mentioned, I believe
    that his latest novel, VIRTUAL LIGHT, would make an incredible novel. 
    It is set in Los Angeles in the future (2004, I believe) and is almost
    a thriller set against the backdrop of what Gibson sees the future
    being.  There is a vaccine for AIDS, there are various inventions and
    breakdowns in society (including California being two states now,
    NoCal and SoCal), but I don't want to give away too much.  It is a very
    inventive and fun book to read, but also makes a number of statements
    on our society today and the breakdowns ahead because of the way we
    are.
    
    It would make a great movie along the lines of BLADE RUNNER and TOTAL
    RECALL.  I would have to believe that someone has optioned the novel
    already.
    
    Keith

    
    
    re: .48
    
    You'd be right.
    
    Virtual Light IS going to be a film and I believe (if memory serves and
    I'm not getting confused) that James Cameron is going to be at the controls.
    
    I read this in Starburst Magazine (so it *must* be true), published in
    the UK.
    
    Scott
    
      
    
    

    re: .48
    
    If James Cameron is indeed filming VIRTUAL LIGHT (and I pray you are
    right), you have a blockbuster megahit on the way.  The story is fast
    and action-filled and there is a great plot line as well with various
    characters who all tie together in the end.
    
    Now you've got me excited about this, and I'm not even sure it's going
    to happen!  
    
    Keith