Sunday, April 12, 2009

Why Must they Ruin Everything that I Love

When I was a freshmen in high school, my brother was a freshmen in college at U Pitt. He discovered Michael Chabon and introduced me to The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It has been one of my favorite novels ever since. 6 years later I ended up transferring to Carnegie Mellon and found myself living down the block from the "cloud factory" (A major plot point in the book). It's actually the steam plant for CMU.

Pittsburgh is an awesome city with the shittiest weather I've ever experienced (300 days of clouds, literally, but hardly ever more than drizzles).

I was fucking PYSCHED when I found out they were making the book into the movie. Then I saw the movie. Movies are almost never as good as the book (Fight Club being the sole exception I've encountered) but this went far beyond that. Ignoring the fact that entire characters disappeared and that the peripheral characters (who represented much of the MYSTERY) were suddenly the only characters in the fucking movie, it was fucking horribly executed. Ridiculously overwrought and pretentious--with Art Bechstein walking around permawearing the same expression of half confusion, half trying to squeeze out a turd that made Keanu Reeves famous--I had to force myself to watch the entire fucking thing.

It made me think of the time that Megan completely mischaracterized the town I live in now, Berkeley (Pittsburgh's polar opposite-nice weather but, god, do I want to burn this place and its inhabitants to ashes).

The writers and directors of this movie fail entirely to capture the essence of the city. Its total fucking shame because the movie is set from June to August, the only three months of the year da 'Burgh can be cast in an entirely positive light. Why would you do that? Why would you write about something of which you are completely uniformed? Why must these people ruin things for me?

Why, God, why?

19 comments:

CaptBackslap said...

The movie of The Godfather was much better than the book, in large part because Mario Puzo's prose is terrible.

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of good movies based on not-so-good novels. They just don't hit your radar because nobody cares about those novels. But my favorite example of a great movie improving on a good book is The Sweet Hereafter.

Max Renn said...

What's wrong with Berkeley? Chillax in the 510 man.

Max Renn said...

More on topic, this news is disheartening as this novel is my fave of Chabon's. I found the film version of The Rules of Attraction equally vile. I pray that on one goes after The Secret History, although they probably will, and cast someone like Ms. Hannah Montana Cyrus in the lead.

NutellaonToast said...

Berkeley is retarded. The drivers are insane as is the street layout. It's as crowded as a city but there's only 2nd rate culture. It's dirty. There are insane bums everywhere accosting you for whatever you'll give them and making the public parks unusable. Aging hippies make it so that the only thing open after 9pm is a fucking Jack in the Box. There's all the bullshit on Telegraph making the place out it to be some crazy counterculture haven when all it is is a bunch of entitled brat college kids, yuppies who say they hate global warming but live in resource wasting sprawl, unmedicated schizophrenics and a handful of street urchins.

Burn, Berkeley, burn.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm, Jack in the Box...and urchins.

spencer said...

Aging hippies make it so that the only thing open after 9pm is a fucking Jack in the Box.

How do they do that?

Seriously - I've never been to Berkeley.

As to the topic of the post, I knew they'd twist that novel into unrecognizable, unwatchable shit as soon as I heard it was filming. I thought they did a decent job with Chabon's novel "Wonder Boys," even though they cut out fully 1/3 of the book ... but in that case, I thought it was a wise decision because cutting out the whole Seder at the in-laws segment kept the film moving. Of course, novels and movies are different media with different requirements for effective storytelling; sometimes it's possible to make a good movie out of a novel, but if you have to adapt something it's usually better to adapt a short story or a novella instead.

NutellaonToast said...

I dunno if its actually their fault or not, but someone told me once that all thd old people here were the reason that things were never open late. Apparently they had an ordinance passed or something.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, man, did it never occur to you that everything closes early simply because everything closes early everywhere except NYC? I've lived in Oakland, LA, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, New Orleans and Detroit. And guess what? Except for N.O. bars, shit closes early.

NutellaonToast said...

I'm pretty sure I talked about living in Pittsburgh, so yes, other places that exist had occurred to me.

I've been to places in Iowa City that are open later than most of the crap around here. Small towns in NJ have restaurants open till 4am. Even Oakland never sleeps compared to Berkeley. This place is pretty much in a state of constant hibernation.

I take it your offended because I bashed Berkeley and you lived in Oakland. Well take it easy, honey, cause I actually like Oakland just fine.

Did it ever occur to you that you're a moron?

Anonymous said...

Wow, maybe being a total dick has something to do with not being happy with where you're living? For the record, I'm not offended you don't like Berkeley. I don't like it either, and I think old hippies and pseudo-hipster frat boys suck. Which is why I lived a few miles down the road in Oakland instead. I just think that it's an empty complaint since pretty much everything west of Jersey closes early. California as a whole pretty much shuts down completely at 10pm. And I refuse to move to Iowa City, so I just deal with it.

Anonymous said...

And p.s. Nobody "ruined" the thing you loved. Pittsburgh and the Chabon book are still intact, despite the existence of a cheesy movie that everyone will have forgotten about in a month. I don't know how you make it through the day if your m.o. is to launch into hissy fits of hyperbole every time something rubs you the wrong way.

NutellaonToast said...

FUCK YOU ASSHOLE! I DON'T DO THAT AT ALL! YOU'RE SUCH A PRICK! NOW I FUCKING HATE OAKLAND, TOO!

NutellaonToast said...

And PS: You're still a total fucking moron.

spencer said...

You're a bit late to the Oakland-hating party, NoT.

NutellaonToast said...

I'm fashionably late, though

clever pseudonym said...

California shuts down at 10 pm? I've lived here most of my life and within a one mile radius of my home alone are bars open until 2 am, 2 grocery stores and five or six restaurants open 24 hours a day, and countless businesses that keep long hours. Hell, even movie theaters are open after 10 pm. What California is anonymous talking about?

NutellaonToast said...

Are you talking to me or to Nony? Cause I never said Cali. I said "Berkeley"

clever pseudonym said...

To the anonymous that wrote "California as a whole pretty much shuts down completely at 10pm." That may be true in smaller rural areas, but does this person really think places like Los Angeles and San Francisco shut down at 10 PM? That's a ridiculous, completely false statement.