Adaptation. DVD
Published June 21, 2003
If you saw this movie in the theater, you don't need to read the review. There is a complete lack of bonus features on this disc. If you like the movie in the theater, you can get it. If you didn't like it nothing here will change your mind. Seriously, they advertise "animated menus" and "scene selection" like it's a bonus feature. There is a complete lack of commentaries, outtakes, deleted scene, insightful comments, everything. The only thing that would remotely qualify as a "bonus feature" is it includes the origional trailer. Now, for the rest of you who haven't seen Adaptation yet, here is the actual review for the movie.
This is not a Hollywood film. It doesn't have a main character who's likable. The cute girl doesn't get the main guy. There is pain and suffering. The movie talks about flowers, for crying out loud.
And yet, this is still a mindblowing movie. It is based around Charlie Kaufman, who is a film screewriter. He gets this assignment to write a screenplay for Susan Orlean's book, "The Orchard Thief." As touched as he is by the book, he struggles to write a screenplay because of a lack of plot and action. Inbetween his worries about writing a screenplay (as deadlines pass with no output from him) he struggles with his real life relationships. His twin brother who cannot nail down a steady job decides to "become a screenwriter just like you, Charles" and starts treading on Charlie's toes as he asks for advice and opinions. Plus, the girl Charlie had been hanging out with got offened and stopped coming around.
In frustration, he goes to New York and ends up at a seminar for screenwriters. He bares his soul to the instructor and decides to ask his twin brother, Donald, for help. Up to this point the story has been fairly slow moving and has an artistic flair. Charlie has his standards for films and he won't use cop outs like car chases, shotings scenes, and so forth. As soon as Donald starts to help, though, things start going crazy. They go to stalk the author of the book, end up getting caught and start a chase through a forest. In the end, two people die.
The great paradox about this film is that the screenplay actually was writen by Charlie and Donald Kaufman. It really does have basis in a book titled "The Orchid Thief". The fun comes after watching the movie in trying to sort fiction from reality. But is the Charlie Kaufman in the film really identical to the Charlie Kaufman who wrote it? Does he think the same things? React the same way?
All I know is that this film is a monumental production. If you are tired of the same drivel from Hollywood, give this a shot. But rent it first. This really isn't everyone's cup of tea.
peace.
- Adaptation. DVD
- Published: June 21, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Comedy, Video: Drama
- Writer: The Theory
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Comments on this articleComments
OY! I watched this last week. The only thing I was happy about was that I had not spent $15 bucks to go to the theater and watch it.
I haven't read the novel, but I thought the movie was narrcistic self-indulgent crap. A movie about a screen writer who can not write a movie script. Fwah! Who cares? It was an incoherent mess. The worst of PoMo with a $50 million budget.
Sauve qui peut.
I couldn't believe it when I realized there were no extras for this dvd. They must have run out of money.
If you're looking for a dvd with tons of extras, rent/buy Tears of the Sun. Amazing film, amazing dvd.
Adaptation was my favourite film of last year. I'll be waiting for the special edition DVD, though...
Adaptation was my favourite film of last year. I'll be waiting for the special edition DVD, though...
Yah, it's not like somebody would rent the DVD to see the goddamn movie. What would be the point?
It would be like chasing out into the middle of a swamp for nothing.
Or watching "Barton Fink".
For what it's worth, Columbia releases Superbit editions of their DVDs which means all the bandwidth of the disc is given to the image and sound. No extras.
After all, would you rather have a good movie with no extras or a crap movie with lots of more crap?
And for what it's worth, the movie does give a hint about the early career of Ms. Streep, which she began under the stage name at Peep World as Heidi Ho.
I had not seen this at the theatre and rented to actually view the movie for the first time, knowing little about it beyond the trailer. It is clearly one of those movies that has lots of inside jokes for Hollywood (and book publishing) types and I thought it was kind of mindbending at first.
The arguments for staying "anti-commercial" vs what the seminar teacher has to say are thought provoking.
The scene in which you find out how the Orchid Thief loses his teeth is one of those shocking, incredible moments in film (similar to when the head pops out of the overturned boat in Jaws).
But I thought that all of the promise of the first 2/3 of the movie, which was actually believable, evaporated when things turned crazy at the end. I won't give anything away here, but I think that the turn came too fast and made it cartoonish when the rest of the movie had been believable. I kept thinking it was going to end with Charlie waking up in his bed in Auntie Emm's house, but it didn't.
Interesting idea, works on some levels but missed for me in the end. I really wouldn't recommend the movie outside of maybe some English/Screenwriting class for the sake of discussion.
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There will be a special edition with bonus features at some point.
Susan Orlean mentions that she shot some stuff on the Regarding Adaptation weblog.