I never thought he could top the script that he wrote for Being John Malkovich. But he did. Adaptation is ingenious. I might be more impressed with the screenplay than the actual film (altho i did enjoy the film alot). I want to get a copy of it so i can read it
and giving a character in the film a real-life writing credit? that's unprecedented as far as i know. Beyond original. If he doesn't get the Oscar, i'll never watch it again.

d



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they hype. Hollywood likes celebrity writers just like they like celebrity actors. He's milking the system and he is smart. Genius is taking his punchline gimmicks way too far for me.

BTW

please explain...

d

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regardless of the quality of that script, he's far from a lock to win. Too many people just don't "get" him or his work.

RED
Ora et labora

part of me thought adaptation was great. the other part thought it was just a big cop out.

Kaufman clearly didn't know how to adapt the orchid thief, so he simply writes about himself as a big fat loser trying to write the orchid thief. He clearly doesn't have an ending, so out of the blue he tacks on a typical thrilling climax followed by a Casablanca ending.

Yeah he was letting us in on the joke the whole time but...?

I enjoyed the hell out of both Being John Mlkovich and Adaptation (funny as hell), but calling Kaufman a genius is a stretch. With Adaptation he didn't come up with anything that every jaded/cynical screenwriters hasn't thought of at least once. It's just he got a great cast and a smartass director to actually pull it off.

But Hell, it was better than over half of the bullshit movies I've seen of late.

1Love,
Shug

he didn't write the ending. Donald Kaufman did. so charlie got the last laff

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i thought there was no donald kaufman

is what makes this screenplay so brilliant to me. Based on the way its written, it actually wrote itself. The screenplay itself became another character in the film. Donald Kaufman did not exist until (real life) Charlie wrote him into the screenplay. Once he did exist, Charlie asked him to finish the screenplay and he did. The 3rd act is what Donald "wrote", thereby winning him a real life writing credit.

*folds arms*

d
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you DO realize how silly you sound right?...okay just checking...carry on

its true

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but how does that qualify as genius? simply writing the rest of the movie as 'donald' would have done it(the base, low-brow hollywood thriller), instead of charlie?

its just brilliant to me. we differ in opinion

d

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i mean, i can see where he did something kinda unique or edgy, just not brilliant in my book.

charlie just gives up and lets his fictional brother donald do it, so it becomes a sappy hollywood film.

it's a fairly faithful adaptation of the book. It just has some other stuff as well.

He knew how to adapt the book, he just knew that it would make a boring movie.

RED
Ora et labora

it did make me curious about the book.

but i'm thinking the book doesn't have everything that made me dig the movie...

As in, the author probably didn't become a junky on the grounds of ghost orchids...

There's probably no mention of "The 3"

Don't get me wrong I way dug this movie. But how easy is it to write a movie about a fat writer with writer's block who masturbates all the time and can't get women? Especially when you ARE a fat writer with writer's block who masturbates all the time and can't get a woman...

I give mad props to any movie that can entertain and still serve as a big middle finger to the industry. But I can only appreciate it as such. Genius it ain't.

1Love,
Shug

>Don't get me wrong I way dug this movie. But how easy is it
>to write a movie about a fat writer with writer's block who
>masturbates all the time and can't get women? Especially
>when you ARE a fat writer with writer's block who
>masturbates all the time and can't get a woman...
That's part of the trick. Kaufman is actually pretty slim and has no more problems than the next guy getting girls. Cage just decided to make him fat. Which is a whole nother convo.

Im ambivalent about adaptation, moments of the film and writing were brilliant, most, however, were self-indulgent. I feel like the entire movie was encapsulated in the scene where he is trying to wack off in bed but gets interrupted by his brother.

I am more interested in checking out the clooney directed flick, _confessions of a dangerous mind_ a book kaufman actually adapted.


native son

when i heard antwone fisher was overlooked.

so we don't know if it was overlooked or not

d

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Plot synopsis of Sam Shepard's "True West" (one of the holy grails for playwrights/screenwriters):

One brother who is a well-established screenwriter is joined by his loose canon brother who is between homes. Brother #2 meets Brother #1's producer and sells him on his screenplay idea before he's written a single word. He tries to get his brother to help him become a screenwriter so he can write a story about a guy on a horse being chased by cops in cars across the Mexican desert.

Sound familiar?

BTW

- 2 brothers = Adaptation
- One a screenwriter, the other trying to be = Adaptation
- The pretender gets a film deal for big money = Adaptation
- The screenplay is about a man on a horse vs cops in cars = Adaptation.

Tell me where I'm wrong. And of course I've seen "8 1/2". And yes, so has Charlie.

The thing that bothers me most is that when you borrow so liberally from other people's work the least you could do is acknowledge it in interviews instead of continuing to masturbate over your own genius knowing the typical American film-goer will never know the difference.

BTW

oh where its completeley different? Seriously films that are hailed here like memento are just rip offs of tons of other films of you compare them that way. Amorres Peros is a great film, but it also uses alot of tarantinos devices.

to give Tarantino credit for "originating" anything. Stop that. It's an acknowledged fact that his films are made-up of a hodge podge of films he worshipped while working as a video store clerk. He is the posterboy for "adapting" other filmmakers work into his own and he openly admits it. He's even done specials pointing the films out for you.

BTW

hey man, the mexican desert is soooo different than the florida everglades. i mean, one is saturated with water and the other is bone dry.

Anybody seen this Fellini film...?

Cause Kaufman sure did.

For anyone interested, but doesn't like subtitles and can't speak Italian, there's an American version out now called Adaptation...

1Love,
Shug

.

"There's a lot you can do with a giant four foot dried, curling, boomerang seed pod from the Botang Tree that grows only in Indonesia."
-Tom Waits

"It's not about a salary it's all about reality."
-KRS-One

"Me being wack is like naps on Kojack."
-RZA

it used editing!

Just because you can reference Birth of a Nation doesn't mean Adaptation didn't suck. I don't care whether it was original or not (it wasn't), the script wasn't funny, it's easy as hell to make anti-Hollywood jokes, and he already did the self-loathing thing 15,000 times better in Malkovich.

8 1/2 was a perfect movie. Adaptation decidedly isn't.

"There's a lot you can do with a giant four foot dried, curling, boomerang seed pod from the Botang Tree that grows only in Indonesia."
-Tom Waits

"It's not about a salary it's all about reality."
-KRS-One

"Me being wack is like naps on Kojack."
-RZA

1Love,
Shug

He is responsible for the 3 most original scripts within the past 5 years: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his next (starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet), will be equally great. The ending to Adaptation wasn't a copout; it was his intention. He wanted to jar you and make the film take a 90 degree turn. It's supposed to be different. And while some can say that Human Nature sucked, I think that is no fault of the script: the script is still incredibly fresh and original, just the execution of said script wasn't a total success. Lewis out.

ditto

i was impressed!

"if he doesn't get the oscar, i'll never watch it again" .. thats the same way i feel.. and its the same way i felt with the golden globes.. about schmidt was tight but how did alexander payne and jim taylor win over charlie (and figurative brother donald) kaufman?? fuck the golden globes.. that was one of the worst ceremonies ever..

peace
liveiLL

> If he doesn't get the Oscar, i'll never watch it
>again.
>

why are you watching the Oscars anyway?

basically.

i can't help it

d

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the oscars have little to nothing to do with actual talent

i'm a filmmaker, and i gives a shit about Oscar. save that stuff for Joan Rivers.

but if a film you did was up for one, you be licking oscar's gold balls. and spare me...i already know you're gonna say that's not true.

d

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the oscars are about the business of making movies. and that's the business i want to be in, period. so i watch because it interests me. i don't care if you think its weak or not. I simply look forward to, and enjoy watching the Oscars every year

d

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and you know it.

i'm not gonna tell you that if i got one of them awards that i'd give it back... it's the highest honor of the movie industry, awarded to you by your peers, people who supposedly love movies, too. i guess that counts for something. but for the most part, it has very little to do with actual quality.

good work often does get rewarded..more often than not. so in my opinion it does recognize quality.

d

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but it still has its suspect moments (Julia Roberts over Ellen Burstyn? Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas?)

Im still always interested to see who won though

you can like the oscars all you want thats your biz

but all that bullshit about im an actor and i cant help it is a heap of shit and you shouldnt sell it to yourself or anything else

yeah we all wanna be a success yeah people want to eat but this business is not about talent its about money so dont confuse the two and talk about the oscars as being some kind of hand and hand qualtiy borometer for good work cause all that doing is further protistuting creativity to make money

and nobodys getting paid to lie on okayplayer so just stop

what i believe make you so angry? and who are you to tell me that i'm lying to myself, of all people? You obviously don't know me as well as you think you do so chill...

I'm an optimist and i DO believe that this business about talent as well as money. And there's nothing you can say to make me change that belief. Just because you don't agree doesn't make you right. so back off

d

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but im right its that simple

i just stopped watching myself cause it was just so damned boring...

but i see why folks still watch it though. so dont hate..although you just did. :)

Ryan

sure it's politics, but so is any other award ceremony.

the problem is that it's just extremely boring to me.

Was way better and caught me off gaurd. I was laughing out loud at thier ridiculous exploits of this self-loathing screenwriter, his shallow brother and thier friends...

ridiculously good with Cage playing a sublter character for once instead of an angst ridden over-the-top anti-hero.

I laugher at the Native/Seminole guys the most...( go figure)...?

If last year didn't convince you I don't know what will. That shit is strictly money and outside influence. Talent or merit have very little to do with who wins and/or loses.

BTW

who wins or loses has a lot of effect on what comes to screens later.

Calling them completely irrelevant is more than a slight overstatement.

RED
Ora et labora

>who wins or loses has a lot of effect on what comes to
>screens later.
>
>Calling them completely irrelevant is more than a slight
>overstatement.

About both of these things. They matter to studios so in turn they matter to filmmakers. I understand that. Really, what I meant is they are irrelevant in determining what the best film, writing, performances were from that year.

BTW

It's just too easy to talk about how the Oscars suck and Hollywood sucks and all that. People who are watching the Oscars to see what's the best film, etc., are simply watching for the wrong reasons.

RED
Ora et labora

How do you explain Benicio Del Toros' win for TRAFFIC.
Which in my humble opinion was well deserved....

huh?

the movie was ok... it mostly weirded me out, with all the lengths they were stooping to...but i'm not dissing the movie per se, i just wanna know why folks think it's great...

well, for one thing, it was the most original (yes motherfuckers original) screenplay i have seen in.........jesus, i don't know how long.

Question about this movie. At the ending, are they trying to imply that Craig has now resorted to stalking the happy couple? So is that what his life is reduced to?

>Question about this movie. At the ending, are they trying
>to imply that Craig has now resorted to stalking the happy
>couple? So is that what his life is reduced to?

No. He messed up and was trapped in the baby's body.