Adaptation

Oh, I've been meaning to tell you that I caught a random showing of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh on HBO or Cinemax or some movie channel that I pay far too much for to use so sparingly. It was good. Interestingly, they took some serious liberties with the story. They completely left out Arthur, the man Art has a love affair with, and transferred that story line (and ensuing hot gay sex scene) onto Cleveland. That then complicated things with oh what was her name? Oh right, it doesn't matter because she is a girl in a Michael Chabon novel. Jane. Of course. You can't get any more plain than that. It complicates things because Jane is Cleveland's girlfriend, and she walks in on them naked in bed together. Yeah, that was definitely not in the book. And Phlox is essentially replaced by Jane, except for a few sex scenes and pornographic acts of revenge. They essentially rewrote the damn thing, but it seemed more cohesive and fluent that way. It was a very effective adaptation for as many liberties as it took.

Now, as far as the first half of The Lovely Bones, which I watched the other afternoon with my mother who works at a car dealership full of sketch balls who do things like sell crack and pirate movies before they're even released in the theaters? Yeah, that was a huge hunk of cheese. I mean, come on Peter Jackson. An echo effect to make all of Suzie's lines "ghost-like"? You're worse than Sebold.