Breakfast Of Champions: a short review about a movie
Basically there are only two good things I took from it: Vonnegut's cameo as a disgruntled commercial director and Omar Epps' role as Wayne Hoobler (mostly because of all the House I've been watching lately).
The rest of it was a mixture of the failings of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie (all the plot with none of the humor) and the failings of the V For Vendetta movie (all the plot with none of the meaning). The ending felt tacked on, having a good final message (which might have been from the book, but carried better context) with nothing to really make it stick. Even if I was someone who hadn't and wouldn't read the book, that was something that simply won't fly. Everything before that was like taking the Vonnegut out of it and putting Twin Peaks-esque zaniness in its place. Taking the Vonnegut out of a book as personal as Breakfast Of Champions is A Bad Move. It really isn't a book that lends itself to adaptation, as it was something of a culmination of all the books he'd written before it, with references and characters from previous books coming in for a grand (well, maybe "grand" is the wrong word, since it was purposefully anti-climactic) send-off.
This isn't to say the book could never be adapted, the implications in its conclusion apply to fiction in general, not just books, only it requires more care than was taken here, especially since the film's conclusion kind of contradicted the whole point of the book. If Cronenberg could make something somewhat faithful and comprehensible out of Naked Lunch (which, off the top of my head at three in the morning, feels like the best book-to-movie adaptation ever) than someone could've made a worthwhile movie out of Breakfast Of Champions. Unfortunately, from the results we have, that person was not Alan Rudolph.
It may just be my bias, but I think if there was one Vonnegut book that lent itself to film adaptation, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater would be it. Eliot deserves better than what this movie gave him.
And yeah, I get it. It's an adaptation, so I'm bound to complain about it. You'd think I'd learn I just don't mesh with these things. I'm too biased. Some part of me wants to know the opinion of somebody who isn't familiar with the book going in. I don't think I can really judge these things fairly anymore.
The rest of it was a mixture of the failings of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie (all the plot with none of the humor) and the failings of the V For Vendetta movie (all the plot with none of the meaning). The ending felt tacked on, having a good final message (which might have been from the book, but carried better context) with nothing to really make it stick. Even if I was someone who hadn't and wouldn't read the book, that was something that simply won't fly. Everything before that was like taking the Vonnegut out of it and putting Twin Peaks-esque zaniness in its place. Taking the Vonnegut out of a book as personal as Breakfast Of Champions is A Bad Move. It really isn't a book that lends itself to adaptation, as it was something of a culmination of all the books he'd written before it, with references and characters from previous books coming in for a grand (well, maybe "grand" is the wrong word, since it was purposefully anti-climactic) send-off.
This isn't to say the book could never be adapted, the implications in its conclusion apply to fiction in general, not just books, only it requires more care than was taken here, especially since the film's conclusion kind of contradicted the whole point of the book. If Cronenberg could make something somewhat faithful and comprehensible out of Naked Lunch (which, off the top of my head at three in the morning, feels like the best book-to-movie adaptation ever) than someone could've made a worthwhile movie out of Breakfast Of Champions. Unfortunately, from the results we have, that person was not Alan Rudolph.
It may just be my bias, but I think if there was one Vonnegut book that lent itself to film adaptation, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater would be it. Eliot deserves better than what this movie gave him.
And yeah, I get it. It's an adaptation, so I'm bound to complain about it. You'd think I'd learn I just don't mesh with these things. I'm too biased. Some part of me wants to know the opinion of somebody who isn't familiar with the book going in. I don't think I can really judge these things fairly anymore.