Adaptation

I saw Adaptation tonite. It was good. On the way back I picked up a snack.  Lunchables 'Deluxe'. I'm eating them right now. I never had them before and I'm amazed at the Lunchable experience. Lunchables are friggin good! Cracker, cheese, ham, mustard. Chomp. Cracker, cheese, turkey, mustard. Chomp. Cracker, cheese. Chomp. Cheese. Chomp.  Cracker, cheese, turkey, mustard. Chomp. Drink water. Cracker, cheese, ham, mustard. Chomp.... I wish I bought two.  

Anyway I dug this Adaptation movie and nice healthy chunk of it was totally great. Blah blah... Nicholas Cage plays this writer guy and his twin  brother and he struggles to finish a screenplay adaptation of a real life book called The Orchid Thief which I never read nor did I run out to the store to buy it after finding out what it was about. The joke of the movie is he can't finish the job and writes himself into the movie script which eventually becomes the movie itself. I thought this might have been a one trick pony but I found the concept carried nicely. I respected the work around of the problem. The movie was directed surprisingly straightly by Spike Jonze. At first I appreciated his restraint in not stylizing the movie but the glimmers of directorial weirdness he threw in only made me miss the weirdness. He could have written himself into this a little more. 

So anyway the acting in this movie was impressive. Nicholas Cage apparently got bored of derailing his career and decided to do something that wasn't going to be a public humiliation. He did a nice job but occasionally overdid it with the 'look at what a sweaty loser I am all hunched over' bit. Meryl Streep looked hot and acted like great actress Meryl Streep. This other guy played this swamp dude and he was good too. I've seen him around. 

There was alot of funny in this movie and you felt for the screenwriter and his freaking out-ocity. And for 2/3rds I thought it was an amazing flick. But at the end it goes off the rails. It was an understandable turn that could have used some more setup hints as to why it decided to go there but it was done wrong and seemed forced. It's possible that he wrote something that led to a 'no out' situation. But since they didn't have an ending they could have easily admitted they didn't have one- and played with it. But what they tacked on here was out of step. It wasn't really a misfire. More like a backfire. 

Three Good Things About this Movie

- The concept of this movie was new. It smelled fresh and it worked.
-  It will make people who struggle with inspiration feel better about the struggle with inspiration.
- The car crashes were shocking. Top notch top notch.

Three Bad Things About this Movie

- It came off a bit cocky.
- There was this once chick who showed her boobs but you only got to see them once for like a second.
- The girl sitting behind me kept making noises like gasps and 'oh' and saying words like...'clever' and 'funny'

All in all this movie is worth seeing. Anyone who knows the feeling of staring at a blank piece of paper and feel all washed up will totally enjoy the sharing. And the victory over writer's block. But the inspiration really does drain from the movie at the end. You get the feeling that there was another fight behind the scenes when it came down to writing an ending. And this was a fight that was obviously lost.

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