Please read this quotatation:
He was not what Sorenson had been expecting. Not exactly. He wasn't a gorilla and he wasn't like something out of a slasher movie. But she could see why he had been described that way. He was huge, for a start. He was one of the largest men she had ever seen outside the NFL. He was extremely tall, and extremely broad, and long-armed and long-legged. The lawn chair was regular size, but it looked tiny under him. It was bent and crushed out of shape. His knuckles were nearly touching the ground. His neck was thick and his hands were the size of dinner plates.
For those not already aquainted with him, allow me to introduce Jack Reacher, the hero - and, boy, do I mean heroic! - of the fifteen or so thrillers written by Mr. Lee Childs who is, surprisingly, English by birth and upbringing. Anyway, as I have told you before, Hollywood has just released the first film of Jack Reacher's exploits and the actor playing him is Mr. Tom Cruise. Now, Mr. Cruise has played, many a time and oft', in various action-packed thrillers and it is true to say that he keeps himself in shape but the little midget is only 5'-7" tall. Even I'm taller than that - just! Zillions of people with nothing much better to do, like me, have read, or perhaps devoured is a better word, the many books and we know exactly how Jack Reacher should look - and it definitely ain't like 'Titchy Tom'!
I'm all bitter and twisted about this because I have just finished the very latest Jack Reacher tale, A Wanted Man (absolute corker!), from which I took the quotation above. I can only assume they are all born congenitally stupid in Hollywood because all those zillion Jack Reacher fans who could have been expected to queue up for seats are never going to see their ridiculous film in which it is quite possible that the female lead will be taller than the hero!
However, to cheer me up, I am going to see Les Mis on Friday - can't wait!
I'm ashamed to admit that, despite giggling (I mean chortling, as giggling is only performed by little girls) at Mr Childs' inaccuracies regarding weapons, fighting, etc., I have read all of his ripping yarns (that's 19 to be accurate), and enjoyed them all.
I don't know about anybody else but I have yet to see a single adaption of a book by Hollywood, or anyone else for that matter, that ever came close to the original (and most, let's be honest, either omit/rewrite huge sections 'LOTR', or just ignore the original story in the first place 'I am Legend'). So I won't be visiting a multiplex any time soon to see L. Rons pet dwarf ruin this series too.
Posted by: Able | Wednesday, 09 January 2013 at 19:00
I recently discovered that my cousin is a Jack Reacher fan and just as horrified by this extraordinary bit of miscasting. Thanks to this blog, I knew what he was talking about!
Posted by: A K Haart | Wednesday, 09 January 2013 at 19:02
Alas, Able, that's where your expertise ruins your pleasure. The rest of us wouldn't know a Glock from a Browning - and I actually fired a Browning once, at least, I think it was a Browning! Anyway, that means we can suspend all disbelief and just rush through the story riding on mighty Jack's coat-tails.
AK, for goodness sake, get yourself a life! The older and weedier we become the more we need vicarious thrills (with positively no chance of danger to ourselves) and no-one does it better than our Jack!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 09 January 2013 at 19:32
I find Les Mis. extremely depressing. Too brown for me!
That lunatic couch-jumper can never, ever be Jack Reacher and so there's another movie I won't be seeing.
And you asked what book I am reading on my Kindle .... Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom".
Brilliant. What small complexities people use to mess up their lives and what a great writer of people's feelings Franzen is. "The Corrections" was a wonderful book and so is this.
Recommended.
Posted by: Andra | Wednesday, 09 January 2013 at 22:15
I assume that Les Mis is a bit like an opera but with much inferior music. Zat right?
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 09 January 2013 at 22:48
DM - absolutely. The music is completely and utterly forgettable. Doom and gloom all over and serves 'em right.
Why wouldn't they just eat the bloody cake?
Posted by: Andra | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 05:04
'Les Mis' - the stage show - is pure pleasure from beginning to end. A great story that mixes tragedy, hope, loss and optimism. The songs and lyrics are as good as anything written by the great American songsters of the '30s and '40s, than which etc, etc. The staging, originally an RSC production(!!!), is superb. I have seen it four times. If the film is even half as good as the stage show it will be terrific. Stand by to be bored even more than usual on Saturday when I tell you about the film.
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 08:50
Andra, intrigued by your book recommendation I took a look at its Wiki entry. Here are two quoted reviews:
"Publishers Weekly wrote "Franzen pits his excavation of the cracks in the nuclear family’s facade against a backdrop of all-American faults and fissures, but where the book stands apart is that, no longer content merely to record the breakdown, Franzen tries to account for his often stridently unlikable characters and find where they (and we) went wrong, arriving at—incredibly—genuine hope."[8]
Alan Cheuse of National Public Radio wrote "Despite the brilliance, or maybe even because of it, I found the novel quite unappealing, maybe because every line, every insight, seems covered with a light film of disdain. Franzen seems never to have met a normal, decent, struggling human being whom he didn't want to make us feel ever so slightly superior to. His book just has too much brightness and not enough color."[9]"
I must confess that my heart sank as I read the summary but then I am not really a novel-reading man. The only novelist I have read in the last few years is Tom Wolfe and as I have mentioned here before, I couldn't finish one book because it upset too much - I know, I know, what a wuss!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 09:01
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/some-parents-cry-i-fell-asleep-les-misery-of-watching-les-misrables-8412978.html
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 18:46
DM - Ha ha ha ha ha!!
Posted by: Andra | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 19:41
DM, any writer who produces a phrase such as "was well good" does not deserve to be read and the fact that he 'writes' for the Independent simply confirms, first, my low opinion of it, and second, my guess that it will shortly go out of business!
So there - yah boo sucks!
And the same to the laughing Aussie hyena!
(However, I am seeing it tomorrow and if it's as bad he says then this blog will be moving to new premises!)
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 10 January 2013 at 20:46