What Next?

[lawnrrd]

I'm on a book and movie jag. I recently watched A Clockwork Orange, then got the book and read it, too. After reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (which you really should read, if you're interested in movies at all), I watched Apocalypse Now Redux, and I then inhaled Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the book that was the basis for Apocalypse Now. I'm trying to figure out what to watch or read next.

Clearly, I'm not now in a sweetness-and-light frame of mind, but that's probably just a passing phase that I've been in for about 34 years. I'm in the mood for something intense and substantial.

Suggestions are welcome, so long as they do not involve the words, "Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

Comments

[melonaise.livejournal.com]

I just read Dances with Wolves. Really very similar to the movie, I'm not sure it's worth the read. But it was free (for me) and went down easy.

There's always Dune and the two Dune movies if you're interested in Sci-Fi and politics at all.

It's interesting to see how Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned were butchered into the new QotD movie. Don't worry if you haven't read Interview with the Vampire (technically the first book), you'll get along just fine without it. Or you could pair that one with its movie.

Weren't a whole bunch of Clancy's books made into movies?

[lawnrrd]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've read the first two Dune books repeatedly, and I saw the David Lynch movie in the theater when it first came out. I have the Sci-Fi version on DVD but haven't managed actually to watch it.

In a sense, I had never thought about politics before I read Dune. Government seemed like something that "just happened."

If Dances With Wolves "went down easy," as you put it, I don't think that's really what I'm looking for now.

I've actually never read any of Anne Rice's vampire books. Maybe I should try. In fact, the only Rice I've read is the first book in the Sleeping Beauty trilogy. It's kinky, I'm kinky, I thought it would work out, but I just found the story annoying.

I'm not so much looking for matching books and movies as I am looking for books or movies that will be intense and substantial. So far, I've just seen a couple of movies that really drew me in, leading me to read the books that inspired them. A book without a movie or a movie without a book would be fine.

[lawnrrd]

Yes! That's the word I was looking for! I am indeed looking for something very, very heavy to read or to watch.

How 'bout the words "Joy Luck Club"?

[wishiwas.livejournal.com]

Which actually is a really good book. I know you didn't specifically ask for books turned into moves, but here's two: "Hi-Fidelity" and "Girl". I'm sure in the wake of Jack Black's celebrity you've heard of the former; the book is actually set in England with the English equivalents of the American characters in the movie. And the movie has the Sleater-Kinney album "Dig Me Out" visible (if you've never seen it, it looks like the Kinks' album _Kinkology_, I think) on the record rack if you look past John Cusack's shoulder in the one scene, and any Sleater-Kinney connection is a good enough reason to watch a movie in my book. And "Girl", the movie is good, takes some shortcuts/cleans up the less marketable elements of the book. But it's by Blake Norman, or Norman Blake, can never remember his name. It's a book about two things--being a teenage girl (I've head so many women comment on how they can't believe a man could have written a book so dead-on about the teenage girl experience), and about becoming part of a 'scene', in this case the music scene in the Pacific Northwest in the early '90s. And of course _Flatland_ for a book mixes religious mysticism, class politics, and plane geometry. Oh, and the kind of book that women should take as a blueprint for their grrl groups instead of the book I am not allowed to mention in this post: _Foxfire_ by Joyce Carol Oates.

Re: How 'bout the words "Joy Luck Club"?

[lawnrrd]

I saw High Fidelity and enjoyed it. I've also read Flatland a few times.

Girl sounds interesting--I'll have to look at it. Thanks for the suggestions.

[lubeguy.livejournal.com]

The Cider House Rules is pretty intense, in a meandering, idyllic kind of way. It was great, but the movie was kind of a hack job. If you're looking for something really intense, though, Tom Clancy is always good. Without Remorse is probably the best to date. As for intense non-fiction, I'd say A Brief History of Time was pretty intense...that is, I would if I could actually understand more of what Hawking was saying...