Funny story: I hadn’t intended my latest Sympatico/MSN movie column to be a photo gallery; when I wrote it, I expected it’d run as a conventional article, with a couple of photos and the text spread over maybe two pages.
Anyway, sorry about the tiny text. But I hope the topic makes it worth the eyestrain: Nine great movies based on television shows. Click on the images to read the rationales, obviously.
Oh, and I should have posted this yesterday, but I plumb forgot: Here’s my latest NOW online column, in which — among other things — I attempt to shame Torontonians into seeing “Jules et Jim” at the Bloor next week.
Hey, it’s a far better thing I do now …
I’ve never understood everybody’s love for The Fugitive. It’s a mediocre thriller with one entertaining performance. And your affection for S.W.A.T., Norm, is a real head-scratcher. 🙂
Also, I’m pretty sure that Westworld was the first movie with a CG effects sequence, not Wrath of Khan.
Does “Westworld” really count as CG, though? I mean, one could call the end-credit roll of “Scanners” a fully digital sequence, but it’s just text rolling up on a computer monitor.
I think the Genesis sequence in “The Wrath of Khan” was the first CG sequence accomplished entirely in the digital realm, with no live-action elements, and output to film in its finished version. The light-cycle race in “Tron” only loses out because they keep cutting back to the actors …
Great list, but…
Okay, I get why the Sex and the City movie wasn’t on your list, although for fans of the show it was a perfectly fine shapshot of where these characters would be after five years. (Unlike X-Files: I Want to Believe. Sometimes I hate it when you’re right.)
But…Serenity? Where’s the love for Firefly? The movie did everything right – it was like one of the more serious episodes of the show blown up to big screen proportions (“I am a leaf on the wind”); kept the characters the way we knew and loved them; introduced a great villain in Chewitel Ejiofor’s operative that was consistent with the show since viewers had already seen another operative; and wrapped up the major loose ends from the show’s cancellation. I thought for a second that your list only had remakes, but Star Trek: Wrath of Khan and South Park had original casts.
And Das Boot had to be better than some on your list, although technically the theatrical release in North America was the German miniseries cut down to two hours.
Back to the X-Files movie’s lameness…have you ever thought of compiling a list of the best and worst post-credit snippets? Pirates of the Carribean and X-Files: I Want to Believe being two possible ends of the spectrum.
Balls.
Balls balls balls.
I totally forgot blanked on “Serenity”. In my defense, so did Kate, who was sitting next to me when I read your comment and gasped out loud at the point. But still.
No excuses here at all. I totally frackin’ blanked. And it’s even more ridiculous that I should have done so, since I just last week filed away the three-issue “Better Days” miniseries.
Maybe “Serenity” is just so perfect a continuation that I think of it as the final episode of the show? Or am I just desperately spinning? (Yes. Yes, I am.)
“Das Boot”, as rightly you pointed out, was just a theatrical edit of a television series rather than a separate entity developed from an existing show.
Your best and worst codas idea is a good one, by the way, particularly since it’s a lot less cruel to discuss them once the films in question are available on DVD … “hey, you might have missed this theatrically, but if you just time-search to 02:54:32 …”
… and yeah, sorry about “I Want to Believe”. But I did warn you.