Relax, Poindexter. No one's holding a gun to your head to watch this thing.
I'm not what you would call a voracious reader. Currently on my nightstand are a coffee-table book Brock gave me called 501 Most Notorious Crimes and a 4 month old Vanity Fair. But there are books very near and dear to my heart, books which I assure myself could totally be made into some shit movie and wouldn't bother me in the least. Who cares, right?
But then I saw this.
Oh. I care.
The Lovely Bones is such a personal treasure, I own three copies. I pick one up every month or so, just to crack it open and swoon over this story of a girl who's murdered by a pedophile and then watches her family from heaven. It's FABULOUS! Everyone knows it's fabulous. It's so fabulous, it's been made into a movie that opens next month.
I can handle the fact that Peter Jackson directed it. There's some fantasy-heaveny stuff he can obsess about, and that's great for him and his mom-basement aesthetic. But to me, the real story is the shit hitting the fan on Earth after Susie Salmon dies.
Susie was this great, interesting, weird 14-year old girl with a great, interesting, weird family. Reading the book, when we're with Susie up in heaven watching these people she loves deal with this horrible tragedy, we see them as she sees them. And we love them too.
Like her dad, her sweet, cozy, friendly father who builds model ships in glass bottles. Or her conflicted, broken, beautiful mother who can't move on. And her grandmother, right out of a David Sedaris story who smokes and drinks and drops inappropriate one-liners to cut the tension.
Susan Sarandon's playing the grandmother. I can get behind that, I can see how we're making the grandmother a 60-something cougar.
Rachel Weisz is playing the mom, which again, I can handle. The mom is supposed to be a little gorgeous and mysterious.
The model-ship building dad? The man I imagine in elbow patches and pipe smoke collapsing on a shag rug and losing it over his dead teenage daughter?
WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?!!?
Are you fucking shitting me fucking with my book? My horror is physically manifesting itself. Shocked face! WTF hands!
I vaguely recall some scandal of (the divine) Ryan Gossling being cast as "Jack" before getting canned for thespian-type shenanigans. But Marky Mark? Really? Are members of the Funky Bunch extras?
I realize "Mark Wahlberg" is an actor now, that the whole MM&TFB is decades in the past. But the man should be blacklisted from any potential masterpieces for reasons such as THIS.
Perhaps the casting folks have tried to make it up to us. You know who's playing the murderer?
Tooch. Sigh.
Anyway, December 11th. With Marky Mark. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Who also wrote a memoir about her rape and it's aftermath called Lucky. That too, rocks harder than Good Vibrations.
I don't know what I'm going to do when they make A Thousand Splendid Suns into a movie. Upon completing the final page of that book, I stood from my bed and collapsed onto the floor. I stood up so I could fall down. I was that devastated by the Taliban.
If they cast some Mickey Mouse Club graduate as Mariam in the film version of this absolute treasure, I'll start picking casting directors off from a clocktower...
6 comments:
But Beth, Marky Mark has been good in everything he's ever been in.
Come on, come on! Feel it, feel it!
Imperioli as a cop?
Susan as a grandma???!!
Marky and Tooch need to switch roles. At least.
What a cluster.
My FAVE: "Are you fucking shitting me fucking with my book? My horror is physically manifesting itself. Shocked face! WTF hands!"
Imperioli was SO good as a detective in Life on Mars. But they really screwed up with MM. "
Have you seen Mark Wahlberg in a movie? He's a fantastic actor! Jump on the bandwagon. I had the same reaction when he started acting (ten years ago!), but after seeing him shine on screen, I recanted my reservations. He's not the only one to make the leap. Look at Will Smith. Who would have thought at the time of Parents Just Don't Understand (or even the Fresh Prince) would prove to be Oscar-worthy? Give Mark a chance. Rent Three Kings or We Own the Night, and I bet you'll change your tune.
I don't feel good about Marky Mark, but at the same time, I thought Ryan Gosling would look too young. He always looks to me like he's about 18 years old.
I hope that they don't mess with the plot of this book. I *really* hope.
-Connie @ Constance Reader
You and I have the same taste in books...what about She's Come Undone...they should make that into a movie post haste...and Augusten Burroughs "DrY" would be awesome if they don't screw it up like they did with RWS...
Glad I discovered your awesome blog...
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