Sunday, May 27, 2007

Sea Change


I still read and enjoy Robert B. Parker’s novels, but most of the time the plot details go in one side of my brain and right out the other. So I can’t tell you if SEA CHANGE, the latest TV-movie adaptation of one of Parker’s Jesse Stone novels, is faithful to the book or not. But that doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I watch these movies for Tom Selleck’s portrayal of Jesse and his interaction with the other characters. Selleck is just about perfectly cast in this role. The movies, with their melancholy musical score always playing in the background, seem a little more dour to me than the books do, but I enjoy them anyway and will keep watching as long as the producers keep making them.

We taped this movie last week and watched it a few days later. As a postscript, we also started watching two other movies on DVD but gave up on both, so I’m not going to count them. For the record, they were THE GOOD SHEPHERD, the CIA movie with Matt Damon, and SHOPGIRL, with Steve Martin and Claire Danes. We all agreed that they were both utter snoozefests, and THE GOOD SHEPHERD was incomprehensible to boot. Is it just too difficult to light a scene so the viewer can tell what’s going on and tell your actors to speak their dialogue so that it can be understood? Or am I just a reactionary curmudgeon?

4 comments:

Randy Johnson said...

The movie was enjoyable, but as I have not yet read the book, I also don't know how accurately it followed the plot.

Cap'n Bob said...

I've had this complaint for years. Directors seem to think it's more realistic to have people whisper and the public be damned if it's inaudible. I saw a movie recently where one of the characters just moved his mouth while the dialogue was lost in his gasps. Maybe people do that when they're dying, but I prefer the old days when sound men and directors worked to make all dialogue audible.

Mark Terry said...

The Good Shepherd is one we were really looking forward to and ended up being bored with it.

Go rent "Blood Diamond." Best movie I've seen all year.

mybillcrider said...

I've heard that this is the least faithful of the adaptations. One person said they kept the title and the main characterd and that was about it. Maybe the book was a little racy for TV.