I'm a girl, Mr. Smartypants.

And if I was at a place talking to you, I probably would have punched you in the face and called a cab FOR YOU a long time ago.

I am losing friends rapidly on this site. I did not mean this to happen.

I had no idea that Forrest Gump was once a novel. Was it any good?

I suppose that most of my other bollocks was shit as well.

In future I will just say what everyone wants to hear.

"Munich" by Steven Spielberg is an accurate description of what happened at the Olympics in 1972.

Without "Pearl Harbour" (Dir. Michael Bay 2001) we would have no real understanding of what World War II was about.

And "The Interpreter" (Dir S Pollack 2005) is a classic example of the openness of US secret services. And fancy allowing well known subversive Sean Penn a starring role!

Thank you and goodnight

Kev

I was about to post a list of masterpieces and other great films based on books, but it seems Bogey already beat me to it. I looked over the list, which has most, though a few were missing. If you'll allow me to twist your knife, Bogey?

Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville), the best suspense/crime film ever, based on "The Ronin."
Short Cuts (Robert Altman), one of the five best dramas ever, based on "Short Cuts."
Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone), one of the ten greatest films ever, based on "The Hoods."
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese), one of the best character studies, based on "Raging Bull."
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock), Hitchcock's masterpiece, based on "d'Entre les Morts"
The Birds (Alfrd Hitchcock), based on "The Birds."
Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock), based on "Strangers on a Train."
Plein soleil (René Clément), based on "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

And there are definitely many more I forgot.

Actually, Pearl Harbor was complete bullshit from a hack filmmaker. A token tragedy in the influence of Titanic to make money, though that's just IMO.

Anytime, Vercetti.. anytime. :p

That's not what people want to hear anyhow. You simply think people who read Harry Potter or etc, ONLY read Harry Potter, and you also believe that people only look to films to make up for reading books. You are wrong, very wrong. And a smug, elitist ass. (Just like RRA.

Actually, Pearl Harbor was complete bullshit from a hack filmmaker. A token tragedy in the influence of Titanic to make money, though that's just IMO. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Come on! I was taking the piss!

What is wrong with you lot?

Almost everyone here in dear ol' Blighty knew it was a crock from the start. No sense of humour?

You said you were going to say "what everyone wants to hear".

He was saying that thats NOT what everyone wants to hear.

You wouldn't be losing friends if you didn't generalize everything.

I don't really understand. (Some ammo for you). I'm going to bed now. Got to go to work in the AM.

Nice chat. You all need to find things funnier. That being said though, I hate a waste of reading ability. Try some Orwell or some Kurt Vonnegut. Total eye-openers.

Love

Kev

"Munich" was an accurate depiction of what happened at Munich. The re-enactments of the entire thing are impecable. I highly suggest you watch, "Balck September". One of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen.

As for, "Forest Gump", it did well enough with the critics and Wendy Finnerman picked up the rights and tweaked it all to create the 1994 film.

Your not loosing friends. Just watch your battles in the future.

Somebody get a fire extinguisher!! Too many...flamethrowers...c-can't...breathe!!

Come on, y'all! Cut the fella a lil' slack. I think we'd all agree that kids should read more than the backs of cereal boxes and strictly Harry Potter (in my best Seinfeld voice, "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"). And I've always found that if I read a book first and then saw its movie release, I was disappointed in the flick, and vice versa (The Godfather being the one wonderful exception). Granted, the gentleman's gutsy for a newer poster, but that doesn't have to be a liability, does it? I'll call a time-out for everybody to smoke the peace pipe. Here, I'll take the first toke, er, I mean, puff !

No, but he shouldn't be cut any slack solely on the basis of his lenghth of stay here either. kevon's taste in literature is high brow, and there's nothing wrong with that (dueling Snake with MY Seinfeld imitation) but he should be aware that not everyone has the same tastes.

FWIW - I agree that today's kids should try to read the "classics" to broaden their horizons, but looking down on one's nose at those who don't (read the "classics") is a little snooty.

Don't Bogart that pipe, Snake, pass it over to me.

Sounds like a song!

Point taken, SC.

Now, kevon4uk, I see your point, I really do. I fully agree people should read, and read something thought provoking, and I'm sure alot of people on here do. But the way you came on here and blasted everyone without knowing shit about what else they've read, that's what's making you lose friends.

I agree kids (us lot) should read the classics, whatever that means. I also agree (or argue) that the already-educated ones should keep up with Literature, instead of thinking it is a thing of the Past, dead and buried.

Not that anybody around here does that. Just giving two sides to the horizon-broadening coin.

Bogey; I borrowed Brave New World some time ago, and it's still on my shelf. Seen any films of it? I've got a TV movie adaptation, with that thick-eye-browed-guy from The OC and While You Were Sleeping in it.

As regards current reads, I'm still halfway through a re-read of The Magus. After that, I shall embark on Alain-Fournier's Le Grande Meaulnes, the novel which inspired Fowles'.

As an ex teacher, I think I've got enough "on ground" experience in this field. Well, I can honestly say the ignorance level in younger generations is going to be more and more alarming. We are facing a true "rebound illiteracy". TV, computer and other media have reduced the reading time and room to a minimum and school cannot cope it. This is scary. I'm sorry if I sound snobbish (I think I am anyway ), but I believe kids (and young adults and adults and everyone) ought to read the classics to develop a stronger cultural background. Parents should urge kids to read good books in order to trigger and support the reading interest. Reading the harrypotterish stuff doesn't do any harm, of course. But this kind of literature should be just an addition IMO. If people grow up without reading the classics, without a real cultural backbone, they are going to realize sooner or later how illiterate they are. This is the better hypothesis, of course. The worse one is they are NOT going to realize it.

if you mean making tons of money you're definitely right! :p

It depends on what you mean by literature. Once this word was used more cautiously. And pour cause , IMO.

Lav, while I agree people should read "classics", I don't think it should be forced on them. Education's outlook on Literature is abysmal; the academic approach to such an intricate artform tends to dissect it down in some kind of mathematical way, and makes it boring for those who aren't really interested, and too fussy for those who are.

Reading, I think, is the goal; to push people in set directions beyond that will maintain a sense of highbrow pretentiousness, lack of individual personality, and keeping things strictly in the box. Imposing "classic" Literature over anything is as restricting as religion; I would find it much more rewarding a subject if the students were allowed to read whatever book they liked, in the hope of conjuring some real passion for the work, and from that try to broaden their minds.

What do you think?

And, by the way, what did you teach? I never knew all this time that I had a crush on a teacher. :p

I don't like forcing either, yet it should be forced on kids. If you leave it to them, they would only read the trendy HPish stuff and never commit themselves to more demanding literature. Mind you, I'm not blaming kids for that, I'm blaming adults when they fail to have a guiding role and help kids and develop a taste for a deeper literature. This would be very important and rewarding in the long run.

I absolutely agree. Reading the HPish stuff is better than nothing, I presume....


I taught Italian literature, History and Geography. With your outstanding writing ability, I bet you would have been the teacher's pet if you were in my class, Capo!

Very true Lavs. Very true.

When my son started his fifth grade grade school year, we watched the movie "Renaissance Man" with Danny DeVito. I don't know if you are familiar with the movie. It's a story about a man (DeVito) who gets layed off from his job and eventually finds a job working for the United States Military as a teacher. To make a long story short, in the movie, he uses "Hamelet" to teach his military students. While the movie is a comedy, it also teaches several lessons in it's plot.

Well my son loved the movie and then decided that he wanted to read "Hamlet"!

Anyway several months later we were invited to his school to see a fifth grade opera that the students were putting on. Turns out that my son, wrote the whole opera himself, working with the Metropolitan Opera House, and at the end of the year received a special award upon graduation from 5th grade for his writing talents.

When he accepted his award he was asked what inspired him to write this opera for the school, and he told the story of how he watched the movie and from the movie was drawn to reading Hamlet, which inspired him to write the opera for the school.

So you never know.


Don Cardi

What an achievement!!! You and your wife must be very proud of your talented son!!! Congratulations!!

I agree 100%

Forcing school kids to read the "classics" is very much putting the cart before the horse.

Let them develop an interest in reading by reading what they choose.

Anyone developing such an interest will, on their own, move on to those classic works which appeal to them.

The young Cardi must've seen and read "Guys and Dolls" a few times. He's the best damned horse handicapper I've ever met.

"I gotta horse right here, his name is Paul Revere...."




Don Cardi

Using the word "forcing" I did not mean binding them to their desk with some Tolstoji's 2000 pages novels to be digested! I meant encouraging kids to develop a taste for good literature. Reading aloud with them. Commenting what they are reading. Help them understand. Help them make a habit out of reading. Sharing the pleasure of reading. If you let it to them, chances are they are going to read nothing but cellular manuals. Or, if you are lucky, the HPish stuff. This is, at least, my experience. Kids must be guided. That's what educators are for.

Harry Potter, or "the HPish stuff", is about as insightful, enlightening and enjoyable as King Lear, as long as there's an avid passion for it. Or, rather, King Lear is about as flat, ordinary and crap as Harry Potter if there isn't a passion for it.

If any novel is studied -- that is, not only read, but actually discussed by the reader (and it doesn't even have to be in an academic way) -- it immediately merits intellectual engagement of some sorts.

Lav, what would be "good Literature" to you, then?

Wow this thread's turned interesting. I completely agree with Capo here, though Lav's clarification makes a good point.

I recently read 1984. Well the first two pages. I still cannot read fiction and haven't been able to for 3, maybe 4, years. I struggle to read someone elses imagination and question everything. It's a shame because I used to enjoy fiction.

I completely agree.

so you believe that the only criterion for evaluating a work of literature (or, if we apply this concept to any form of art -- paintings, sculpture, music, whatever) is just the individual passion for it? No objective and absolute value, no intrinsic merit? :rolleyes: Are you telling me if some spotty teenagers tell me MichaelAngel's Pity is nothing but a crappy piece of marble, should I respect him simply because he doesn't have passion for it? Isn't the Pity a masterpiece per se , regardless of what you feel about it? How can you even think of comparing King Lear to Harry Potter with a sort of a neutral attitude? This is blasphemous!!! This is applied to arts relativism, something I consider not only wrong, but even dangerously flattening! :p

I totally agree, except that IMO it ALWAYS merits intellectual engagement, at least to some extent. Reading is not merely putting syllabs together. You read in order to understand and hopefully remember what you grasped precisely by means of an intellectual effort of some degree, depending on many variables. It's called learning. And you don't learn only when you study. On the contrary, this happens seldom. Unfortunately.


do you want a list? I basically consider good literature any work of literature which outlives fashions and time and (even if to a lesser degree) space, which gives me some deep intellectual emotions that I'm going to keep and hopefully share (if possible). An experience of pure beauty which develops my fantasy and broadens and deepens my thoughts and ultimately enriches me and makes a better person out of me. "Trendy" literature only enriches its authors and is likely to be blown away without leaving any significant trace.

I wish I could master English better. It's terribly hard to let myself completely understood.....

I think you do just fine, Lavinia. Better than some whose mother language is supposedly English!

thank you so much, Snake! But I still believe there are so many nuances in a language it is almost impossible to master them when you are speaking a language that is not your own. And sometimes it's just nuances you need to let yourself completely understood. I do hope I'll learn more. These BBs are of great help!