{"id":132,"date":"2006-08-25T19:58:17","date_gmt":"2006-08-26T02:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=132"},"modified":"2006-08-26T14:47:19","modified_gmt":"2006-08-26T21:47:19","slug":"a-first-in-the-eternal-book-vs-movie-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"A First in the Eternal Book-vs.-Movie Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shopgirl\"<\/p>\n

Hey. So, I just finally watched Shopgirl<\/em>, that film based on Steve Martin’s novella of the same name. And I know this is “A Blog About Books,” but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced this and I think it’s worth noting: I liked the movie BETTER than the book!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The thing is, I love Steve Martin as a writer (and as a screenwriter, director, actor, stand-up comic dude in the ’70s, etc). I thought Pure Drivel<\/em> was brilliantly hysterical, and I think L.A. Story<\/em> is one of the most tragically underrated films ever. But Shopgirl<\/em>… and I’m sorry, I can’t be very specific here, I read it when it first came out a few years ago… I remember I really wanted to like it, and it had some very beautiful descriptive moments, and some insightful commentary on communication between the sexes, but overall, I felt like there was a whole lot of telling and not nearly enough showing.<\/p>\n

Which is why the movie is better. You get a bit of the wry “omniscient narrator” throughout, but mostly you actually get to see the characters doing stuff, instead of just getting a lot of exposition. And the cinematography is gorgeous – lovely use of color, and the lighting is very stylized, downright theatrical, even. Good performances, of course – couldn’t go wrong with that cast.<\/p>\n

Okay, that’s it. I’ll go back to talking about books now. Thanks for indulging me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey. So, I just finally watched Shopgirl, that film based on Steve Martin’s novella of the same name. And I know this is “A Blog About Books,” but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced this and I think it’s worth noting: I liked the movie BETTER than the book!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adult-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}