Brief Interviews with Hideous Men


So a film has been made based on one of my favourite books, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, by the late David Foster Wallace. I am not a huge fan of his books. I've read this, and several other articles he's written over the years (mostly after he died last year and his work started being discussed around the blogosphere). I liked the article on cruise ships he wrote (which I believe had a great title, but it escapes me for the moment). I have not attempted to read his apparent opus, Infinite Jest. It's on my to-do list to at least give it a try.

But I did enjoy Brief Interviews with Hideous Men immensely. And it has been made into a film. It's not an adaptation. It is "based on" the book. Which makes me nervous. From the trailer (which is exclusive to the Apple site at the moment, so no embedding, follow the link), it looks like they've attempted to ad an overarching plot. Which seems like an enormous mistake to me. But then adapting it to a film seems ludicrous to me in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's more episodic and fractured than the trailer makes it seem, like Coffee and Cigarettes. But it doesn't look that way. And the bit about the guy screaming "victory for the forces of democratic freedom" when he orgasms is played like a punchline in the trailer. That seems so wrong to me. Loses all the dryness of the book.

Anyway, I hate the whole "THE BOOK IS WAY BETTER THAN THE MOVIE, YOU HAVE TO READ THE BOOK" thing people do, but i just saw it and I haven't updated the blog in a while, so there's my 2 cents. I hope I am pleasantly surprised. Have a look at the trailer and make up your own minds. And consider reading the book.
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