Because the original movie isn't very good?

And because, shit, if what don't they remake?

If what indeed!

I can't say I have high hopes for this movie, based on the trailer, qualitywise.

They are jumping the gun. They need to make a new novel of it first.

I used to own a kids book based on the movie The Cat in the Hat. Not the original Seuss book, mind you. A *new* book drawn from the movie, with all the changes that were made to make the movie acceptable for modern audiences. For instance, no way no how those children were actually left alone in the house. They had a babysitter, but she fell asleep. It was horrible.

I kept it around for a very long time as an example of horribleness. But I found I had no occasion to actually dissect it publicly. I certainly never got around to blogging it. Since the books existence was intolerable. I had to destroy it.

The return to Standard time is always a little depressing, Ben. More so is that the Solstice doesn't mean that the sun starts rising earlier. No, here in DC the sun starts setting later on December 12th, but it doesn't start rising earlier until January 11th. Worse, it keeps rising later until well after the Solstice. If anyone can inform the solar system that it is out of tune, I'd appreciate it.

I'm waiting for the movie that will be made from the novelization of this movie.

I'll put my best man on it, md.

When the movie came out, Costco was selling the book version of The Passion of the Christ.

The novelization of the movie version of "Little Women" with Wynona Ryder was also very bad.

Philip K. Dick considered writing a novelization of "Blade Runner", but decided against it.

I heard the novelization of "Great Expectations" (the Ethan Hawke movie) sucked.

Let us make the following bold conjecture: no novelization of a movie adapted from a novel has ever been good.

Are there good novelizations of movies not adapted from novels?

Since Dick's novelization of "Blade Runner" would have been awesome, that is merely a contingent fact about the world, and not an inevitable truth.

I've been told that the novelization of Star Trek V is better than the movie.

Yeah, but that really isn't saying much...

Apparently Fred Saberhagen wrote the novelization of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Two years later, he offered to novelize Marry Shelley's Frankenstein too, just so the novel could be "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, by the author of Bram Stoker's Dracula".

I think it would be fun to commission a really good writer to do a novelization of a crappy movie, just as a writer's exercise.

The Violent Femmes were badgered by their manager into covering "Do you really want to hurt me." Gordon Gano said is was actually interesting to take a song that you hate and make it into something good.

OT: A possible career move for Ben.

That's really outrageous. Some people really are feeble-minded.

[From the link in 17]

"Our clients are the type who send people all over the world to find the perfect spoon, or doorknob or type of marble," said Jeffrey Reed, a club D.J. and a founder of Audio Sushi, a custom music service in London with an international clientele. "My job is to find the perfect music."

"In other words, people with more money than they know what to do with," he neglected to add.

"You're not going to have Johnny Cash playing in a fantastic retreat in the West Indies," Mr. Gibson said. "It just wouldn't work."

And to think Ben just posts his mixes here for free!

I believe that Arthur C. Clarke's novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey was composed after he worked on the film with Kubrick and was dissatisfied.

21: And they go with my couch! Fabulous.

Wikipedia says that they were developed concurrently, but does not suggest that Clarke had misgivings about Kubrick's work.

20: Because people who are willing to pay for this service must see a result that seems tailor-made for their surroundings. You give them some tabla and synth business and say that when Columbus sailed East looking for an Indian discotheque, this was the music he found.

I wonder if they'd be OK with "Brown Sugar" on the mix.

I've often heard it said that Clarke wished the ending of the movie 2001 made sense, and wrote the book specifically to clarify the ending.

I iterate my belief that people who are willing to pay for this service are feeble-minded. You could stick them with any random shit so long as you claimed with straight-enough face that it suits their pad like the dickens, their cultural superiors agree, and no one with any sense would be caught dead doing anything else.

The first step in the process of softening up potential marks is of course to make pronunciamentos of the sort McQueen singles out.

27: There's got to be a real art to this. The music has to be bland enough not to irritate your clients, yet has to sound clearly different than the stuff the client's friends find on their own. Otherwise how could you feel superior to them.

Also, business like this specialize in people with a lot of money and a lot of vanity, but very little intelligence or self awareness. Do you know how many businesses are trying to get at this market? Competition must be fierce.

I remember the author's intro to 2001 saying something along the lines of 26.

17: Coleman Feltes is clearly a "wealth redistributor". Why does he hate America? Nothing that new about earning a living sticking your head up the asses of very rich people and describing the lovely fragrances found therein.

Every time I download a mix here I have to redecorate my house. It's costing me a fortune.

27: I iterate my belief that people who are willing to pay for this service are feeble-minded. You could stick them with any random shit so long as you claimed with straight-enough face that it suits their pad like the dickens, their cultural superiors agree, and no one with any sense would be caught dead doing anything else.

Isn't it just a variant on the marketing that goes hand in hand with a consumer society in the first place? It's gently or not so gently suggested to us that this goes with that; people go to shops providing merchandise that's themed in one way or another. You're not going to find patchouli at Neiman Marcus (if they even sell scents there, not sure), and you won't find faux biker chicks advertising Mercedes Benz.

I submit that the music-matching service provided here is merely filling a gap, for lo, the interior decorating establishment hasn't as yet coordinated with the cooking gurus, who haven't yet put their heads together with the audio equipment folks. How's a person to know what to do?