<p>Wow. Just wow. </p>
<p>I’ll wait till more posters have seen it before I venture further comment, but - wow.</p>
<p>I saw the movie this afternoon. I didn’t like it. I’ll say more later after more people have had a chance to see the movie.</p>
<p>Well, I liked it. I knew that presenting the movie as the book was structured would not work, and the crosscutting was well done, imo, because the editing was masterful. The use of the same actors in different stories was sometimes distracting and hamhanded, but worked overall, I thought. The Frobisher and Cavendish episodes were the most successful. The Sonmi one was a bit too Matrix-y but the actress was compelling. I liked the Sloosha’s Crossing part. Agree about the non-Asian actors made to look Asian-- distracting! </p>
<p>I was afraid they’d ruin one of my favorite books ever, but I felt pretty okay with the movie. The book is so much better. But the film is okay, and if it entices people to read the book, that’s great. I’d say my overall feeling was that I was entertained and I was relieved!</p>
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<p>OMG, it was quite funny - the entire theater kept giggling for several minutes after the very brief scene. </p>
<p>A reviewer for the Seattle Times gave the movie 1 1/2 stars (out of 4), basically saying it is unwatchable. And this is one of the rare occasions when I disagree with the Times’ opinion. Now I have to read the book. :)</p>
<p>^Didn’t they do that cat scene in “Meet the Parents” or one of those?</p>
<p>Hoping our book club posters who were in Sandy’s path are all okay. NJTM? SJCM?</p>
<p>Thanks, BUandBC82, we are fine here in southern NJ near Philadelphia. Both SJCM and I posted on the Frankenstorm thread about effects of the storm in our areas. Sounds like she is doing okay too.</p>
<p>Normal life has come to a halt for so very many people though, and it’s going to take a long time for things to get back to anything near normal.</p>
<p>My son is at BU and they only lost one day of school. If he had chosen to attend the theatre program at either Montclair or NYU instead of BU’s, his life would have been much more severely disrupted by Sandy.</p>
<p>Greetings bu&bc- whew- what a week, but compared to our northern coastal neighbors we were spared. I live 10 miles inland and that makes all the difference.
75 mph winds took down two huge trees which luckily didnt damage anything. $1200 cost to have them removed yesterday.
No power until Thursday at 4, but no complaints after seeing what others are enduring.
Sandy’s made me forget about Mitt and Barack. Is there an election this week before the next storm coming on Wed??</p>
<p>^ So glad that everybody is okay!</p>
<p>I saw “Cloud Atlas” tonight. It was clearly a labor of love, so I will give it props for that, but as a film, it could not (of course) capture the extraordinary wonder of language and the rich literary allusions in the novel. I am 100% on board with Jaylynn’s review:</p>
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<p>I went with my husband, who had not read the book. He could barely understand a word of the Sloosha’s Crossing dialogue, but I’m nearly fluent in “sloosha,” so I helped him out. 
He was intrigued enough with the movie that on our walk home, we stopped at the bookstore and he picked up a copy of the book. </p>
<p>I did enjoy the movie, but the trailer was better. That sounds like an insult to the movie, but I mean it more as a compliment to the trailer.</p>
<p>NJTM and SJCM - thanks for checking in. I’m glad you are both okay.</p>
<p>We saw the movie yesterday, and I liked it. I thought it was different from the book in some important ways–I think even some of the underlying themes are different. (I thought it was generally more optimistic, for example–and I had more of a sense that what earlier characters learned affected the behavior of later characters.) I did find the multiple use of the same actors somewhat distracting, but I can understand why they did it. (One of Hugo Weaving’s parts was particularly choice, IMO.)</p>
<p>One weird thing–I had read the book, but my wife had not. And yet, as we watched, she realized that she knew the Adam Ewing story (including some details that are in the book but not the movie.) She clearly had not read any other parts of the book. Where could she have read that story?</p>
<p>Hunt, I’m tempted to ask if your wife has a comet-shaped birthmark. :)</p>
<p>Seriously, though, I know that sections of books are sometimes published independently before the whole book is published…in literary magazines, for example. I always thought that when this was done, there would be something about it on the title page, though, and I don’t see that in my copy of the book.</p>
<p>Very interesting!</p>
<p>^^^ </p>
<p>Kindle - free sample?</p>
<p>She has a Kindle, but I don’t think that’s it. Perhaps something similar really happened, and was written about somewhere else? She didn’t remember any of the names (including Dr. Goose, which I think one might remember).</p>
<p>Haven’t noticed a comet birthmark. Will do a more comprehensive check.</p>
<p>I finally saw the movie, with my husband, who hasn’t read the book. Surprisingly, he liked it better than I did, but I enjoyed it–and I’m not much of a moviegoer. </p>
<p>Maybe that’s why much of the the Sonmi sections bored me, with the endless flying machinery and overly-dramatic music. When reading I pictured Sonmi in the ruined abbey in the hills, not in action sequences. But I agree that the actress was great. </p>
<p>The Sloosha’s Crossing sections didn’t resonate with me, either. Again, I pictured a devastated observatory on the top of a mountain, not a sci-fi, flashing lights kind of place. And I still don’t think the casting of Tom Hanks worked here. He was fine, but Zachry makes more sense to me as a young person. And the Kona storyline is even sillier on film than in print.</p>
<p>My favorite parts were Adam’s and Frobisher’s–I wish the Frobisher sections had been longer (and they had the best music). The book was much better, but I found the movie entertaining. Like me, the audience seemed to like the credits showing all the multiple characters played (and the cat).</p>
<p>Ok, so we saw Skyfall tonight. I had no idea who was in it beyond Daniel Craig, so imagine my surprise when Frobisher appeared! So charming…:)</p>
<p>^Ah yes, Ben Whishaw. He’s great. Whishaw also stars (along with the superb Tom Hiddleston) in a BBC series called The Hollow Crown, which hasn’t been shown in the US yet to my knowledge, but I’m keeping an eye out for it.</p>
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