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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Obnoxious

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (13)

jamie_bell_billy_elliot_003.jpg

Jonathan Safran Foer’s impressive follow-up to Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is making its way to the big screen, and despite the talent that’s being put behind it, my guess is that it won’t be a much better book-to-screen adaptation than Liev Schreiber’s Illuminated was. Extremely Loud follows a precocious boy — an amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player, and pacifist — as he searches for a lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the 9/11 attack. That story is intertwined with the story of his grandparents, whose lives are blighted by the firebombing of Dresden.

Foer’s first two novels are less about story, and more about his brilliant use of language (and he is a hell of a novelist) so this is going to be a difficult book to adapt successfully. I was moved by Extremely Loud, but I don’t remember much about the story, to be honest. But if there’s anyone who can wrangle a good movie out of a novel, it’s Stephen Daldry, who has signed on to direct Extremely Loud. Daldry gave us one of the best coming of age movies of the last decade, in Billy Elliot, before moving on to the Oscar nominated The Hours and The Reader. I hope he takes a more buoyant approach to Extremely Close.

Eric Roth is penning the screenplay. Roth is a decent screenwriter (Munich, The Good Shepard, Ali, but he needs a director who can reign him in, lest you get Forrest Gump or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I wouldn’t bet my life on this movie behind made, either: Scott Rudin, who is producing, has basically secured the rights to every decent piece of literature to come out in the last decade, and a lot of them fall by the wayside after he realizes how difficult they are to adapt to the screen (I believe Rudin tried to bring both A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Me Talk Pretty One Day to the big screen without success.

In related news, Safron Foer is something of a sanctimonious ass (must be a mark of the trade), who recently wrote a book on the food industry that encouraged everyone to give up meat. He had a lot of great conclusions, but was so smug about it, that he reminded me of Bill Hick’s screed about non-smokers: “A bunch of obnoxious self-righteous slugs; I’d quit smoking if I didn’t think I’d become one of you.” I think that was the effect of Foer’s Eating Animals on some: Yeah. He had some great points, but I’d rather die seven years early than be like that patronizing sanctimonious fuck.

In other words: He’s not a very premium person.

(Source: THR)









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Comments

In other words: He’s not a very premium person.

I have not used that expression for far too long.

Have you seen my seeing-eye bitch, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr?

Posted by: dammitjanet at April 2, 2010 9:34 AM

wrote a book on the food industry that encouraged everyone to give up meat.
---
So what are we supposed to do with all these fucking cows, then? I mean, look at them. There's a reason people write that celebutards like Paris Hilton have a "bovine countenance." It's because you can even see in their faces that cows are dumb as cowshit, so you know you can't even train them to do something minimally useful, like fetch the paper or answer the phone. Can't ride them like horses. Unless your excitement level is so low you cowtip for entertainment, they're no good at parties. They're pretty much useless for anything except as steak, aren't they? They don't even lay eggs, like chickens. The best thing to do for them is to put them out of their misery ASAP with a good brain tap with that thing Anton Chiguhr uses.

Plus, eating cows keeps that much more methane out of the atmosphere and slows the advance of global warming.

Go Green! Eat cows.

That's my motto.

Posted by: , at April 2, 2010 9:51 AM

Daldry gave us one of the best coming of age movies of the last decade, in Billy Elliot

Yes!!!!!!!!!

**jumps up a la header pic**

Posted by: mswas at April 2, 2010 9:59 AM

I wasn't as impressed with Extremely Loud as you were, nor do I particularly think it would make a good movie.

If the examples you've provided of the screenwriter's work are any indication, though, it will be a LONG movie. Jesus.

Posted by: The Wandering Parakeet at April 2, 2010 11:17 AM

I absolutely loved the film adaptation of Everything is Illuminated, but yeah, I'm also not fond of book-to-screen adaptations (I still think the TV miniseries planned on Middlesex is a terrible idea; that book is immaculate, and should be left the fuck alone).

Posted by: ChristianH at April 2, 2010 1:45 PM

I loved "Everything is Illuminated". The book and the movie. I tried reading "Incredibly Loud..." but found I didn't want to finish it the more I got to know the main character. This 9(?) year old boy who is precocious and special and extra sensitive and weird and secretly middle aged on the inside. I rarely like kids like this in literature or in life. The book is in my garage in the book giveaway box if anyone wants it.

Posted by: greer at April 2, 2010 4:33 PM

Billy Elliot is one of my top-ten favorite movies, and I will watch anything that Stephen Daldry does.

GO, BILLY!!

Posted by: Jelinas at April 2, 2010 5:16 PM

I just read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for my book club (yah yah I know). In the end I (for the most part) loved the book, found the writing to be incredible, and the story to be relate-able. However, as I told the BF, I could never imagine it translating into film.

Sometimes things are best left in their original medium.

(time for me to get off my soapbox!!)

Posted by: Drix at April 2, 2010 6:23 PM

I actually got to hear JSF do a presentation about 2 1/2 years ago, when he was writing "Eating Animals." It was a very enjoyable presentation; I think he's not at all sanctimonious in person. But, I wasn't offended or put off by the book, either.

Posted by: bonnie at April 2, 2010 8:09 PM

I love Extremely Loud, it was one of the best books I read last year. But how on earth could you bring to the screen any of the chapters that aren't related by Oscar?

Posted by: JJ McClay at April 2, 2010 8:13 PM

Safran Foer, I like. I like, don't you dare touch my imaginary-writer-husband with your filthy tongue, DR! Sanctimonious, my ass, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is what he is.

Posted by: seenflowerseed at April 5, 2010 5:48 AM

I thought "Everything is Illuminated" was fucking brilliant. And, yeah, Foer may seem to fall into that insufferable category about the food stuff, but I heard an interview with him and he really wasn't. I was also pretty freaked out by his repeated efforts to engage big agra while writing his book without any luck.

Posted by: samantha t at April 5, 2010 12:14 PM

"In other words: He’s not a very premium person.
I have not used that expression for far too long.
Have you seen my seeing-eye bitch, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr? "
Posted by: dammitjanet at April 2, 2010 9:34 AM

I loved Illuminated for the word plays. I for one, will need to read his other works. And the movie introduced me, in a roundabout way, to Gogol Bordello, so it has that going for it as well.

Posted by: Stella at April 5, 2010 12:18 PM