This just came out today:
I'm excited about it — even though I almost never go to the movies — because I love the book and because I love the actress who plays Mary Ellen (a secondary character in the book, a hilariously annoying woman). The actress is Kristen Schaal. I know her from "Flight of the Conchords" — she was the band's only fan — but you may know her as Hazel Wassername from "30 Rock."
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You may remember Schaal from the Last Man on Earth on Fox. Or as a voice in almost every cartoon your kid is watching. (Gravity Falls)
Loved The Conchords.
I can't look at Robert Redford anymore because he looks like one of those corpses at a funeral where the makeup artist got carried away trying to make the honoree look young.
I loved the book The Natural, but he was already too old to play Roy Hobbes, and now...
As for A Walk in the Woods, I read it, I read a whole bunch of Bryson, but the more I read of him, the lower my opinion got. Other than Stephen King, that hasn't really happened to me much.
I think I turned on Bryson when I was in the UK and he was over there somehow pontificating on how stupid Americans were. As if he had never been in an English pub full of chavs watching football before.
I second Tim in Vermont; I really liked A Walk in the Woods but after reading other of his works now realize that book is the nut to Bryson's blind squirrel.
Frank McCourt, Bill Bryson, Stephen King, and John Irving: the Mount Rushmore of author-hacks.
@tim, I had the same reaction to Bryson. I realized after about the 3rd book that 90% of what he said was whining. Everything was wrong, everyone was stupid, and he couldn't remember why exactly he kept putting up with it all. The only exception to this was his book on Australia, which was fairly cheerful; I quite liked that one.
Looks like a fun movie. I'm interested to see they've gone with two actors in their seventies, though I guess this was Redford's project:
"We have everything in common. We're forty-four years old. We'll talk about hemorrhoids and lower back pain, and how we can't remember where we put anything, and the next night I'll say, 'Hey, did I tell you about my back problems?' and he'll say, 'No, I don't think so,' and we'll do it all over again. It'll be great."
Too bad they seem to have Hollywood-ized the possible bear encounter. I liked that in the book, we really never know what it was, after Bryson's near-panic and Katz' wry unflappability:
"So you think it really was a bear?"
…
"Maybe not," I said, disappointed.
"Well you know what I've got here, just in case?" Katz said and tapped his shirt pocket significantly. "Toenail clippers - because you just never know when danger might arise."
Oh, how funny, they fell in the water! And what an odd couple they are.
Redford desperately needs a new rug.
And one of the Bridges brothers should have played the other part. Nolte doesn't make it.
As I probably won't see the mover, more comments won't follow.
Yeah, I was surprised to see bears in the movie. There are NO BEARS in the book. Just talk of bears. Maybe the bears in the movie are a fantasy.
Having spent every childhood summer vacation in the Adirondaks, I hate hiking.
"Ann Althouse said...
Yeah, I was surprised to see bears in the movie. There are NO BEARS in the book. Just talk of bears. Maybe the bears in the movie are a fantasy."
Name a movie adaptation of a book that doesn't stray. Hell, you can't even recognize the Clancy novels that have been turned into movies.
As I recall, I liked his Shakespeare book.
Robert Redford is tedious.
I kept hoping in "All is Lost" that he'd die and the movie would end.
"Name a movie adaptation of a book that doesn't stray."
I know. You've got to allow for that... or just don't consume both.
But what was funny in the scene in the book was the fear of bears and the absence of bears. Mostly because of the way Bryson describes things.
@Curious George "Name a movie adaptation of a book that doesn't stray. Hell, you can't even recognize the Clancy novels that have been turned into movie"
No Country for Old Mean and the Road, both screenplays based on Cormac McCarthy novels
"you can't even recognize the Clancy novels that have been turned into movies."
Red October was done well. Patriot Games was OK. The chase scene at the end was nonsense. After that PC took over and Muslims became South Africans or something.
Redford seems to be in survival stories lately.
in almost every cartoon your kid is watching
Or the one which I am watching: "Bob's Burgers" (Louise)
I guess Redford can't help it, the urge to do these vanity projects, but someone with a cooler head needed to prevail on this one. Even my husband, who dislikes both Redford AND Bryson, was stunned by the disconnect. "Gerontion Does HUT/MARCH!" was his dismissal.
Nick Nolte's voice has changed.
I would not see this.
Ms. Althouse, didn't you have a friend who walked the trail?
Yeah, she was hilarious as Carol on The Last Man On Earth.
Irving's Setting Free the Bears was ok.
Damn, I really, truly wish that Redford would would take a walk in the woods or a trip on the open ocean and never be seen again.
Hard to call him a has-been. To be a has-been you first had to be have been a some one. Redford an ain't.
@ Michael K:
Disagree on Patriot Games. It strayed pretty far from the book, but I thought the boat chase was pretty exciting . Not very realistic, but exciting and just within the bounds of possibility.
Sum of All Fears was terrible - disjointed storytelling, plot elements completely missing or altered beyond recognition, and so boring at parts that should have been tense and thrilling.
Clear and Present Danger was good - that's one where I liked the way the movie played out, and I think they had to change the ending to avoid needing an additional shit ton of extras.
Clearly Red October is the standard bearer, but I dislike Alec Baldwin so I have trouble watching it and enjoying it the way I used to.
I would pay a lot of money to go see a 2-part, 6-hour total movie based on Red Storm Rising. It would be just as epic as Lord of the Rings and only require two long movies to tell, instead of 3. Sometimes I dream about writing a screenplay for it, but alas . . .
Walk in the Woods..hah? I thought it was some kind of Reykjavik reference.
"Ms. Althouse, didn't you have a friend who walked the trail?"
Not that I know of.
I walked 17 miles of it once. A one-day walk with my high school Outing Club.
Redford's in it, so it's gonna be HUGE!
I walk to work every day-5 miles.
thanks.
That actress you like, I've never seen her in any of the stuff you mentioned, because I never watched.
However, she is in a new show called The Last Man on Earth. It's a new tv show.
The main character isn't very interesting or funny. But she is. She makes the show worth watching.
Louise owns Bobs Burgers.
I have not read the book but will see the movie. Most of this looks like it was filmed within an hour or two of where i live. Some of the views looked familiar: the dam is Fontana Dam over on the west side of GSMNP; the very steep hill looks like Thunderhead Mtn in GSMNP; the balds they are walking across are mainly along the TN/NC border, perhaps across Roan Mtn, and through Carver's Gap. I have hiked most of the trail in GA, where it starts at Springer Mtn, and in NC/TN. When I was 16 in early June 1967 I hiked the 70 miles from Fontana Dam north to Davenport Gap (near I-40 on TN/NC border) with my Explorer Post, which covers all of the trail in GSMNP. One of the most memorable times of my life, I can remember every single day. It rained heavily some every day which made it tough going. Had three run-ins with bears, it was early summer and they were very hungry, it was a real tough job protecting our food every night. We hiked for a couple of days with a retired doctor and his son who had a cabin in a remote area on the NC side of the park and they had a pack mule hauling their supplies for their annual two week fishing trip. The mule provided wonderful protection from a very aggressive bear at the Tri-Corner Knob trail shelter. Funniest animal-to-animal encounter I have ever seen. The bear didn't stand a chance. I have know quite a few people who have done the entire 2,000+ miles, some as through hikers and others in sections. Sometimes wish I had done it right after I got of Georgia Tech and before I went to work but I didn't . Don't think I could do it now. A number of my friends at work are in our company hiking club and spend a lot of time doing trail maintenance on weekends, i think they maintain 130 miles of it going north from Sams Gam (I-26 crossover at TN/NC border). Most people don't realize the nearly the entire trail, outside of NPS owned land, like GSMNP, is maintained by volunteers.
Did they exhume Bob? He peaked 45 years ago.
We watched the trailer and it seemed to have an old character like the one that Bill Bryson built his story around, and lo and behold that was Bryson's book. All of his books are worth the time to listen to more than once.
She also does super voice work on a little off the beaten path Disney cartoon called Gravity Falls.
"If there is a bear . . . "
I ran into Nick Nolte at LAX. I was honored because he asked me if I was a NBA referee. Other than that, I think he's trying to steal the-world's-most-elegantly-wasted-man from Keith Richards.
As I've mentioned here before, that whole myth about appearing large while confronting a wild animal goes to hell when you confront a baboon.
Yes, I'm not an NBA referee.
Do you work at Foot Locker
Except for the sections on the history of the trail, I thought this book was awful. Bryson takes every opportunity to mock and insult the people he encounters - except for his alcoholic friend. The one who has a temper tantrum and proceeds to litter the wilderness with his gear. Mary Ellen is not a character in a book - she was a person in search of something on the trail. Companionship, meaning, to prove that she could do one extraordinary thing? But, "hah, she is so annoying." The couple who were walking the trail as an act of faith are also to be mocked. I suspect they made it - Bryson wasn't curious enough to find out. But he did not. The minimum wage security guard in PA? No interest in him as a person, he is a cardboard "Nazi" so Bryson can jape and look like he stuck it in the eye of the man.
The book reveals Bryson as an incurious, lazy observer. He and his chum don't really learn anything from the trail, can't even summon the effort for a token final trek. This was just a way for Bryson to go camping, claim it as a tax deduction and try to make himself looking smarter than the people he encounters. "I saw 'rubbish' instead of 'garbage' becuase, I was in England you know?"
I have read a lot of his books. But none after that. He is an ass.
alex wrote:
Redford seems to be in survival stories lately.
He also seems to use bears a lot lately too. There was a movie a few years ago with Redford, Morgan Freeman and a bear. Was it dances with Bears? Or the Bear Whisperer? Bear Essence? Don't remember, just remember it had a bear.
gspencer said...
Damn, I really, truly wish that Redford would would take a walk in the woods or a trip on the open ocean and never be seen again.
Hard to call him a has-been. To be a has-been you first had to be have been a some one. Redford an ain't.
He can very nearly act.
Redford was the first Jay Gatch/Great Gatsby.
He needs some work done on his face before his next meeting with Daisy Buchanan.
Hmm, I speculate this would be more interesting to Althouse, as it involves David Foster Wallace in essentially a long conversation with another writer, ala My Dinner with Andre.
Jason Segel Plays David Foster Wallace Opposite Jesse Eisenberg In The First Trailer For ‘The End Of The Tour’
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