#98 - Come and Get It

Oh goody!! Nothing is more exciting than a story about loggers in Wisconsin around the turn of the last century. That's right. I said loggers....in Wisconsin....turn of the LAST century. Kind of makes the title a wee bit ironic if you ask me. But, let me just say that this movie is only partially as boring and unentertaining as it seems. By that I mean that it's not completely boring or unentertaining, but it ain't exactly something I would put at the top of my list of lumberjack classics. And don't act like you don't all have your own little list of favorite lumberjack movies. Firestorm doesn't count cause he's a firefighter and just happens to be in the woods. That, and no movie that stars Howie Long as the main character should be in a favorites list of any kind.

This movie was adapted from some book that I don't remember the name of because I watched this a while ago and haven't gotten around to writing the review until now. I can't help but feel that the book was more entertaining, which is usually the case, but I think more so for this movie, and I'll tell you why. The story is one of those sweeping tales of ambition, lost love, and all the crap that goes with it, and there's a lot of stuff in the stories that can't fit into a whole movie. It seems to me that whomever adapted the novel decided to stick with the most important plot points and try to fill in what they can between those points. Don't expect me to know who adapted the novel. If I can't be bothered to remember or even look up the name of the novel, what chance is there that I would know or look up the screenwriter? Absolutely none. To get back to my original point, with little more than important plot points, I found it hard to really get invovled in the movie. It's like when I read The Partner by John Grisham. Whole lotta plot, and little else to sink your teeth into. The difference being that one is about a lawyer who staged his own death in order to cover the fact that he stole a crapload of money, and the other is about LOGGERS IN WISCONSIN!!! Let's review. A movie about loggers that is more plot than anything else. Wake up the kids!!!

I will admit that there is a part of me that is curious about the whole story. Since it is based on what I can only assume was a popular novel, then there HAS to be more to the story than what I have seen, and that may be some well written stuff. A lot of times the stuff that is cut out of the movie versions of a story is the most imaginative aspect of that story, but really hard to transfer over to the big screen. I think this is why we should outlaw the phrase "the book was better" as a criticism of a movie. It's not a valid point. I can't tell you how many times I wanna know how a movie is and the first thing someone says is that the book was better. NO SHIT!! But thats not what I asked!! I didn't ask how the adaptation was. We may get to that in our conversation, but it's not what I asked. If the movie was better than the book, that is something that is worth pointing out because it is extremely rare. The only movie that comes to mind at this point is Lost World, and that wasn't even that good of a movie. Kind of tells you how I felt about the book. Along the same lines, I really get iritated by the purists. You know the people I'm talking about. These are the losers who raise hell because a movie wasn't exactly the same thing that the book was. Two words for you: "loosely" and "based". Get over it. I open up Yahoo! one day and there's a story about people who are unhappy that the movie Eragon doesn't follow the book that well. With all the things in the world to get upset about, you have to piss and moan about a movie based on a book about a kid riding a fuckin dragon? Yes, I have been disappointed when a movie screwed uo the story of a book I enjoyed, but I will talk about the aspects of the movie that I didn't like and why. Just saying the book was better doesn't say anything at all because it usually is. And these people get so adamant about it. Well you know what, you purists can go jump off a cliff, and take the continuity error geeks and editing mistake eye-hawks with you. Have I ranted enough? Good.