Catch 22 remake on Hulu (George Clooney)

As others have been commenting about White City, I don't have Hulu either, so this is a pass for me

At this point, I just don't think this book can be successfully filmed

 

Alan Arkin is a hell of an act to follow.

 

Looks awful.

 

One of my favorite books, and I agree that it is impossible to do it justice on film. The original movie was okay, but you have to look at it on its own merits, and even then it is just decent IMHO. I did enjoy the Mad magazine parody, though.

 

I agree- I'm a big fan. My best friend was in a play with his son Adam off Broadway and Alan came to the closing night cast party. Both Alan and Adam are friendly, intelligent and articulate people.

 

I saw the film before I read the book and couldn't get Arkin out my mind. I really like the film; I just have to forget that it can't capture the complexity of the book - but who can?

 

One of my favorite books also. I'll watch it. Hope it's a multiple episode event, not just a two hour movie.

 

One of my most hated books. I’ll avoid this at all costs for several reasons.

 

Ohhhh-K.

 

Probably shouldn’t have posted, huh?

My bad.

 

Loved the book and the movie.

Starts today.

Hope it's good.

 

Watched first two episodes last night, meh. Will probably see it through just because. I don't get a sense of the book from it at all, but it's been 40+ years since I read it. Maybe I'll read it again.

 

I couldn’t get through much of Catch 22 the book but Something Happened was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Very Mad Men-ish. Or The Office.

 

"Where the hell's my parachute?"

 

loved the book, loved the movie.....this is ehhhhhh the lead is kind of average, Clooney is doing his best to chew the scenery, seems kind of pointless but ill stick it out

 

I made it through only one episode. After teaching the novel in AP English for 15 years, I could not stand to see one of my favorite novels butchered like that. Heller's incredible voice cannot be captured in a movie, and the inaccuracies angered me no end. I should have known better.

 

I haven't read the novel for many decades, but I appreciate your comments.

How do you feel about the original movie?

 

The acting is better than in the new one, but it other respects it's even worse! Scheisskopf isn't in it, they swapped some character names (so does the new one), and it has no interrogation scenes (at least the new one had one in the first episode). As I and others have said, it simply doesn't work as a movie.

 

I’ve enjoyed it so far. Interesting choice to go with a sequential approach vs. the time hoping film.

 

I had a slightly different take. I enjoyed the Hulu adaption for what it is not for what it isn’t. I do feel as if, the further along you get in the series, there are echoes of Heller but a film tackles a story from a different angle than a novel. Perhaps the passage of time has made the TV version work for me. The themes are still there and it’s quite difficult to be 100% faithful to a novel when it’s translated to the screen. The best screen adaptions tend to compliment the novel in some way shape or form.

The analogy I use is that Heller’s book is also seen through both the author and reader’s imagination whereas a film is seen through a writer’s, directors, producers, actors, director of photograph, etc. and to work they try and capture a filmic or visual equivalence to the author’s voice which is—in almost all circumstances—impossible to being to a film.

Certainly there are films and TV shows that fail to capture the essence of a novel but, when that happens, an imaginative team on the film will substitute it with something more vivid and direct visually.

I even enjoyed the film but I always tell folks it’s like reading a Reader’s Digest or synopsis of the novel often lacking nuance.

I felt the same way about Frank Herbert’s “Dune” which hasn’t truly been successfully captured with someone with the visual and storytelling imagination to make it work on screen. As talented as David Lynch is, he failed to truly capture that flavor of the novel through other means.

 

Must of been interesting for Alan to see his son interpret a role that he had played on screen.

 

I agree with many of your points.

One reason why we may enjoy a novel is when the words are so well written, the characters, plot, and events resonate deeply within our own thoughts. There’s a mental synthesis, a visceral reaction that creates an emotional fusion that’s almost tangible.

So, when an acclaimed novel is adapted into another form, that translation must be able to somehow reside alongside, and be compatible, with that prior vision we’ve mentally created.

Otherwise, the newer creation will be disappointingly rejected just as if it’s a bodily organ in an unsuccessful transplant that failed.

 

The play was not Catch-22, but I forget what it was.

 

Bit disappointed in it.

Too much drama not enough comedy for me.

Milo and Cathcart were my favorites.

 

I'm enjoying it. It's a take on war that America needs to see as our feckless leaders and chicken-hawks try to gin up yet another round of death. Timing is everything.