Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Anticipated... sort of

Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road may well be my favorite book. If not favorite, than certainly top five. Well, the trailer for The Road has been released, and... I'm even more hesitant to see this film than I was before. Despite the sparse prose in which McCarthy wrote the novel, I always had very vivid images in my head while reading. I never imagined the city scenes as the director visualizes them here. The coastal scenes, however, are exactly as I imagined them. Regardless, The Road is touted as another post-apocalyptic thriller. Seriously? There was absolutely no subtlety in that trailer, a quality that truly carried much of the novel's weight. Some of the most important communication between Father and son (in the novel) is delivered through eye-contact rather than verbal exchange, but there's a good deal of speech in the trailer. When that kid makes the comment about the can of Coca-Cola, I cringed -- it seems like somebody made a mistake in casting. And the music... great, I'm glad that the studio chose generic Hollywood thriller fare. Sure, maybe it would have been cliché or expected, but almost anything by Godspeed You Black Emperor! would have been fitting. Maybe "Dead Flag Blues" with an alternate voiceover in the beginning? Then again, there's no way GYBE! would license a song to any movie. EDIT: GYBE! licensed the very song to 28 Days Later.

The Road is a compelling tale of the bond between a father and son. It has a very elementary plot, yet it's one of the greatest pieces of literature I've read. This film looks like it will be an edge-of-your-seat thriller, and something that I will see, but am honestly worried about.

7 comments:

Zach said...

I'm not on facebook.
But I figured I had to get this to you somehow.
http://jacksonville.craigslist.org/msg/1177554966.html

Zach said...

Also, Nick Cave is doing the soundtrack,
so i'm not sure if it will be all that bad.

Lukas said...

oh awesome, I'm actually excited that Nick Cave is doing the soundtrack. There's no way that was him in the trailer, though. That trailer is ridiculous. agh.

Chet said...

Dear lord, I was nervous before. More nervous now. The scenes from the highway (filmed on the abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike) look similar to how i imagined them, but the city scenes...I had something a bit more Appalachian Mountain small town in my head.

And that boy. "Mmmm bubbly."

I'm nervous about it, but honestly can't wait to see it. Maybe just so I can be extra judgmental about it.

Chet said...

Also, it seems to me as if Charlize Theron shouldn't have had that much screen time. Maybe she won't in the movie, thats just Hollywood's attempt at getting sex driven men in the theater.

David L said...

My of my fears when I saw who was playing who in the story was that because Charlize was playing the mother, she would get way too much face time. It appears that might be so. I can only hope that they show about 2/3 of the flashback scenes in the trailer and that is why she was in it so much.

Mike said...

I still haven't read this book, but I will before I see the movie.

Oh and GY!BE licensed "Dead Flag Blues" to 28 Days Later.