Brief Interviews with hideous Men

[[deleted user]]

Hi everybody, I just joined and I gotta vent my anger.

Since I really like the book I checked out this bugger a couple of days ago and I must say that director John Krasinski stripped every single interview he used from all the momentum and significance they had in the book, barely managing not to cook every single one down into a hideous travesty.

the plot he created as a vehicle is trite, corny and simply weak. The film probably doesn't even stink to high heaven but I guess if you read the book and found it powerful you might wanna stay away from this one.

[Phillip]

i haven't read the book, but just saw the preview a few days ago. it looked like it could be funny...but i have no point of reference at all.

[Tom]

David Foster Wallace, the late author of BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN, was my favorite author. I might have been interested in the movie if it had just been a dramatization of the "interviews" in the book, but I read that Krasinski added a plot, not a good idea. I have the audiobook, with most of the cast and the author reading the assorted atories/interviews, and was very taken with it. Michael Cerveris in particular nails his little reading.

[[deleted user]]

Hi folks, I tried to re-watch it cause it touches pressing issues yadda yadda but I can't get through that whole thing one more time.

Yeah Tom, Cerveris was also good in the film. One of the moments (if not the only one) that leaves some space for questions instead of the "philosophy with a hammer" routine. And Krasinski actually managed to turn one of the "interviews" (wink) that was OK in the book into something that was brilliant, shockingly beautiful and fucking transcendent. I don't know what the actors name is...it's irrelevant for me cause

I get the same feeling I had when watching that pitiful adaption of Hitchhikers Guide, as if the makers frantically tried to take the edge of the original idea so the bare minimum survives, which in turn they have to translate into the same old clichés the average wanna-be wise dingbat can relate to.

Sorry for all the gibberish, but I'm a sensitive fucking human being. I watched this and I'm hurtin'.

[Tom]

I watched some of the film on Netflix, and found it rather tiresome, so tiresome that I didn't even finish it. Some fine actors doing some fine material, to be sure. But Krasinski's attempt to add something like a plot concerning the woman doing the interviews falls rather flat.

[Baxter]

The title intrigued me a few months ago, so I added it to my Netflix instant watch. Sounds like I made the right choice of not watching it yet.

I had no idea it was based on something David Foster Wallace wrote though. Though I am not sure it is possible to actually finish Infinite Jest, I quite liked what I read. Guess I'll just check the book out instead.

[Tom]

I can confirm that it is possible to finish INFINITE JEST.

[Mariel]

I still want to see this as the acting cast is pretty much a reunion of the cast of Tully (one of my dearest favorites).

[Phillip]

i tried to watch this last night, and couldn't get through it. turned it off after about half an hour. it does seem like a project that could really work in text. the direction seemed clumsy to me, the relationship between the "interviews" and the story (this is the "added" part that tom referred to in an earlier post) seemed awkward. that was the part that seemed to draw me away from the words and the thoughts and feelings that the writer (foster wallace) was trying to get at in the interviews. the director seemed to need the standard film narrative format to feel comfortable - or felt he needed to have it to make the audience comfortable - not sure.

[Jim]

Too contrived for my taste. A few good observations does not a film make.