rsu@cbscc.UUCP (Rick Urban) (03/23/84)
Well, John Irving's latest pretentious trash has been made into an equally vapid and offensive movie. If your idea of a good time is a new per- version every other minute, this movie is a must. All others be forwarned: THNH is ludicrous, woodenly acted, vulgar, stupid, demeaning, vicious, inco- herent and laughable. This movie isn't even camp...its just one tired, aimless scene after another. I know the Irving fans will say it makes sense if you read the book, but movies have to stand on their own. This one falls flat on its face. Yeccch!!!
ajaym@ihu1h.UUCP (Jay Mitchell) (03/24/84)
Just so we, the netnews readers, have an idea of how to look at your views, what did you think of the movie, The World According to Garp?
rsu@cbscc.UUCP (Rick Urban) (03/27/84)
What did I think of THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP? Well, I read the book first and found it rather abundant on contrivance and short on subtlety. It had some funny moments and some moving ones, but all in all I thought that the acclaim and hoopla surrounding it to be unjustified. I thought that the film adaptation by George Roy Hill was very good, by which I mean it elevated a rather coarse story to an entertaining, richer film. It was about this time, however, that the brutality and sadism that Irving likes to impose on his characters started to seem obscene to me, and I quickly decided that his new novel would not be at the top of my reading list. The plot of THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE turned out to be more of the same, as I feared, and I found that Tony Richardson's treatment of the material was more or less a wallowing in the basest vulgarities of Irving's novel. ---Rick Urban AT&T Network Systems Columbus, Ohio