Lost in Adaptation

Whoa, now there's a blast from the past.

And in this week's episode, Dom takes a look at Johnny Mnemonic:

And a couple days ago, he looked at A Clockwork Orange:

I never thought Alex was the least bit sympathetic when watching A Clockwork Orange. I realized that what the government was doing to him was wrong, and not really rehabilitating him in any meaningful way, but it still felt pretty karmic and well-deserved because of what we'd seen him do.

To be honest, the film barely has any sympathetic characters. The closest thing to a hero is the political writer, since he at least has some aspirations to stop the authoritarian aspirations of the government. Him trying to drive Alex to suicide was cruel, but it comes off as more of a Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment given what Alex did to him previously.

We have a new episode today. Dominic looks at The Executioners and the movie based on it: Cape Fear.

Not a Lost in Adaptation episode today. Instead, Dominic reviews The Mystery Method, a book written by so-called pickup artist "Mystery." Unsurprisingly, he doesn't like the book nor the ideas espoused by the artist.

Someone needs to write a book called how to shoot down pickup artists hard.

Every video has at least one outtake involving his cat now and I love it.

I thought he said he wouldn't touch the 50 Shades spin-off with a ten-foot pole. Then what's this?

The second part of his review of the pick-up artist book:

I've always known that pick-up artists aren't the pinnacle of human virtue, but wow, the book really does have some really vile parts:

• The part about "building compliance" has wonderful bits such as doing things akin to training a dog and putting the woman's hand on your genitals as a "compliance test."
• "Indeed, deceiving women and luring them to your home under false pretenses is doing them a great favor by helping them circumvent the silly slut-shaming that women exclusively do to each other." Also, the term "token resistance" gives me shudders in a bad way, and I'm not even a woman; damn, does that term sound horrible.
• Dominic puts up a passage from the book saying how if you're undressing a woman and she says she feels like it should stop, you're suppose to agree with her while continuing to undress her. Wow. I'm pretty sure that's sexual assault.
• Ah, of course the author would believe in the "Friendship Zone."

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 25th 2019 at 11:12:44 AM

"Mystery" come across as a textbook example of a sociopath. They don't care about how women feel, but how they can manipulate and get them into bed.

It really baffles me… seeing how PUAs or incels clearly despise women with every fiber of their beings, why do they want to attract their attention so badly? It sounds like being in an actual relationship would make them even more unhappy…

Because they're eternally bitter and want a convenient justification for their own internal problems. People consumed by their own anger will never be happy as they are, even if all their current scapegoats just disappeared. they target big, inescapable issues because it's paradoxically a problem that can't ever be solved, which is how many secretly prefer it.

A new video just got posted: "Was The Phantom of The Opera Book Worth All The Adaptations?"

Apparently this video is going to be the first of three; the other two will probably be more traditional Lost in Adaptation videos.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Nov 4th 2019 at 11:43:18 AM

You know one episode he should do is Lost In Adaption: Uncle Tom edition. Yes, I say that because even though today no one really does adaptions of Uncle Tom; there were tons of them during segregation, specifically minstrel ones. The most recent Uncle Tom adaption was in the late 80's. I would like to point out that Uncle Tom is the biggest example of how adaptions can color people's view of the work or miss the point of the work. The adaptations flanderize the original characters so much that the novel seems like its deconstructing those minstrel archetypes found in Tom shows. Also one could say it's certainly insulting how society at that time could take such a powerful anti-slavery message and turn it into a mockery of itself that some works were even pro-slavery. Another thing is that in contrast with how Tom shows were comedies, the novel was a straight up drama with even Topsey's condition being treated as serious- in later adaptions Topsey is treated as the comic relief, when the point about her unruliness is the fact that slavery turned her into the way she is. Or the fact that Uncle Tom was a man in his prime age and was a father and husband, in contrast where Uncle Tom is usually depicted as aging and helpless. Again stripping away his physical poweress to be made harmless in the mainstream white culture at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin_(1987_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_show

Continuing with his look into The Phantom of the Opera, Dominic released a new episode, this time looking at the similarities and differences between the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and the original novel.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Nov 15th 2019 at 11:02:39 AM

Yesterday, Dom looked at Interview with the Vampire:

And since no one's mentioned it, but three weeks ago he completed his Phantom of The Opera trilogy, with a look at the 2004 film adaptation of the musical:

And between those he reviewed some Viking romance novels:

Dominic looks at an American book that apparently miffed the British a bit. It's about a guy from Connecticut who gets whacked in the head so hard he gets sent back in time to Camelot, meets King Arthur, and attempts to use his modern knowledge to better the lives of the people. Oh, and the author of the book is Mark Twain.

A new episode is out today, this time talking about The Eye of Argon and how the mockery that ensued affected the author:

The beginning bit where he talks about Rebecca Black is quite a story as well. Glad to hear that she seems to be doing better after being bullied by so many people over the "Friday" song.

This book is definitely a blast from my past, because I first heard about it from this site. I can't remember what the work page used to look like, but given what the site was like a long time ago, I'm about 80% certain that it was also full of mockery directed at the work and maybe the author.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 2:08:05 AM

Yesterday, Dom looked at the 1933 adaptation of The Invisible Man:

So, a new video's out, and it's about male pregnancy in romance:

...I'm not sure what else to say.

I assure you, I'm a completely trustworthy person.

*bump*

I assure you, I'm a completely trustworthy person.

And another bump with a top 10 list of his best and worst book adaptations he's covered so far.

• 10- Best: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• 10- Worst: The Hobbit
• 9- Best: Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm dead serious.
• 9- Worst: Blood & Chocolate
• 8- Best: Watchmen
• 8- Worst: Starship Troopers
• 7- Best: The Princess Bride
• 7- Worst: Ender's Game
• 6- Best: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• 6- Worst: Red
• 5- Best: The Last Unicorn
• 5- Worst: Ella Enchanted
• 4- Best: The Godfather
• 4- Worst: Sharpe
• 3- Best: The Shawshank Redemption
• 3- Worst: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• 2- Best: The Hunger Games
• 2- Worst: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• 1- Best: Coraline
• 1- Worst: I, Robot
• Honorable (and dishonorable) mention: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Edited by Weirdguy149 on May 1st 2020 at 7:25:45 AM

It's been 3000 years…

Was vaguely wondering where The Phantom of the Opera (2004) would show up in his countdown as I listened. Turns out it...didn't. Ah well.

Everybody's all "Jerry's old and feeble" till they see him run down a skyscraper and hijack a helicopter mid-flight.

And now the conclusion to his look at the film adaptations of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles: