david foster wallace: classic or dud

i cant see what that is

DFW's copy of Ulysses

denied, http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2014/05/yes-david-foster-wallace-read-ulysses-how-do-i-know/

always nice to confront marginalia though
very homeland

wow @ these poems by Mary Karr, in the NYer and the Hairpin. I only glanced at them briefly, without actually reading them, but... :(

more like david fosturd wallace

ahaha zing

dud

so the Segel/Eisenberg movie is actually getting good reviews

http://www.reddit.com/r/davidfosterwallace/comments/3695i5/i_found_the_real_1987_late_night_with_david/

interesting reading it again after watching the interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqUa5sYHC9s

segal doesn't sound Midwestern enough

ughghgghhhhhhhhhh

can everyone just agree not to watch this terrible movie

looks like a story about the emotional journey of some MFA student

I'm not sure why someone would make this film.

I found this book super-moving and I think I will probably see this movie, though I might cry.

xp in purely economic terms it has to have been really cheap to produce and will easily be profitable

I was just thinking abt that mr squishy could prob be adapted into a cool movie but there obv u need his estate's ok is my understanding

co-sign re: finding this book super moving
also while i was reading it i was listening to rem

haha how would a mr squishy movie even work??

they should make a movie of the published edition of his commencement speech

I feel like they'd have to come up with a new ending for one thing.

die REM, just die already

By the way, the REM song they use is "Strange Currencies," which is a) a great song, the good version of the thing "Everybody Hurts" is a terrible version of; and b) a real-life favorite of DFW.

eephus otm strange currencies is impecxable

haha rem is like the least stupid thing about this

Early reviews have been surprisingly positive. I'm willing to give it a chance.

The problem might be that segal is a comic actor and this is a serious role ?

My girlfriend, who has never read any DFW, saw the trailer for this and thought it looked really good. Yeah, so I bought her a copy "Of Course" as a present. She reads literally about 100 books a year.

The problem might be that segal is a comic actor and this is a serious role ?

― calstars

Maybe, but DFW was comedic. At least he definitely tried to be. Honestly I think the problem is that Segel always plays dorks. I mean sure DFW had nerdy tendencies (he was a writer for Christ's sake) but I never understood that to be essential to his identity. I think maybe riding the nerd wave would have been too easy for someone as self-critical as David. or too boring on a conceptual level. Or too exclusionary. I see Segel in this and I'm just like welp, the nerd's won again. Go ahead and have this one too.

I don't know if it's that Segal's a comic actor, I think it's that the whole thing scans as famous actor vanity project brand extension, the type of thing that one surmises that Wallace detested.

Also, biopics have a justifiably bad reputation, generally engaging in a type of flat reductionism that people probably don't want to see applied to someone they view as an immense, very complicated talent.

I'm not saying this is necessarily that kind of flatly reductive biopic, but that the historical record gives people reason to be skeptical. The "Segal is great as DFW!" headlines out of film festivals probably fuels that fire.

Any famous actor in a biopic is going to be met with skepticism. But I get the feeling there's something particularly cringe worthy about Segel's “brand” that's being extended here. If that's what's even going on, or whatever. I haven't read this book, but I hope an actor being comedic isn’t the problem. I'd hope there would be some funny moments in it!

I think this has the ability to avoid the "flatly reductive biopic" pitfall by not really being a proper biopic. I'm assuming a huge chunk of the dialogue in this is lifted straight from Lipsky's tapes.

I guess him being a comic actor is at least part of it, in that the "comedic actor proves their dramatic chops" thing is, at this point, an eye-rolling cliche. Having that on top of the "Oscar-bait biopic" vibes probably does make things worse.

@circa1916 I actually agree that it could be good, I just understand the skepticism.

i think my problem with the trailer is that jason segel sounds too much like jason segel. I wasn't expecting him to mimic DFW's speech patterns I guess, but I just associate his voice with the other characters he's played before.

the problem is it's a plainly terrible idea and everyone involved can diaf!!

segel
the other guy
the director
the producers
lipsky
dfw

all of them can just ... oh wait

i don't normally feel this kind of unconditional acritical hate towards cultural artifacts, i guess this is how the lex feels all the time

the whole premise of this movie is just so corrupt and dubious

i don't mean DFW, just whatever reason anyone chose to make this movie

i just can't imagine this being entertaining, enlightening, interesting to anyone

it scans like the "away we go" of biopics

i don't normally feel this kind of unconditional acritical hate towards cultural artifacts, i guess this is how the lex feels all the time

lol

i think my problem with the trailer is that jason segel sounds too much like jason segel. I wasn't expecting him to mimic DFW's speech patterns I guess, but I just associate his voice with the other characters he's played before.

― Roz, Wednesday, June 10, 2015 6:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i've only heard his voice a couple times but there's something very distinctive about it that Segel doesn't even seem to have even attempted. you'd think he'd at least try to sound more midwestern.

can we start a kickstarter for this film /not/ to be released?

potentially valuable future okcupid filter

actively rooting for this now

I'm thinking the fact that the trailer at one point has Segel say "I think if the book is about anything, it is about the question of 'Why?' - Why am I doing it and what's so American about what I'm doing?" is far more of a terrible film klaxon.

(NB I don't know whether this is or isn't representative of DFW, have an uncracked Infinite Jest on my shelves like everyone)

(eephus also OTM about Strange Currencies)

That quote is directly from Lipsky's book, hard to judge how it sits in the movie based on the trailer.