EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED -- coming to an arthouse cinema theater near you

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Anyone know that it's been made into a movie? I saw the trailer last night, and it looks like they didn't quite pull it off, as Jonathan has become a central character in the film. Also, Elijah Wood comes off as trying to corner the market on kooky.

― Leeeeeeee (Leee), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

I preferred him as a cannibal.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

Isn't this also Liev Schreiber's directorial debut? I think he also adapted it.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:39 (twenty years ago)

Elijah wood is so ugly. Seriously, what is wrong with his neck. I can't stand looking at him. For that reason, I would never watch this movie.

― Jeff-PTTL (Jeff), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:39 (twenty years ago)

that trailer is going to kill this movie.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

I really don't want to watch a movie about a nerd hanging out with a wacky european guy (cf. Perfect Strangers). That's what the trailer made it seem like, set on a charming holocaust / reuniting the family backdrop.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:44 (twenty years ago)

it's sort of an impossible novel to adapt.

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:48 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, and we get Liev Schrieber adapting it.

― Leeeeeeee (Leee), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:51 (twenty years ago)

this is a very bad idea.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:52 (twenty years ago)

i don't agree jaymc but this looks crazy embarrassing.

xxp

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 20 August 2005 18:55 (twenty years ago)

i like liev schreiber.

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:00 (twenty years ago)

What I really want to do is direct...

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:04 (twenty years ago)

Are there no Gogol Bordello fans among us? It's Eugene Hutz making his acting debut in the most genius bit of casting ever!

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

oh, wow, this might turn out to be the worst movie ever.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:15 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, the trailer looks awful. It is a very booky book. I only read it because I thought Jonathan Safran-Foer was cute. I don't think Elijah Wood is as cute.

― Cathy (Cathy), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

"Are there no Gogol Bordello fans among us? It's Eugene Hutz making his acting debut in the most genius bit of casting ever!"

holy shit!!! i knew he looked familiar! that preview makes the movie look ridiculously shit, but now i've got no choice but to see it.

― Fetchboy (Felcher), Saturday, 20 August 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

er, I think the trailer is pretty good, actually.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 20 August 2005 20:06 (twenty years ago)

My mother says that Elijah Wood looks like a thumb, because his neck is roughly the same width as his head.

― pullapartgirl (pullapartgirl), Saturday, 20 August 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

is that neck the result of working out or just bad luck?

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 20 August 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

i read abt mr. hutz being in this, it's a pretty cool story: brought on as advisor-of-the-contemporary-e-europe, cast in film. plus that's gogol bordello behind him in the trailer

― geoff (gcannon), Saturday, 20 August 2005 23:36 (twenty years ago)

in the first part? the second bit is a denver band called Devotchka who I know nothing about other than they're friends of our keyboardist. she was surprised to hear it in the trailer.

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:02 (twenty years ago)

they try to sound russian-ish

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

I think it looks GREAT

and I like this new dead, psycho elijah

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:17 (twenty years ago)

he has never been interesting before

also you like liev schreiber but how much?

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:18 (twenty years ago)

what the fuck is wrong with you people?

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

liev schrieber was good in scream 3

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

is that neck the result of working out or just bad luck?

He's pretty scrawny otherwise so I'm going with "bad luck" here.

― pullapartgirl (pullapartgirl), Sunday, 21 August 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

holy fuck, that trailer is truly awful.

― Jimmy_tango, Sunday, 21 August 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)

is the book good, anyone?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 21 August 2005 04:32 (twenty years ago)

I liked it a lot.

― Leeeeeeee (Leee), Sunday, 21 August 2005 05:27 (twenty years ago)

i had problems with the book. careened between diff. voices too much, even though i was initially attracted to that formal structure. i think that j.s. foer has the potential to be a v. good writer someday, if he harnesses his gifts.

elijah wood is cuet.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 21 August 2005 07:01 (twenty years ago)

re liev schreiber: he seems like a v. smart, thoughtful dude whom i'd trust with this kind of material. still a bit fearful of the film, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 21 August 2005 07:02 (twenty years ago)

the book is heartbreaking, and i think that's the problem here: i don't believe this adaptation will do it any justice at all.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 21 August 2005 07:25 (twenty years ago)

If only his publishers had your insight.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 21 August 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

UGH! Why did I have to just see holocaust imagery set to Coldplay?

And what is up with the main character? What is he supposed to be?

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 21 August 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

i think jaymc is pretty OTM, i liked the book quite a bit, but i found the switch in narration tempting to me to skip those bits

same with J.S.F.'s new book

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Sunday, 21 August 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

I liked the book quite a lot...actually, when it was first getting some good press/sales, i went to a small reading JSF gave at Yale(whose audience consisted of mostly students in various english classes at the univ. who hadn't read it and were just there for extra cred or some such)...and but so, i asked a Q specifically about the shifting narration and he said something very pedestrian like he would change it just when he (or the expected reader) would get bored with one voice/perspective.

― Jimmy_tango, Sunday, 21 August 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

The book is ridiculously great. The switch in narration is what made the book so readable for me. The different stories so intertwined and essential to the sadness. Not so excited for the movie, since it won't match the book but who knows. His second book wasn't as good, but I still think j.s. foer hovers around virtuosity.

― mcd (mcd), Sunday, 21 August 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

I think that's why I don't like the book. I hate pseudo-virtuosic displays.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 21 August 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

This might explain some of the movie's apparent missing the mark:

(from New York Magazine):

Wood says actor Liev Schreiber, who makes his screenwriting and directorial debut with Everything, told him to think of Foer as a kind of "Chauncey Gardiner from Being There, who affects the world by not actually doing anything."

WTF? First of all, Foer is obv. nothing like Chauncey Gardiner. But also, what kind of director tells his actor to play his character as a character from another movie?

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 10 September 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

A recent Guardian article implies Hutz was pressured to shave off his moustache for the film. Can this be true? For shame!

― Soukesian, Saturday, 10 September 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

EVERYTHING IS ELIMINATED

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 10 September 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

what kind of director tells his actor to play his character as a character from another movie?

have you ever been around movie people? they all talk like this.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 10 September 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

actually pretty good!!

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 30 November 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

no-one huh?

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 1 December 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

The book sounds good. I've got to read it first.

― youn, Thursday, 1 December 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

I thought the first half was okay, but the second half was kind of slow (the film that is, I haven't read the book). The old woman's story didn't have nearly the emotional impact that it should have.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 1 December 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

Elijah wood is so ugly. Seriously, what is wrong with his neck. I can't stand looking at him. For that reason, I would never watch this movie.

Okay, I lied. I watched this today. I've never read the book, but I enjoyed it. I got all dewy eyed. It was probably because I spent most of last night vomiting.

― Jeff. (Jeff), Monday, 22 January 2007 21:41 (nineteen years ago)

The book's a bit of a grad student wank-fest. The bits narrated by the Ukrainian character are ok.

― chap (chap), Monday, 22 January 2007 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

The film turned out okay, I thought -- didn't exactly come together, in the end, but it enjoyable to watch. "Unfilmable book" problem solved by jettisoning all the shtetl magic-realism sections, which turns out to be kind of a funny critique of the book: "haha dude you had fun writing these and being fashionable and all but they are not necessary!"

While I'd like to note, aiming upthread, that Chauncey Gardener from Being There is not a character from a movie, I was kinda weirded out by the way they'd dressed and used Wood in this -- the book actually goes to great lengths to portray the narrator-Foer as this bog-standard college kid, and a lot of the humor that comes out of that (like his being vegetarian) is actually much funnier if you're imagining him as a typical college kid with no idea how to act where he's going. (Whereas Wood in the movie is playing a guy who's a weirdo wherever he is, clearly.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 22 January 2007 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Elijah Wood was one of the better things about this movie, I thought. Jonathan's kind of difficult to adapt because in the book he's almost a void of a character and that's very difficult to translate onto the screen. Making him into this confused geeky dude constantly perplexed by what's going on around him seemed the next best thing.

But changing the grandfather's story arc ruined the film for me, if only because the scene when he hands his best friend over to the Nazis could have been incredible and they bottled it.

― Matt DC, Sunday, 27 April 2008 22:48 (eighteen years ago)

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