Autumn belongs to the saturnine, so when this beautiful season rolls around, I want to listen to melancholy tracks that make my heart ache a little. These are all the Autumn playlists I’ve created over the years. Let me know your fave.
Welcome back for another wrap up, in the video I’ll talk about all the books I read (including a semi savage discussion on Sally Rooney’s new book) and my Film and TV highlights of the month of September.
Apple has adapted perhaps the most notoriously unadaptable Sci-fi book series ever, yes even more unadaptable than Dune which I’m sure Denis Villeneuve has proven people wrong on that one anyway. But, yes, I’m talking about the father of science fiction, Isaac Asimov and his seminal series Foundation.
In the video I cover, cinematography, set design, characters, actor performances and what changes from the books I liked and others I didn’t.
Let me know what you think of Apple TV’s Foundation in the comments section
Usually, book-to-film adaptations get a bad rep. Fans of the source material are prone to finickity nit-picking, and more often than not, the screenplay never quite captures the full essence of the story because, in most cases, there’s just not enough time to cover it all.
Of course, there's the odd good one, and the occasional great one, many of which we can thank the late great Mr Stanley Kubrick for. Yes, even The Shinning that Stephen King notoriously hated.
But 9 times out of 10, the consensus is always that the book is better than the movie. But Denis Villeneuve could quite possibly change that when his cinematic blockbuster adaptation of Dune hits theatres in October.
Here are 5 reasons why Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will blow us away
Villeneuve has read Frank Herbert's epic space fantasy novel many times over; he has an undeniable passion for the material. When Denis made Blade Runner 2049, he took the DNA of Ridley Scott's movie and ran with it, he was loyal but also creative with the world, and that's exactly what Dune needs. Someone who loves it and wants it to be Dune but is willing to make it mainstream in a clever way.
The sophisticated and utterly classy 2016 film Arrival is based on a short story by Ted Chiang, and well, it was unarguably one of the best films of the year. This film cemented Villeneuve’s status as a certified Sci-fi wizard as he turned a rather intriguing and very short story into a mind-blowing theatrical experience that only gets better on re-watches.
From the looks of the trailer, we are getting a believable Dune. A much more palatable cinematic version, unlike the kitsch campiness of David Lynch's oh so 80's it hurts adaptation from 1984. If anything, there are some major operatic and Shakespearean vibes to the production. The scope of Dune is immense, and the political intrigue is Game of Thrones-level stuff, and that’s exactly what Denis is delivering.
Climate crisis, Colonialism, whitewashing, white saviours – all terms that are very much in our verbal lexicon nowadays and this adaptation of Dune tackles them all.
Colonisers ravish Arrakis, for it is the only place where you can acquire the priceless spice Melange. Paul is part of the problem or, at best, a White Saviour, and if you look at Lynch’s 1984 movie it really was rather too white for an intergalactic society hundreds of years in the future.
For a book published in 1965, Dune is still very much contemporary, its issues are our issues, and really this is the perfect time for Dune to be hitting our screens. It’s pure sci-fi epicness with a gut-wrenching punch behind it. Dune is essential viewing.
Going into a Denis Villeneuve movie is a safe thing; he’s a director you can trust. It’s like walking into a Christopher Nolan movie and knowing something about Time will be in the plot or into a Marvel movie and knowing it’s going to be a fun and formulaic blast.
With Villeneuve, you know you’re going to get great visuals, great stories and above all, you know there will be stellar performances. Timothee Chalamet is the perfect casting choice for Paul Atreides; not only is he one of Hollywood’s hottest talents under 30 right now he has the perfect sad boy vibe that just screams an epic coming-of-age story; I feel like he’s going to play Paul as a sort of space Hamlet, to be emperor or not to be emperor that is the question!
Recently I decided to finally watch Babylon Berlin, it has been on my watchlist for a couple of years now and I don’t quite know what I was waiting for.
Needless to say, I watched all 3 seasons in like a week and now I’m reading the books it’s based on to be a little nerd and compare the two. This is something I do quite often, just to see if the book is better or if perhaps it’s one of those rare cases when the adaptation stands proudly superior to its source material…only time will tell.
Anyway, let’s get on with the show…
And an utterly beautiful and frightfully expensive one at that (it’s the most expensive German tv show ever made!). Because the show is set in the late 1920’s you get fantastic fashion and music but you also get Weimar Germany, the interim between WW1 and WW2. It’s an utterly fascinating time and unlike all the characters in the show, we know what darkness lays ahead (the wall street crash and Nazis!) which makes for some great tv.
Hardboiled detective fiction never goes out of fashion, and this twisty and stylish adaptation really likes to play with traditional neo-noir imagery. The main detective Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch) is almost never without his hat and trench coat and his shadow is often present on-screen too especially if he’s hunting down a criminal. There’s also a very Fritz Langesque ‘talkie’ film at the centre of Season 3’s mystery and how the whole crime unravels feels very pulpy and I loved the vibe.
The background music really makes all the difference and immerses you even deeper into the story and the time period it is set in and helps build tension in all the right places. There’s also a couple of performances and dance moments that are really fantastic, especially the one in episode 2 that introduces you to the song ‘Zu Asche, Zu Staub’ (to ash, to dust) which becomes a reoccurring motif throughout the first 2 seasons and tbh I can’t get enough of the song and the several remixes that have been released.
Herr kommissar, eh hem I mean Inspector Gereon Rath has a very complicated love life and things get even more complicated when the intelligent, beautiful and ambitious Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries) enters his life. They grow closer and closer together over the seasons and the chemistry between Bruch and Fries is brilliant, I challenge you not to root for the two while watching.
Game of Thrones was once the pinnacle of TV, it was a cultural phenomenon that entranced viewers (myself included) because of its dark themes, characters with very questionable morals and firecracker political tension. Babylon Berlin has all of these in spades and fingers crossed it doesn’t lose all sense and sabotage character arcs as it continues to be adapted. Sorry GOT, you really did shoot yourself in the foot!
and one more for luck
Yes, you read the right. Some scenes of the show are shot at Rathaus Schöneberg (the city hall of Tempelhof-Schöneberg) and many of those scenes include the trippy Paternoster Elevator. I mean just look at how cool it is…
Well, it’s safe to say that I am obsessed with Babylon Berlin and I can’t wait for season 4 to come out next year!
