Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast Of Champions

[SFG75]

Got this one in my latest order from Amazon. The large number of drawings in this one is slowly winning me over, I thought it annoying when I first started. I really like Vonnegut's humor, especially regarding the Pluto gang, drugs and his related depiction of a necessary item of the human anatomy, not to mention referring to the president as a
chimpanzee who bounces up and down upon hearing "Hail to the Chief." I didn't know that this book was made into a movie in 1999 starring Omar Epps and Bruce Willis. I'll definitely have to check it out, from what I can gather, it was savaged by the critics and everyone moved on to other projects.

Any other fans or critics?

 

[RobertM]

I can't really explain it myself, but I believe Vonnegut's work would be REALLY difficult to transfer to film effectively. He has so many nuances in his writing. 'Slaughterhouse 5' was okay. You had to give them an 'A' for effort, anyway.
All I know is I wouldn't want to try writing a screenplay from one of his books. Big job. You'd really need a writing team to pull it off, and a big budget for the film.

The better film might be about his life. BTW...I have been seeing posts here and there on the internet (not this site) about Vonnegut and how 'smoking finally got to him'. Wrong. I believe he fell, and injured himself. He never really recovered. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

 

[SFG75]

I can't really explain it myself, but I believe Vonnegut's work would be REALLY difficult to transfer to film effectively. He has so many nuances in his writing. 'Slaughterhouse 5' was okay. You had to give them an 'A' for effort, anyway.
All I know is I wouldn't want to try writing a screenplay from one of his books. Big job. You'd really need a writing team to pull it off, and a big budget for the film.

The better film might be about his life. BTW...I have been seeing posts here and there on the internet (not this site) about Vonnegut and how 'smoking finally got to him'. Wrong. I believe he fell, and injured himself. He never really recovered. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

Interesting-I find Slaughterhouse to be the superior book IMHO. I do understand that with Breakfast, he was cutting a wide swath in regards to satire. Perhaps reading Slaughterhouse first prejudiced me somehow.

You're right, he fell several weeks previously in Manhattan and suffered some serious brain injury. You can find that and more on the wikipedia entry on him. Wow, one person whose demise smoking is not the cause of. The anti-smoking zealots probably can't believe it. Speaking of, I love the lines after his name in the intro of Slaughterhouse about him who: "smokes too much."

 

[beer good]

I can't really explain it myself, but I believe Vonnegut's work would be REALLY difficult to transfer to film effectively.

I thought Mother Night was excellent. Any book CAN be adapted to the big screen - it just takes a writer and director with a similar imagination. Hell, look at Naked Lunch...

 

[SFG75]

I thought Mother Night was excellent. Any book CAN be adapted to the big screen - it just takes a writer and director with a similar imagination. Hell, look at Naked Lunch...

Very true, and only if the director is a fellow hoosier.