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Film Reviews

Choke and Cinema's Most Adventurous Book Adaptations
David Moats , November 24th, 2008 03:26

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk's work is notoriously difficult to translate into film. Dave Moats reviews the latest adaptation Choke and collects the 10 most adventurous book to film adaptations.

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Crash

Not Crash the more recent, patronising, Oscar baiting film about racism in L.A. but the classic 890s adaption of J. G. Ballard's seminal book about a cult of fetishists who get turned on by violent car crashes. Another valiant attempt by Cronenberg to film a difficult novel. It's a great satire of how people seek out danger to escape the mundane oppression of modern life, taken to its logical conclusion of course. The characters are played quite believably (if you can believe that there is a fetishist for every conceivable perversion) by the unsettling James Spader and Holly Hunter. It's disturbing because it is actually kind of sexy, if you're willing to admit that to yourself. If this story was set in the present day most of the movie would involve the fetishists interacting on social networking sites, which wouldn't be as fun.