Anticipate or Dread? The Almost-sure-to-be-appalling movie of Mark Helprin's WINTER'S TALE

I loved this book when I was 15, but I doubt it would hold up well now. (Especially since Helprin's political activities have made me retroactively suspicious of anything he's involved in.) And even if it did hold up, I can't see how the movie's going to be anything but terrible. Written/directed by Akiva Goldsman? Cast seems OK, but the book is exactly the kind of grandiose magic-realist mishmash that tends to turn into incoherent glop onscreen.

Anyway, for now we can enjoy Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe on horses in front of giant green screens.

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

Yeah ... this looks about as expected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBSj1MKwx6A

The good things I remember about the book are all the funny bits. I have a feeling those are not in the script.

I wasn't crazy about the book, though it occasionally hits on some really vivid scenes with the snow and starlight. You'd need a stylist like Guy Maddin to do it justice.

Even Joe Wright could have some fun with it. Instead it will probably be leaden mush.

russell crowe's performance in this was bewildering, and sometimes his irish accent got away from him and made him sound like a pirate.

like, this wasn't the happening bad, but it was basically three different movies with entirely different tones smooshed together into one awkward whole. i assumed it was over about 3/4ths of the way through, and then a brand new plotline with jennifer connelly and her daughter started up, and they were positioned as Very Meaningful even though they were brand new characters that we had no stake in. also akiva goldsman kept making choices in the script that rendered the plot incoherent and implausible when it really didn't have to be. colin farrell wanders new york with amnesia for a hundred years without aging, which, okay, magical realism, but then we see his manhattan apartment? raising all these questions about how he's clothing and feeding and sheltering himself while also claiming not to remember his own name and not having any forms of ID?

can't speak to the movie; really liked the first few books before i learned he was a fascist (his last novel was dedicated to the us navy ffs)

but also it's pretty funny that his existence, on the web, has been totally eclipsed by stories of erstwhile news guy mark helperin's abusiveness