Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[Sauron the White]

Davem, I find no fault with much of what you say about COH. I also purchased the same books exactly as you did and share many of your feelings about it.

My big complaint was with the intentionally false claim that was posted on the various websties that this was THE FIRST NEW TOLKIEN NOVEL IN THIRTY YEARS. That is simply not true. This was not NEW. It was material that had been around for some time in other formats.

How many times can you sell something again and again and advertise it as NEW? Is this not a question of ethics?

Like many things, this probably comes down to definition of terms and semantics. I do know what the word NEW means. And it is not something I have had on the shelf for a long period of time. I was greatly disappointed to see both the false claim and the willingness of many people including you who should know better just go along with the false claim. That kind of opened my eyes to see that there is more going on here that just what is on the surface.

from Willaim CH

I take it you've never seen The Wannsee Conference? An hour and a half or more of absolutely gripping (and horrifying) drama- and it's nothing more than the verbatim recitation of the minutes of a real-life committee meeting.

One could also throw in My Dinner With Andre and many more which belie the video-game mentality that you gotta put 'action' on screen or else bore the audience.

I have seen ANDRE and found it mildly amusing and witty. Perhaps you could look up the world wide box office grosses for it to see how how the public responded to it. I realize it was an arthouse hit - but that was about it. I have not seen WANNSEE so cannot speak about it. I did see the recent HBO remake. I have attended far too many real life committee meetings and cannot imagine any minutes of those meetings being good screen material. But then we were not discussing the Final Solution which may be more interesting.