He’s a (very) rich man’s Jesse Plemons.
Rewatching Sorcerer on Criterion Channel, holy crap what a movie, absolutely stunning.
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What would you call this movie if you got to pick the title?
Honestly, I have no idea, you could just pick a word at random and it would be a better title. Worst titled movie of all time.
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The book is called The Wages of Fear and that’s a billion times better. But it had already been previously adapted under that name, so I guess they didn’t want the remake vibes or something? I don’t know.
Even more so when it’s the director’s exciting follow-up movie to The Exorcist. Following a film like that, with a heavy lean into the supernatural, with a movie called “Sorcerer” with no supernatural element? What in the actual fuck. This had to create any number of confused theatergoers who went in pretty blind and only knew the title.
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Right? I’ll confess I have heard several people and podcasters sing the movie’s praises, but I’ve put off seeing it due to the title. I seem to always forget that the title is not indicative of the story.
How long between adaptations? I guess I no longer see the problem due to us now having so many sequels and legasequels and remakes that use the same titles as previously released movies. The title of the book is a good one.
Wages of Fear 1953 French movie
Sorcerer 1977 American movie
Yeah after 24 years you can use the same title especially when you are doing it from a different home country
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24 years. And the previous adaptation is a French-language film. And gets really strong reviews. There’s honestly no reason at all to have been shy about just reusing the title for an English-language adaptation.
Yes, see it at first opportunity. It’s excellent.
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Huh apparently Netflix released a version of Wages of Fear this year. Looking at the reviews…we should probably forget my last sentence
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I just looked up the plot. Made me think of this bit from LOST.
Sorcerer definitely has the feel of a movie where it would be tough to recreate the magic today, because a lot of what works so well is the gritty feel and the devotion to practical effects. Pretty easy to imagine a slick 2024 rendition being atrocious.
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I haven’t seen the movie but must agree with you regardless. The Corridor Crew guys regularly highlight movies like The Thing remake/prequel where practical effects that look amazing are painted over with terrible CGI.
LKJ, need The Town report.
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Just read the plot synopsis of Sorcerer. What the fuck were they thinking?
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Iirc Friedkin met beforehand with Clouzot (dir.of French movie) to assure him that he wasn’t doing a remake, so might be why he felt forced to use a very different title.
Btw i already said this here recently but you all should watch the French movie, its almost as good as Sorcerer imo (just don’t watch the new one by accident)
Also Sorcerer bombed hard, they even had to make posters warning audiences that there were not too many foreing speaking portions lol
https://x.com/JFrankensteiner/status/1366599445975101448?t=5CnfTYOXSycXXtR6u8zDpg&s=19
(But i guess this wasnt as bad as Heaven’s gate, since unlike Cimino, Friedkin was out of director jail pretty quickly)
Btw while Sorcerer may be considered the best action/adventure of the last century, in the 21st century technology has advanced enough and some genius people have realized that simply replacing “trucks go slow” by “trucks go fast” results in
even better results
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Thoroughly enjoyed. Glad you brought it up in response to my Renner post. He did bring believable unhinged menace to that role.
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Hitman took an unexpected turn that made it more interesting at the end. I’m still surprised by how positive the reviews have been.
I’m guessing it premiering across from OG Star Wars might have provided some cover since Star Wars was a box office phenomenon that might have blocked out the sun on lots of movies and probably provided a quick excuse to explain away the commercial failure.
(Something like Star Wars being the chief competition for eyeballs is another thing that I have to think didn’t do any favors to a name like “Sorcerer” during the immediate release window.)
Funny, the final act was probably my least favorite aspect.
Anyway, I agree that the raves are a bit confusing, it’s nothing special. But welcome to the Linklater experience; it’s my observation that if it’s not specifically the Before trilogy - which is as excellent as everyone says - people are going to hype his stuff beyond what it is.