Genetically Modified Turkeys

I was about to reply to Guy and John Foster when I realised my replies can be re-purposed as a post.

Guy wonders about the mystery object. He has seen it often without noticing it. I only clocked it when it was pointed out to me by someone familiar to Guy. Clue: Guy’s wife has probably never seen it.

I have written quite often over the years about successful film and TV adaptations of books. John Foster raises the matter of the stinkers and he cites a genetically modified turkey. I have coined the phrase because turkeys raised in today’s factory farms are unrecognisable from the wild birds from which they originated.

I’d love to mention the good adaptations but you will constantly interrupt reminding me to include The Leopard, En Plein Soleil, True Grit (Coen Bros version), Fortunes of War when I am saying Don’t Look Now, The Night Manager, The Shawshank Redemption, Little Dorrit (1987 film, 343 minutes running time) Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Of these I have not actually read four of the books so you may correctly find my comparisons lacking in rigour.

To see a real five star, copper-bottomed, ready to sail and sink stinker go to a not-quite-new cinema with deep carpets into which popcorn has been crushed. The smell is revolting. Last time for me was a cinema on Shepherd’s Bush Green where I took a goddaughter to see Into The Woods; “a generic dystopian bummer” according to one critic although it pleased younger audiences. There have been some excellent adaptations of musicals but this is a sub-genre to be explored another day, perhaps.

John Foster started this topic when he fingered the film version of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Another appalling adaptation, ‘tho I never saw it, I was warned, is Mortdecai from Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Don’t Point that Thing at Me.  A goodish cast doesn’t always cut the mustard but a bad film does give a dyspeptic film critic an opportunity: “Mortdecai: mort de cinéma, more like” (Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph). I know why I have never written on this subject. I have seen many really bad opera productions, started bad books but have avoided stepping in dog shit films. I prefer to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive.