Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?
“Hostage” by Robert Crais. The ending was terrible. The protagonist had zero agency in his own survival. They made a movie with Bruce Willis which improved the defect. While the movie may not have been good, per se, it’s my go-to refutation whenever someone squawks that pretentious cliche, “The book is always better than the movie.”
What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies?
The McGuffin. A thing chased for the sake of being chased. It only works because humans, like dogs, are programmed to chase certain things without a good sense of whether it’s worth it or what would happen if one ever caught it.
Tropic Thunder. Laughed myself to tears.
I would say it’s much more common for travel to inspire me to read a particular book than the other way about. I can’t think of a case in which reading a book was the prime mover in a decision to travel to a given place. But I do try to read some literature from every country or literarily active city that I visit.
I would not be the same person. It would not be the same book.
I once slipped and fell on ice, and it was like an outtake from a Jackie Chan movie.
I’ve had it the other way round (i.e. disliked a movie I expected to like,) but I can’t really say I’ve ever watched a movie that I expected to hate. Do people do that? In the very short life one has, are there people who sit around entertaining themselves with movies they expect to not be entertaining? Despite all that I have learned in this life, people perplex me more and more each day.
If Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind taught us anything, it’s that one shouldn’t go around erasing memories. So, I decline to answer. [FYI: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not my answer because I don’t need the lesson all over again.]
Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Hustle, and The Matrix. Together, they contain the sum of all wisdom.
Funny Stuff: How Comedy Shaped American History by Laura LaPlaca
Tiger Riding for Beginners 