Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Tristram Shandy: a Cock and Bull Story

This is topic Tristram Shandy: a Cock and Bull Story in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Ron Keillor (Member # 1790) on 02-27-2006, 03:10 AM:

Cinemark Tinseltown, Vancouver BC Auditorium 9
Friday Feb.24 2:45pm. attendance about 28.
Four trailers, can't remember the names of any of them, and one of them, featuring Jennifer Aniston, didn't seem to have a title anywhere on it except possibly in a closing block of credits that was on screen for about 2 seconds. Program opened with a toothpaste commercial. No corporate coming soon or feature presentation clips.

If you've read the book, the movie does approximate as a movie the way the book resembles a book: lots of digressions, chaotic chronology, very British humour. Sort of a Reader's Digest or Classics Illustrated approach to presenting highlights of the book intercut with a story about presenting highlights...
Some of the novelty does disappear from having read the original, but that might be made up by having some idea of what is going on. Focus looked a bit soft throughout, but occasional negative dirt flashes were sharp, so possibly a low-budget camera process was used. I had forgotten that Steve Coogan was also in Winterbottom's "24-Hour Party People", so will have to get that off the shelf and see it again.
Can I recommend it? Very much a matter of personal taste; if you are acquainted with the Sterne novel it is worth seeing, but if you had trouble working you way through Jonathan Swift, probably give it a bye.