Alex Garland
Thu, 2004-07-01 18:30
#1
Alex Garland
What do people think of him?
He has a new book out - The Coma. I've bought it but not read it yet.
I read The Beach. I thought it was massively flawed. It had all the mechanics of a great thriller but then ultimately he didn't know what to do with it. And the ghost part just didn't work. But still, it has stuck in my head.
The The Tesseract I thought was brilliant. Especially because it was so different from what he'd done before, and unfilmable.
28 Days Later, is a great film. The only decent Danny Boyle film.
So I'm looking forward to The Coma. It looks nice - woodcuts by his father. That always makes a difference for me, what a book looks like.
Spack
Watched the beach last night. Pretty crap but not quite as bad as everyone said it would be.
28 days later was toss, not particulary because of the script or the premise which seemed okay but I just hated the acting. It felt so cheap.
Joe
Stephen Gardiner
I thought the book was very poorly written, post-hippy nonsense.
The film had even less to commend it..
c.r.
I think Alex Garland has excellent concepts and ideas but unfortunately like some of you have stated his delivery is somewhat flawed, however I do find excellent writing in some of his descriptions used in the Beach and at least for me he seemed to carry me along so that I didn't see the connection between veitnam and the utopia until the end of the book and I loved that. I think the connection is an interesting relation and again his concept and trying to portray that connection seemed awesome to me I just don't see a great delivery although it is hard thing to do. I also see his delivery fail in the tesseract and 28 days.
Rachel
The best part about the film is my mate Lars getting to grab LDC very hard by the knackers. Something I'm sure many have wanted to do.
Spack
That is a good bit.
And yes, I'm jealous.
d.beswetherick
I loved "The Beach", but was staggered by the changes made by the scriptwriter for the film. I wonder if Boyle was making it up to Garland for that when he used him as a scriptwriter on "28 Days Later".
I'm a big fan of the best of Danny Boyle, which to me was "Trainspotting" and "Mr Wroe's Virgins". I also saw his theatre production of Bond's "The Pope's Wedding", which made a lasting impression on me.
I envy Garland's being so rich that he can afford writer's block.
andrew o'donnell
Liked The Beach but thought it could have lost about 100-150 pages and been a much better, tighter novel.
The Tessaract was much more interesting and ambitious.. immediately felt that it was stronger/more original than The Beach.. read it a few years ago BUT remember being deeply disappointed by the ending.
So my lasting impression of Alex Garland has always been that he's a really ambitious young writer but without the talent/editing skills to back it up.
Watching '28 Days Later' didn't really change my mind. I thought it was a great premise for a movie.. but, for me, it kind of lost its way towards the end. Watching the ending you do get the feeling that it might turn into a bit of a cult classic.. but not for me, I'm afraid.
Perhaps he's just not my kind of writer.. a bit too fantastical maybe? David Mitchell is much better (and comes across as much more genuine) when he's dealing with pretty far-fetched fantastical ideas. Garland, on the other hand, sounds like he's milking it a bit.
So, that said, I probably won't bother with The Coma.
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