i passed time on the plane to and from madrid
reading

seabiscuit the book

in anticipation of seeing
seabiscuit the movie

, which kris and i saw today. although it’s always dangerous to see
a movie with the book so fresh in your mind, i still thought the
movie was good – but not great. it will be interesting to see how
it plays to the general public. our theatre was packed to capacity
and filled with exuberent patrons, but one got the impression that
they were all there to see how the movie and book compared.

as usual many liberties were taken with the original text to help
the story move along quickly, while obliterating many of the
nuances of the story. most of the decisions are understandable,
given the fact that nobody comes to a summer move to see a
fact-filled documentary; however, at times you can’t help feel the
pain of being bludgeoned with obviousness. yessir, all anybody ever
needs is a second chance. but hey, it’s summer and you can’t blame
them too much. interestingly, they decided to leave out any mention
of the imposts, or weights, that seabiscuit was forced to run with.
it would have seemed to add a good deal to the impressiveness of
the horse’s accomplishments to understand that he was often
obliterating track records and opponents while carrying 20 pounds
or more than the rest of the field. hi. ho.

regardless of a few minor flaws, if you want to see a good movie
that’s just a touch heavy-handed with emotion manipulation, but
doesn’t have one explosion or car chase, then go see
seabiscuit

.