The second film adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, Choke stars Sam Rockwell, Angelica Huston, and Kelly MacDonald.
Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. Victor grew up while going from one foster home to another. Victor's mother was found to be unfit to raise Victor. Several times throughout his childhood his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents. They would eventually be caught and he would again be remanded over to the government child welfare agency.
In the present day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his mother who is now in a nursing home. He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man. His "con" is to go to restaurants and midway through his meal, he forces himself to choke on his food, luring a "good Samaritan" into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they give him money, send him cards and letters asking him about how he's doing, and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills.
While growing up, Victor's mother taught him numerous conspiracy theories and obscure medical facts which both confused and frightened him. It is because of this and his constant moves from one home to another that has left Victor unable to form lasting and stable relationships with women. Victor therefore finds himself getting sexual gratification from women in sexual addiction support groups.
I loved Fight Club. I can't wait to see this. Sam Rockwell, most recognized as Wild Bill from The Green Mile, is a good actor, in my opinion.
I read the book and thought it was good. I'm looking forward to seeing this on screen. I would have preffered Survivor from the Palahniuk novels as a movie.
I read the book about six months ago or so and enjoyed it a lot.
The other day, I saw the trailer for this movie and for some reason, it seems like it'll be a lot worse than the book in my opinion. Fight Club was a perfect adaption, everything was right; directing, acting, tone, etc. Now, I can't judge everything from the trailer, but from what I saw, I wasn't all that impressed with the way things looked. The actors seemed... wrong to me.
Anyway, I just got a negative vibe from the trailer, but I'm not losing all hope just yet. I'll definitely go see it with an open mind and let you all know what I thought of it at that point.
I loved Choke, and I'm mostly figuring that the movie won't be as vile and "out there" as the novel. Which is unfortunate, since Palahniuk is all about shock, awe and disgust. I just don't think that Hollywood is going to allow such a raunchy book to be translated on the screen with as much....what's the word here?
Gender: Unspecified Location: The Arena of Unwell.
They said that about Fight Club.
Fincher said that the biggest shock about that movie is that it even got made. I don't think the censorship associations "got" what it was saying by the time it was out.
KMC Community Forums
Jun 13th, 2008 09:37 PM
