Wow. Um.....hmmmmmmm Well this movie was a success in ripping my heart out and doing one thorough line dance on it. A really great story, and I am sure the novel is even better. This is the kind of tale i would rather read in a novel, over several days....the impact is more founded and deep rooted. It's to much emotion in 2 hours. And with a book, I am more prepared with the turn of each page, overla a day or two. The movie itself was rather annoying at times, the camera was out of focus in various scenes. At one point one of the characters said "leave me alone AIYEEEETTTTT????(i.e. slack-jawed "alright") I don't think they said "Aiyeet" in the 1940s.....i dunno, just a small point of contention, the film wasn't made that well.....nonetheless, it was ok movie, for free. Heavy D rocked his character.....

Heavy D has finally learned to act? This I must see! Did Erykah Badu give as good a performance as Charlize Theron claimed she did?

While we're at it/can you -- or anyone else who's around -- pls. explain Keanu Reeves to me? I just don't get him or his appeal. I liked him in "Private Idaho" but that was way back in, what, 1991? I haven't seen him give a decent performance since. And now he's got a franchise going w/Matrix (which I predict will become the "Die Hard" of this new decade/& they made 4 of those)/in which he was so annoying he might as well have been a CGI. If they're gonna spend millions on FX/why not just use CG actors too? At least you cd get the absolute best performance out of them. *sigh* I really miss Jason Patrick. He was good for understated intensity. But he hardly ever works anymore. And Johnny Depp. Altho' I'm in no rush to see 'Sleepy Hollow'/he always makes interesting, unique choices in the roles he picks.

yes, he did a pretty good job too. He was a very mixed emotional character. You weren't quite sure what to make of him. I admit, Keanu is a ding ding, with a crappy band to boot, but I really really really liked The Matrix....i like the script, his character didn't require that much acting so to speak, but his role was convincing. heavy d did alright. he only had about 5-6 lines, be he did alright.

I read Garp & Hotel New Hampshire. Is Cider House Rules (movie and/or book) as good as the aforementioned books?

yes. it's better, even, in my opinion.

Technically it's better, better literature. Harder reading I think. As I recall, both Garp and Hotel were written when JI was still married, and so much of both derive from a sense of yearning and connectedness; CHR and John's later stuff, I think, come out of a sense of desperate disconnectedness. Only my opinion. All three books could have stopped before they did, esp. Hotel and CHR. The story petered out long before the book ended. Garp was riveting and fresh until the last word. Garp is a wonderful movie, Hotel bombed but I liked it. CHR is long? Dunno. I was around JI when he was writing Garp and Hotel, read many parts of their drafts, listened to John read them aloud, change them. I also saw how he incorporated elements and others' stories from his Bread Loaf early days. So my favorites are Garp and Hotel. The Volvo, the kids scenes, the anger in the movie theatre..these are personal elements I know personally. So I am prejudiced. There's a personal understanding of those two books I don't have with CHR. I read CHR when it first came out, and I was processing my divorce. I got the disconnectedness. I was now sober and I got the addictive messages. But, for my vote there's nothing like Robin Williams in Garp. Irving was the wrestling coach in the few short scenes in the movie; his kids were in the movie. It is closer to the book than the other two I think. After his divorce, and after I stopped going to Bread Loaf, I lost track of the man who would sit up with me drinking David's wild irish rose communion wine, the father and teacher who had removed a fish hook from my arm, impaled while his wife Sheila was driving me down the mountain road in a Volvo with GARP plates, me hitchhiking from Jack Bridgeman's house. But he was a good, gracious, hard mentor in my early days. By the time Hotel surfaced, the bear-thing's novelty had worn off, and slithered into cliched trademark. Jeez, sorry about the length here. -D

I like the perspective, Daniel. In a lot of ways, Cider House Rules is my favorite Irving novel. I think it's also the last one I finished. I never got through Owen Meany, but I did read everything that preceded CHR. I think the freshness of it, the lack of wrestling and bears and the other common threads that run through the earlier novels is a big part of why I liked it best, although on its own, it's a great story. The earlier novels, I really liked the Exeter connections. Having gone to Exeter, I caught a lot of the little references, and was familiar with the settings that Irving was talking about. My dad could actually identify some of the bit characters Irving lampooned in Hotel New Hampshire. Oh, and I do want to see Cider House Rules, if only for the location shots. They filmed a good part of it at the abandonned state mental hospital near my house.

I liked the morality issues in Cider House Rules, but my favorite post-bear-wrestling-Austria book is "A Son of the Circus," story wise. My current favorite flavor is Angelina Jolie. She's Jon Voight's daughter! I have now had lust for two generations. That's wrong, isn't it?

And she got "all" the looks in that gene pool. Her brother (who escorted her to the Golden Globes)is way plain-looking.

Nothing wrong with lust -- generationally or otherwise. Nothing wrong at all.

i wish i had met john irving. he's one of my faves. i loved "son of the circus" too. did anyone read the newest one?

I am glad I did: the Bread Loaf days make great remembrances, and sometimes folks ask, were you really there, meet so and so. I have led a charmed life, and Bread Loaf for three years introduced me to wonderful writers, some famous, some not. I was in the latter category. Some of my peers went on to success, I and others dropped into obscurity. But then again, I was drinking pretty heavily then, and my work was bohemian at best. Much is a blur except for reams of faded paper. Neat thing about meeting someone like an Irving is that his work takes on new meaning. I can't read Marvin Bell without picturing his wife smile, can't read Sula without hearing Toni Morrison laugh. The others like Elkin and Nemerov left deep and lasting impressions, continued because of living in St. Louis. To me they were extra special beings; I was just another student. But everyday folks leave the same kind of lasting impressions, too. If I pay attention, I can feel the mark we all leave on each other. Like Robin Williams affecting the DJ in Fisher King. But I gotta pay attention. Sometimes I remind myself I am very good at that. Sometimes I miss the point all together. Like no what's the newest one?

Beautiful movie and definitely emotion-packed. I loved it. Gonna read the book too -- wish I had read the book first but oh well. The kid who played Homer was excellent.

he's good. he's also in "october skies" and i think he's named homer in that movie, too. but i can't remember. jon looks a bit like him, but skinnier.