Too often I think people miss the real bittersweet beauty of Gibson's stories. They get side-tracked by the technology, and some of the concepts, like cyberspace. The detail of knurled stainless-steel knobs and machine oil. The glitz of Japanese neon and Ono-Sendai. I like those things too. Especially the attention to fashion, what people're wearing. The attention to brands and objects. Nothing illustrates this more than the current Pattern Recognition. A couple of ideas really filled me with awe. One was the idea that an alien intelligence from (was it?) Alpha Centauri could communicate with the Wintermute/Neuromancer AI entity. And the other the Cornell box maker. The idea of "The Footage" feels that way too.

But what really resonates for me are the characters and the sense of desolation, loss, hopelessness, desperation, obsession, and in some cases sheer poverty they live under. Case and his suicidal biz. Armitage and his post traumatic betrayal and insanity. Turner, like a Le Carre spy, no one to trust, itinerant almost with his lost of home and identity. Slick Henry. Mona Lisa. Marly Krushkhova.

This is why I dread Hollywood films of his work. I haven't seen Johnny Mnemonic and that two by four Keanu Reeves. I know Hollywood's going to focus on the flash. Gotta use that morphing software! Too much CG, and "action". While action, and technology move the plot forward, for me it's the people in the stories that I find moving.

What I wouldn't give for the budget and the resources to make one of Gibson's novels into a film. It'd be tough to cast, trying to find actors that could evoke the characters. Wouldn't need to me all that expensive either, most of the budget going into casting. Think Gattaca.

Very few films that I've ever seen could approach the quality I'm thinking of. Think of Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer too. Think of the British film Nineteen Eighty-Four (http://us.imdb.com/M/title-exact?Nineteen+Eighty-Four+(1984)).

out of curiosity, have you seen the film version of new rose hotel?

it's not bad. the ending kinda feels like they ran out of money for film so they kind of show you the same footage over and over for the last half hour or so (it kind of works considering the original story is all flashback, but on-screen it gets a bit repetitive).

i mention it because willem defoe does a decent job as the main character (who i've always identified as being Turner, though a quick skim through the story hasn't shown me any explicit confirmation).

btw:

directed by abel ferrara
christopher walken as fox

New Rose Hotel ain't bad. You gotta admire the somewhat disjointed style, the lack of concrete narrative, the acting. More or less blows Johnny Mnemonic away. Which gets back to the acting.

Color me curious. Though seems like I might have heard about this, maybe seen some "footage", heh. But Willem Dafoe & Christopher Walken are certainly fine actors that I actually like. Though neither of you enthusiastically recommend it. Blowing away a film with Keanu Reeves isn't what I'd call a tour de force. But it sounds at least worth looking at.

It's probably worth seeing, though I was somewhat disappointed, overall. I don't know. Seemed to me to be an excuse for defoe et al to drape themselves in naked girls. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't tits.

...was Walken's portrayal of Fox. A dancing-prancing schemer, with just the right dose of pathos. Just like most of his performances (btw, seen the "Weapon of Choice" music video, starring Walken literally dancing in the walls? To me, it feels like an extension to the movie...).

New Rose motel is one of the slowest movies to watch.

It takes days to absorb and realize what is great about it.

Go back and read the short story. You'll find the film actually captures the paranoia that runs rampent in the book. It also cleaverly indicates through this great paranoia that there may actually be nobody after them. There are no signs of evil villans or big-brothers. We get Defoe and Walken manic and worried but we see no more.

I always saw Hideo being played by John Lone, he played Kinjo in "The Hunted" 1995,
Christopher Lambert as Conroy, Kirsten Dunst as Angie, Tobey Maguire as Bobby, Angelina Jolie as 3Jane, and Dolph Lundgren as Armitage.

The coolest thing about New Rose is the box. Painfully slow and overwrought.

You won't understand the film unless you read the story before or after. Only then will it's brilliance shine through.