I saw a sneak preview of the new film The Adjustment Bureau, adapted from a Philip K. Dick short story and starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

I thought it was the best of all the PKD adaptations, other than perhaps Blade Runner (which was more a cinematic achievement than an excellent adaptation).

For the first time, a film has capture both the wonder and the whimsy of one of PKD's reality-bending stories. It follows the typical "the world is not as you thought it was when you woke up this morning" theme, and is chock full of PKD paranoia. But it is funny, fun, and engaging.

The thing I noticed most is that this is one for both "him and her," even though it is a SF/fantasy film. I'm not sure if it's too "out there" arty for a general audience, but I recommend you go see it.

Is this similar to that new Twilight Zone episode where the couple "go behind the scenes" of time as the blue man group set up each future moment before it occurs?

Not really. Yes, if similar means "on remotely the same kind of story where there are people in control of things." But no, it doesn't involve workers who build reality between moments. That scene in the commerical that looks that way -- that only happens once, and they have frozen things to do a mental adjustment to somebody. The way the "Adjustment Bureau" operates is through "free will" -- they tip the scales of reasoning from choice A to choice B. They try to do it with subtle acts that don't cause too many "ripples." But occasionally they have to call a "time out" and mess with somebody's thinking to get them to choose a particular course of action.

Gotcha. I'll see it then. I was gonna avoid it like the plague if it was based on that TZ episode. They got me like that with the Box. Never again.

I liked The Box! Well, most of it. I still don't get the library underwater bullshit.

You liked the parts that came from the TZ episode. The rest of it - totally WTF?

Yeah, it looked like a completely different, trippy movie grafted into a perfectly good morality play.

There is a bus for this movie and I'll be driving it well clear of X-Men towards this.

I saw a preview for this awhile ago and while I thought it looked a bit Inception-ish, that wasn't a bad thing. The cast is pretty excellent. It being based on a PKD story, which I didn't realize, is icing.

It was surprisingly funny. Just some of the dialog and acting -- it was a packed house at the preview, and it got laughs in many places. Sort of sophisticated laughs. The characters are very relatable.

There are STILL Philip K. Dick stories that haven't yet been adapted to the screen?

Hah! It does seem like they would have to run out. I have the complete short stories collection, and it's five volumes.

Can you believe this -- he published 33 stories in the year 1953 (his most prolific year), and followed it up with 28 published in 1954. The story that Adjustment Bureau was based on was a 1954 story.

I just found a great quote at a website will looking for that figure above:



In 1952-53, he wrote and sold 67 stories. He was age 24-25. Five of that batch have been adapted for motion pictures.

It's staggering to think of how many great works were written, drawn or created by people in their 20s. Those bastards.