Screen Test: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller, 2013)

We finally broke free from short stories and dove into film, actually, two versions of the same film. The central question: how do you transform a 5-page story into a two-hour movie? We dug into what has to fundamentally change when you adapt a short story for screen, what a visual medium can do that prose simply can't, and whether these adaptations justified their existence beyond just "we liked the story." The film was beautiful—we said it repeatedly, because it actually was—and surprising in ways that took the story to another level entirely. We also spiraled into anxieties about AI and whether we're all just becoming Walter Mittys—fantasizing about doing things instead of actually getting out there and doing them.

Worth staying up after bedtime? Absolutely!

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Next episode:
"Such a Pretty Day" by Dawn Powell (1939) 

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