b) Adaptation was directed by Spike Jonze and is a film about the process of writing a film and the main character, Charlie Kaufman, is the fictionalized version of the screenwriter of the movie. He is tasked with adapting a book about flowers but then suffers from writer's block. While he's reading the book that he needs to adapt it shows the story of the author going to Florida to interview the man the book is about. Kaufman's brother in the film lives with him and is attempting to write a screenplay as well but with all the Hollywood conventions that Charlie hates.
c) I saw it on Vudu because I bought it a while ago.
d) I think it's the main premise of the film in that it's written by Charlie Kaufman and the main character is Charlie Kaufman and the script he is writing is exactly what is happening in the film. At one point Charlie goes to a screenwriting seminar and is neurotically narrating all his perceived inadequacies, then the film abruptly cuts to the presenter saying that narration is the worst tool that a hack screenwriter can use to "tell" instead of "showing".
e) I think what made him so popular is the amazing amount of dangerous stunts he did. Also, he always plays helpless and naive characters that you could really empathize with which is helped by his face for which he is famously referred to as "The Great Stone Face".
f) I think Sherlock Jr. and The Purple Rose of Cairo are pretty similar in what it portrays in the meanings of film experiences. In Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton's character works as a projectionist at a local movie house and fantasizes about being the greatest detective in the world in a film. That is what a lot of films aspire to do, I believe. His character imagines himself in the role of the main character of the film which is really postmodern and ahead of its time. The Purple Rose of Cairo does that a little bit toward the end but for most of the film Mia Farrow's character uses films as a way to escape the hopelessness and inadequacies of real life. There's a hilarious line in the film where she says, "I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional but you can't have everything." That line speaks to one the themes of the film which is that people fantasize about characters in film but they aren't real and don't resemble real people. One of the characters from a film she loves leaves the film and comes into the real world and a lot of the comedy comes from his interactions and discoveries of the real world. Every time he talks about how something should happen like they do in films then Mia Farrow shoots him down by saying that in the real world everything doesn't work out perfectly.
Adaptation is different from those films because it is actually about the process of making a film. The main character's inadequacies in life crossover into his writing and he suffers from writer's block because he doesn't want his script to be a conventional Hollywood movie. The direction he wants to take the script is something he doesn't believe will be successful because he thinks he's so inadequate in everything he does. His job is to write films but he's trying to adapt a book, him and the author of the book can't find something to be passionate about and the only way he actually becomes passionate about the script is inserting himself into the script which he then calls "self-indulgent."
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