Saturday, July 12, 2014

30 Day Book Challenge! Day 10: Off to the Movies!

I love the northwest. I really do think it's one of the prettiest places on earth. Driving home this evening, I could not help but pull over to snap a snippet of our vivid sunset sky...



They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so there are two thousand detailing how beautiful this corner of the world is. And since we're speaking of pictures vs words...

Day 10: Name five absolutely great film adaptations of books.

Today's challenge is certainly...well, challenging. I'm not sure I know of 5 whole movies that didn't let their books down, but we'll fudge a little here, and stretch a little there, and I'm sure you'll forgive me if I make a poor judgement call. Who can name five??

1. Pride and Prejudice
Our life holds few distinctions, but I think we may safely boast that here is an exemplary book-turned-movie.

2. Felicity
Especially for combining 7 books, I thought American Girl did a wonderful job transposing the sweet story of colonial girl, Felicity, into a movie.

3. Tintin
While I would at times contend as to whether comic books count as proper "books," my need to reach a listing of five in this post tips the argument in favor of the comics. Tintin was wonderfully done. While again combining several "books" into one story, the movie stayed so true to the characters that one really felt as though she was meeting them right off the page.

4.
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...and here's where it all begins to get rather sticky. Having been cursed with extreme picky-ness, I'm just not sure I know of other movies that I would call "absolutely great" adaptations. BBC has done fairy well with Dickens, so I suppose (although, of necessity, so much was left out that it's rather hard for me to acknowledge) that Bleak House could qualify for this list...
That is to say, the actors all portrayed their booklical characters wonderfully, with the exception of Mr. Tulkinghorn who was made quite a bit more sinister for the screenplay. (Nevertheless, he played his part well.)

5. And now I am in trouble. Master and Commander, as I've mentioned before, is much better as a movie than as a book. However, that renders it rather a poor adaptation. I could say the Hobbit movies are wonderful, but I have it on good authority from people who have actually read the book that they are not anywhere near as good as the book. (I like them because they spare me the trouble of reading the books, as I am overwhelmed at the thought of having to read the book, all the background books, figure out all the languages, etc...I simply can't spare that kind of reading time!).

Thus, number 5 is for you, readers! What is a book you think was fabulously transformed for the screen?

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