The Memorial Day Weekend Movie Edition
This long holiday weekend is the un-official start of summer …which means movies, movies, movies. I go to the movies almost every weekend (all year long). I love the whole experience, from popcorn and Diet Coke to previews to the end credits.
Rarely am I disappointed because, after all, I enjoyed my popcorn and Diet Coke. However, I noticed a thread on Twitter recently about movies that didn’t do justice to the books that inspired the film versions.
My all-time favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. The movie Simon Birch was based loosely on the novel. It was horrible. I wished I’d never seen it. Blah. Gack. Brrf. Yet, I thought the Harry Potter movies did a fairly good job of keeping the flavor of the books.
I anxiously await the premiere of The Hunger Games movie. I LOVED that series by Suzanne Collins. I have high expectations based on the actors they’ve assembled thus far.
What are your book-to-movie experiences? Any movie really capture a favorite book? Any movie really mess up a favorite book?
So much love for The Lord of the Rings movies. It took me a few tries to read the books but I have happily watched the films over and over. I read Fight Club after seeing the movie and both are pretty evenly matched. I also enjoyed the movie Coraline more than the book and not just because I saw it first. The movie really capitalised on the material, making every moment count. It’s like my gold standard for interesting character introductions and world-building (some of the latter is admittedly due to Gaiman, of course).
– Sophia.