Giveaway is closed! And #20 — Dora — is the winner! I’ll email you Dora!
The other day on Facebook, Julie asked what we thought about the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, if we’d seen the movie and how the two compare. I loved Extremely Loud, the book, a quirky and touching adventure embarked upon by nine-year-old Oskar, who lost his father on 9/11 and sets out to learn more about him. I imagined the movie wouldn’t be as good, because that’s just how it goes. The movies so seldom stand up to the stories they’re based on, in my experience anyway.
I have very few exceptions to this rule. I found Angela’s Ashes to be an apt film version and just as gritty, lushly layered and wryly humorous as the book, and the same with the Kite Runner, which made visual the often soul-rending scenes I drew in my head while reading, and finally, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 brought the words off the page and marched them straight into my imagination forever. I even re-read the book after I saw the movie, because I didn’t want any of what it did to my brain to end.
So for this PROMPTuesday, I’d love to know what you think. You can write this as a review or just a few lines, but: What movie adaption stood up to the awesomeness of the book version?
Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.
First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here. Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.
Answering also enters you, should you so desire, into the drawing for a journal giveaway from Paperblanks. Pick from here or here if you win. I’d love to give you one of these to get you writing (or finishing) your own book (or God bless you, movie). This is the one I selected:
I’ll take entries through Friday for this one, and select a random winner!
Because we all have words to spill onto pages…
The Help.
(Golly but I’m pithy these days.)
I enjoyed the film adaptation of Atonement. I think I annoyed my husband though because I kept anticipating what would happen next in the film.
I’ve been happy with most of the Harry Potter movies and I have high, high hopes for the Hunger Games!
I also love the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
Here is my submission: http://www.beyondthebandaids.com/2012/03/promptuesday-at-san-diego-momma-books.html
Thanks for the great Prompt and GIVEAWAY! *crossing fingers*
There’s been a few, but I’m going to go with “Silence of the Lambs.” I worked at a theatre at the time, and we’d all passed the book around and loved it, so there was much anticipation when the movie came out. Our boss, who’d also read the book, let us have an after-hours staff screening and I think the entire staff held its collective breath waiting for Jame Gumb. (This was before the Internet and spoilers) Anthony Hopkins was so perfect. Jody Foster was great. It’s hard to judge the movie in hindsight because it’s so iconic, but at that time, in 1991, it restored my faith in movie adaptations, at least for a little while.
Love this! I think Harry potter did well as did “Because of Winn Dixie.” (Good lord I love that one!)
xo
Movie adaptions can be so tough! I loved “Age of Innocence” – both the book & the movie. “Hugo” – thought the movie was incredible (I cried) and loved the book too, although the movie took some turns away from the story. “War Horse,” on the other hand … loved the book but felt the movie plodded along.
I can’t seem to remember enough movies that did justice to the books. Perhaps there weren’t any others than the one that comes to mind; mostly it’s because I refuse to go and see them, convinced that they will never live up to the book for me.
The one I am nominating is The Girl Who Played with Fire – the Swedish version. I haven’t seen the US version and I don’t think I need to. The original version was done so well, so darkly, so perfectly bleak with the right Swedish light and spare acting. I think I saw the movie because I can’t bear to think there are no more Stieg Larsson books and I wanted to savor another moment with his characters. I ended up being glad I did, because the movie did the book credit.
And I really, really want one of those journals!
Schindler’s List…I still have no words for how it impacted me, after having read the book, to see it on the big screen…I still get chills.
I loved The Godfather Parts I and II movies better than the book.
(Obviously III was crap.)
I’m going to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games on the 23rd, so my next post I’ll write about this VERY topic and return the shout out.
Thanks, lovely friend. For the inspiration and everything else.
As a general rule i don’t watch a movie if i have read the book. since i prefer the version my mind creates to that some stranger interprets i avoid what are almost always atrocities. i do have to say i thoroughly enjoyed Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes so much i re-read the oldie but goodie. only this time i imagined RDJr as Sherlock Holmes and Jude law as Watson. The movie lord of the flies was pretty adapt if i remember correctly. I’ve not read nor reviewed any if the Harry
potter books or movies nor the Twilight.Series so i cant comment on those.
This is a good prompTuesday cuz now i will know which ones are ok to watch!! :)
I too loved the godfather adaption!
Everything is Illuminated is a book I loved but a movie I could watch over and over.
On the other hand, The Count of Monte Cristo was a disaster on film – Hollywood completely destroyed the moral of the tale (revenge is not, in fact, sweet).
after re-reading my previous post I’ve decided to shy away from my virtual friends’ blogs while visiting with Ambien. lol. In other news… PICK ME PICK ME!! hahahaha!! ;)
I thought they did an excellent job of combining two books in “Julia & Julia:” Julia Child’s memoir of her time in Paris, and Julie Powells book (same name as the movie.) I didn’t love the Julie Powell book, but loved the way it was handled in the movie. It’s a great writer’s movie too, as both women are shown struggling to publish their books.
And Helloooo, Deb, I haven’t been over to your blog or commenting here in a good long while! I’ve missed you!
I thought Water For Elephants was even better as a movie than a book. Don’t get me wrong, the book was beautiful, but there was just something so amazing about seeing the old time circus come to life on film that was more satisfying to my imagination.
The book/movie adaptation that I continue coming back to is “Of Mice and Men”. Specifically, the John Malkovich/Gary Sinise movie version. It gets me wet around the eyes every time! The duality of loving care/strife and a struggle towards Lennie felt by George in the book is not quite captured on film (some internal dialogue akin to narration might have helped) but the story line is second to none. Malkovich knocked his performance so far out of park … for me … that I am surprised at the Cannes Film Festival for nominating Sinise over him. I will definitely only watch this movie or read this book with certain people or in a positive mindset because it is one of those story lines with a lot of value but also loads of anguish.
Dude – Gone With The Wind. The End
I think I’m the only person alive who thinks this, but I LOVED the movie version of Emma that had Gwyneth Paltrow in it. And both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility came alive on the screen for me.
I’m a fairly new reader of your blog, but I have to say that one of my favorite movie adaptations of a book is “What Dreams May Come”. While the movie is slightly different from the book, I found that the intensity of the emotions where kept intact. Both the reader of the book and the viewer of the movie get to experience the full impact of the love, loss, and restoration of those relationships. And now I have to go find my copy of the book to read it again.
“Shawshank Redemption”