Book v. Movie

8/1/2011

The book is always better than the movie, right? Except when it isn't. The first example that comes to mind is Roald Dahl's The Witches. (FYI, this DVD is $4.99 on Amazon right now (8/1/11)) Frankly, if you haven't seen that movie you are insane. It scared the crap out of me as a child and if we are in the Cone of Silence right now, it still kind of gives me the creeps. I'll need to go back and reread the book to confirm my suspicions but I'm standing on the movie side of the scale right now with loads of preconceived notions and about 20 pounds of bricks. The book will really have to wow me to make me change my mind. Watch this and tell me I'm wrong:

So, I'm going to start doing a biweekly "Book v. Movie" battle. I'd love anyone else to join me, if any other bloggers/readers/movielovers/androids are interested. (What's that you say? I only know like 20 bloggers total? SHUT YOUR FACE. I will lure them to me...PUNCH AND PIE.) The Witches will be my first but certainly not my last.

I put it to you--what are your favorite book to movie translations? Horrible ones? Ones you want to see me analyze into the ground? (and by analyze I mostly mean making unrelated comments and following every tangent I go off on until I decide I'm bored of writing and just stop.) There's a list here of yearly books into movies. Can't Hollywood come up with anything original? That's not to say that I'm not dying to see The Hunger Games when it comes out. Who the hell isn't excited for that?

4 Comments

Nic @ Irresisitble Reads

8/1/2011 05:15:13 pm

Sounds like a great idea Flannery. Although I don't watch many movies or TV I am afraid to say. As a Nora Roberts fan did you ever see those tele-movie adaptions? They are bad!

Nomes link

8/1/2011 07:13:00 pm

oh i love this idea!

'never let me go' finally came out on dvd this week in Aus and i am so pumped for it (i loved the book) hope the movie is as good.

have you read our aussie 'tomorrow when the war began?' the movie recently came out and was really good (well, for an aussie movie, haha). books was better, but i still loved it and felt incredibly nostalgic about the characters :)

Flannery (The Readventurer) link

8/2/2011 04:41:40 pm

@Nic--YES, I've seen them all:) I actually enjoyed Montana Sky but I thought the rest of them were mostly ridiculous. The worst of the worst was Tribute--Brittany Murphy and whatever that guy's name who was Smith on Sex and the City? Were they kidding me? Horrible casting.

@Nomes--I saw Never Let Me Go in the theater. I thought it really showed the reasons that the book frustrated me. (What is Cathy DOING all the time?) I am pumped to read the whole Marsden series but I haven't yet. I definitely want to see that movie, though.

Let me know if either of you want to do a comparison:) When I do my first one, I'll make a linkup.