a picture is worth a thousand words

so a movie must be worth a lot.

a lot of amazing books have been made into movies, for some, this turned out to be a really really good thing. for others... well.. they might have a fan base, but once they hit the theatres, a lot of the fans were horrifed.

and these are my favorite movies based on books.

the lord of the rings trilogy. these books are beloved world wide, and when the they came to the screen, they were helmed by peter jackson, who was a giant fan. Christopher Lee, who played Sarumon, not only rereads the books every year, but met and was friends with JRR Tolkien, and Peter Jackson happily looked to him for advice. The movies are very true to the books, only differing in a few places. The story is brought to life with love and care and lots of awesome.

Stardust is a sweeping fantasy with a love story, some bite and lots of comedy. The book was written by Neil Gaiman, who is much beloved to me, who has a blog: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/ . Stardust is definitly one of my favorite books by Neil. It starts off in a sleepy little hamlet in England, and then whips over the wall into a world of magic and adventure.

Coraline is a creepy young adult thriller, also written by Neil Gaiman. Coraline is stuck in the country with parents who are too busy working to spend too much time with her. She finds a secret door that leads into the other house, where she has another set of parents, who not only want to spend time with her, but are delighted too. Things are not what they seem in this sinister other world, and soon Coraline is fighting for her life.

The Chronicles of Narnia books are one of my favorite series from when i was little. And when i heard that Disney was joining forces with Walden media to make them into movies, i cried. We went to see the lion the witch and the wardrobe in theatre, but it was sold out so we got stuck with the 4th harry potter movie. When i finally got my hands on the dvd i laughed, cried and cheered my way through the movie. I awaited Prince Caspian like the rabid fangirl that i am. I cheered for casting news, and eagerly waited seeing my favorite character in the verse being brought to life. I giggled and cheer and cried my way through the movie when i finally got to see it. It was well done, and better than i thought it could be. Then disney dropped the ball and cancelled the rest of the movies. I cried. Fox picked up the ball and i cried even more. i am eagerly waiting for dec 10th, when the voyage of the dawn treader will hit theatres.

the princess bride is possibly the best ever movie adapted from a novel. It has been deemed 50th of Bravo's 100 funniest movies, and 22nd of what afi considers the 100 greatest love stories. The movie is a cult classic, and gives life to the story in the best sort of way.

i should mention harry potter here, and the twilight stories. Harry potter brought a reading renaissance to the youth (and adults of the world). The books flew off shelves, and once the movies were made they opened the doors for many other movies. If the harry potter books and movies were not so popular, odds are that the narnia movies would not have been made. People are into fantasy books again, and there are some amazing stories out there. Eventually a lot of them will be movies.

the twilight books are like crack. they are horrible for you, cost money and don't have a lot of substance, but they take you away and give you an escape. Bella is a useless mary sue, and Edward is creepy, stalker-ific and sparkly. they are romantic, if you find a pale dude who is much older than his love interest spending all night watching her sleep. Normally, horror movies have plot points like that. And while these books have vampires and werewolves, they are definitly not the traditional types. but they are fun, and good reads. the movies can be a little train wrecky with robert patternsons acting range being worse than Keanu Reeves, Kristen Stewarts dead eyes, the horrible stunt work and lack luster special effects. But they are popular and you can't argue with popularity*. I should add that in this case, i bash with love, i have the first three books and have seen both the movies. I absolutely can not wait for the last movie, just to see how they deal with the ... more interesting plot points that pop out... er up in breaking dawn.



*well you could, but you'd be wrong.