Celluloid (Booking Through Thursday)

Booking Through Thursday:

1. In your opinion, what is the best translation of a book to a movie?
2. The worst?
3. Had you read the book before seeing the movie, and did that make a difference? (Personally, all other things being equal, I usually prefer whichever I was introduced to first.)

And, by all means, expand this to as long a list as you like. I’m notoriously awful myself at narrowing down to one favorite ANYTHING. So, feel free to list as many “good” or “bad” movie-from-books as you like. (Heaven knows that’s what I’ll be doing….)

This is a hard one for me. I'm usually not too thrilled with movies based on books if I have read the book. I'm hard pressed to even remember a movie I've seen in the past few years that has been based on a book (except for the dozen or so films based on the works of Shakespeare). To make matters worse, I watch very few movies.
I guess I'd have to choose "To Kill a Mockingbird" as my favorite film based on a book. Which, is saying a lot because I utterly despise Gregory Peck's voice. Given a choice though, I'd re-read the book before I watched the movie again.

The worst? Well this one is easier. The live action version of Animal Farm. I could not even make it through the entire movie. I don't have the time to list all the faults I had with that film. It made me angrier than any film has a right to.

It makes a great difference If I have read the book prior to seeing the movie. In all cases I have enjoyed the book much more than the film version. More often than not, the film just cannot compare to the images already etched into my brain due to my reading of the book.

A list of not-so-bad movies based on books:
A Clockwork Orange
Frankenstein (the original one, even though it bears no resemblance to Shelley's novel)
Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
Little Women (all)
(Reluctantly) A series of Unfortunate Events
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil


And the bad:
I'm going to try to stay positive.

Tags: booking through thursday