I have to admit, I've been getting a little bit lazy lately. I'm going to school full time. When I have a job I'm working, and when I don't have a job I'm looking for work. I've been painting in my room. I'm quite involved in my synagogue. And, of course, I try to find time to write here. I don't get much time to read for me. Most of my books lately have been for school (as you might be able to tell by the new "Reading For School" tab I added). Also, I love movies. That being said, when I see a movie preview that looks good, or at the very least interesting, and I see that it is based on a book I start to cringe. If I haven't read the book, I sweat. This is because I don't like to see movies before reading their literary counterparts. However, I know that I won't have time to read that book anytime soon (if at all considering the long list of books that I may want to read before that specific one). Do I risk it and see the movie, or do I safeguard my ideals and wait?
Believe it or not, I can find pros and cons for each side. If the book is one about which I am on the fence, then seeing the movie may sway my decision about reading the book (I know, I'm ashamed). However, the book and movie may be totally different, and the decision I make based on the movie could turn out to be a really bad one. On the other hand, if I wait, I may never know that story. I am a slow reader, so I may never get to it. Also, a bad book may turn me away from a good movie or a good book may turn me on to a bad movie.
It isn't easy being a book AND movie lover. Therefore, I have decided to rate 3 books and their movie counterparts in what I like to call TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE. I will let you know if a movie is worth watching compared to its book counterpart. Don't worry, I've read all of these books. I will tell you if the movie is not as good as the book, as good as the book, or better than the book and why. We start, in no particular order, with:
Okay, so I didn't read every single Sherlock Holmes story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, but I read enough of them to know a few things. First, Holmes was indeed a fighter, so the action wasn't too embellished. Also, Holmes was a social drug user, so casting Robert Downey Jr. gave the character the background it needed. Viewers still had to wait to find out the truth until Holmes decided to reveal it. But two things really sold the movie for me. The first was the few times I got to see his mind in action. Before taking out some bad guy, Holmes would break down what was going to happen blow by blow, showing the viewers the scene in slow motion before rewinding and seeing it play out at regular speed. The other thing that sold the movie for me was the closeness to the book. This especially shined through in the end of the second movie, playing out a scene almost exactly as it is described in the book. Guy Ritchie's directing and Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law's acting make the movies almost (but not quite) as good as the books and well worth seeing. Final decision: TO SEE.
Not many times in my life have I been more angry than when I watched the movie based on Stephen King's novella "The Mist." Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE Stephen King fan. When I first read the story I instantly fell in love. Stephen King created true-to-life characters and put this in a very frightening situation. After reading the story, I got scared every time the weather turned foggy. Then I watched the movie. Originally I was excited because it was directed by Frank Darabount, who directed another movie based on a Stephen King story, "The Green Mile," which was absolutely fabulous. However, the acting was only okay and the effects were quite fake. I was willing to let all of that slide and just enjoy the movie as a guilty pleasure of entertainment. That is, until the end. *Spoiler Alert* Never have I ever walked out on a movie for a reason that wasn't an emergency. At the end of "The Mist," I could bear it no longer and got up and left. I actually felt sick. The end of the novella has a band of survivors driving as far as they can away from the main setting of the story. The reader does not know what happens to them, but does know that they want to live. In the movie, there are five survivors a woman, a man and his son, and an old couple. Feeling like they have no hope of surviving, a gun is drawn. It has four bullets in it. The man shoots the old couple, the woman, and his own son apparently so they don't have to suffer. A hazmat team then comes in and cleans up the mess. It is a sad attempt at an O. Henry type ending that literally made me sick. This movie is nowhere near as good as the novella. Final decision: NOT TO SEE.
I did not know who Philip K. Dick was, let alone know of this short story, until I saw the movie. After finding out that it was originally a story, I bought it and read it. It's not very long, which is the first thing that amazed me. George Nolfi, the director of the movie, was able to take such a succinct story and turn it into a full length movie that doesn't bore the audience to death. The short story makes an allusion to a supreme being constantly changing people's lives while the movie uses agents of fate. The allusion is still there, but only as an afterthought rather than the point of the story. The agents of fate keep referring to someone as The Chairman, leading viewers to believe it is supposed to be a heavenly figure. The fact that the movie makes you think twice about labelling The Chairman is one of the improvements it makes on the story. The other big one, besides giving more depth to the characters, is that the agents of fate explain their story a lot better while still allowing the viewer enough room to ponder. Dick's "The Adjustment Team" was a good story, but if I never knew it existed and only saw the movie I would be just fine. The movie was much better than the book. Final decision: TO SEE.
These are just a few examples of all the different directions movies can take from books. I would never substitute a good movie for even a mediocre book, but it's nice to know that some people won't make me have to choose.
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