Looking at my calendar I noticed that it's September. September! Yeah!
Don't get me wrong. Summer can be awesome. In my neck of the woods it means insanely high temperatures, the ritualistic burning of my fair skin, and a dryness that will suck every drop of moisture from your body. Oh but I digress.
For me the fall season means that my two passions collide: movies and books. Traditionally high class movie adaptations appear in the fall so that they can be released as award-bait. Hollywood's cynical calculation is my gain as I get excited seeing what's coming up. I will always support movie-adaptations of books because it does drive people to check out the
original source material. Whether the movie is good or bad, readers will be naturally drawn to the original which is a great thing. Anything that leads to more reading by our civilization is a beneficial act.Case in point: Recently I was motivated to finally read Never Let Me Go because I saw the trailer for the upcoming film. I ended up loving this book and now I'm even more psyched for the movie. (read my review here) Now it's completely plausible that this book may have sat on my TBR pile for another 5 years if this movie adaptation didn't happen. Sometimes it takes the simplest of reasons for one book to push to the top.
As I've written before I'm not a purist. I don't expect movies and books to be the same. I'll save that for BBC. I actually expect a screenwriter and director to bring their own style/interpretation to the material. We've all seen Pride and Prejudice a billion times. Same goes for Jane Eyre. I don't want to see what I've seen already. In some strange cases the movie is better than the book. It does happen every once and awhile. I've felt that the Swedish movie adaptations of Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy have been phenomenal. However I also feel that the streamlining of the plot elevates the material. Larsson's books sometimes suffer due to too much detail and not enough editing. The movies increase the action and tension but cuts down on some of the tedious details that I don't care about. If you get the chance to check out the Swedish movie versions I highly reccommend them based on Noomi Rapace's performance alone.
Anyway here's three book to movie adaptations coming out this year (along with the aforementioned Never Let Me Go) that I am now compelled to read the book based on the trailers that I have seen:
*Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich. This is the original source material for the film The Social Network.
*The Adjustment Bureau by Philip K. Dick.
*Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. This is the original source material for the film The Town.
Look for these reviews in the future. (Well Maybe...) Have a great mid-week! Book Slave.
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