30 Days of Film: Lou's Day 19

| by Lou | 10.45pm UK time |

Favourite film based on a book/comic/etc

Shit man, I dunno!! It pretty much feels like everything is based on something these days, and so often I clock them when they suck (The Lovely Bones, I'm talking to you), rather than when they rule. But there are a few notable examples for me of films that I feel have done their source material justice, and then some.

First and foremost, the biggest and best of them all. The trilogy that made the impossible possible and turned me nerdier than I ever dreamed, all made in our backyard:

The Lord of the Rings



The Hobbits! I love you! Well, most of you. Sam, you're blurred for a reason.




Aragorn! Boromir! I love you. You gave us the best death scene - the best.




But Gandalf. Oh Gandalf. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Fucking aye.


I don't care how much they have gathered scorn in their years since release, I think they are perfection and I will spend the rest of my life reliving them over and over again. (I'm limiting it to a splurge on the whole extended trilogy once every two years, just to keep them on their pedastal.)


An adaptation in an entirely different genre that I absolutely love is:

Atonement

They had me at C U N T.

Click here for the animated gif!

It is the one film in which I can abide Keira Knightley's presence, and isn't James McAvoy just the bestest? He is Sweetie McSweet, and yet when they have that shag in the library it is so fucking HOT.




I have to confess that I saw the film before I had read the book. I loved it, but felt like something was missing. So I read the book, and my god! It is a work of genius! And after reading it the film became perfect. And I cried - cried and cried and cried - at the tragic heart of it, embodied in its smallest moment: when Robbie and Cecelia meet for a cup of tea. Fuck! How many war-time love stories ended with just such a scene? Gah!



This second-viewing of Atonement gave me a rule that is now set in stone:

READ THE BOOK FIRST