| by Bel | 9.51pm NZ time |

Favourite film based on a book/comic/etc

Everything Is Illuminated

Plenty of people would disagree that this film is a good adaptation of the book. I know what they mean. A whole third of the book's interwoven plot is completely ignored. The devasting final reveal is completely flipped. The undercurrents of Jonathan and Alex's correspondence is glossed over.

And yet I would still argue that it is an entertaining and engaging film in its own right.

So much of this is thanks to wonderful performances which bring the quirky characters fully to life.

And the script takes the best of the book's writing for hilariously quotable dialogue:

Unlike most adaptations where I would argue the book must be read first (The Beach is a great film but it makes so much more sense if you've read the novel), I think you can safely read Everything Is Illuminated after having seen the movie without denegrating the experience of enjoying the story on the page.

| by Bel | 3.12pm NZ time |

A film that disappointed you the most

I hated the ending of Coraline. SPOILERS AHOY (duhh).

 The book, and graphic novel, of Coraline is a great read, if a little scary for younger kids. Neil Gaiman has a knack for children's books which push at the boundaries of what parents are comfortable with.

The film version is pretty good, if you don't mind the strange puppetry style. But what really bugged me was the introduction of Wybie, the boy living next door. He's not in the book at all but is a key player in the film.

Neil Gaiman has responded in interviews by saying that the creation of a completely new character was an essential cinematic device. In the book version, Coraline is alone but the reader has access to her thoughts. They needed somebody for her to speak to in the film to avoid dominating the scenes with voice-over or clunky exposition.

Ok, sure. But sheesh - did they have to also write in a boy-saves-the-day moment in the film's climatic scene??

Coraline, who has managed to think for herself and risk all sorts of dangers throughout the story, is rescued by Wybie at a crucial final moment of the film. I feel that it would have been far more satisfying, and true to Coraline's character, if she had been able to extricate herself. Instead, Wybie's arc is completed by his managing to stop everything from plummeting into disaster when Coraline can't.

MESSAGE: Don't worry, as long as there's a boy around, all will be well!

Sigh.

This was also my first - and only - experience of watching a 3D DVD at home. It was awful. We re-started the film in normal 2D after only a few minutes. Gahhh.

| Posted by Bel | The time is 12.31pm here in Wellington NZ |

Dear Baz:

(I can call you 'Baz', right? I mean, um, I don't even know what to call you for long, so I'm gonna have to.)

I like you, Baz, I do. I have liked you for a long time. I saw your film Strictly Ballroom at the cinema when I was a wee girl of 10 years old and got told off immediately afterwards for attempting to flamenco dance in my bedroom, waking my younger brother up in the process.

When Romeo + Juliet was released, I was at a tender age. Nerdy enough to love the original text, teenagey enough to love the sexed-up modernisation. I bought the poster, I bought the CD soundtrack, I bought the other CD soundtrack. I put my hair in a deliberately nonchalant half-up style and wished more boys in my town wrote poetry in beautiful natural light on the beachfront (instead, they were more the menacing-cigarette-in-a-gas-station type).

In my first year of university, just as I was a public relations student realising that I was actually a film theory student, you unleashed Moulin Rouge. It was only 18 months since I had last been in Paris. You transported me back and you added a whirlwind of drama and glamour which included the most beautiful dress to bless the silver screen until that green frock in Atonement.

Then you made a film called Australia. I remember being aghast when I saw the trailer. I think I may've actually shuddered at that bit when Kidman's face, as smooth and luminescent as a traditionally iced wedding cake, peered down at the dark skinned child huddled in a hovel which managed to scream simultaneously "poverty!" and "fabulously decorated by the one and only Catherine Martin!".

I'd heard that you'd been working on operatic stage performances, Baz, a move which seemed both inspired and completely logical. I decided to ignore this cinematic misstep, much in the way we pretend that Guy Ritchie's Madonna film didn't happen, or how we must block out the fact that Elizabeth Moss is a grand ole crazy Scientologist and just focus on how wonderful and perfect she is as Peggy.

Last year there were rumours you had a new project on the boil. The Great Gatsby was going to be remade and you were the man to do it. I watched the film not so long ago and thought that its themes of the indolent upper classes and the slow rot of wealth were still timely - I could see Joseph Gordon Levitt making a great Nick Carraway (the narrator).

Next thing we heard, you'd cast our old friend Leo in the title role - a part made famous by Robert Redford, if not emblazoned in minds by the original F Scott Fitzgerald novel. Then the glorious news that it was to be Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan.

But now - I hesitate. Oh Baz. Just when it seemed that things were going so right, it all seems that things could go horribly, horribly wrong.

Baz, listen - honey.

Please don't do this.

Just don't.

Resist the urge.

I know how it is. You're away for the weekend, you're in Vegas, you're hanging out with Michael "Blow Shit Up" Mann and Oliver "Throw Money At It" Stone and you get a bit carried away. It happens!

You do things you wouldn't usually, you say things you don't mean. Nobody's going to hold you to it, sweetheart.

I always feel a bit woozy after wearing 3D glasses for a couple of hours. Was that it? Did you have to trial new fancy ones? Was James "More! More! MOOOOORE!" Cameron there? I can't imagine he'd be a good influence. Did something weird happen like that scene in The Hangover when Mike Tyson starts singing and you start thinking he's kind of funny and adorbs and forget he's actually a convicted rapist? Vegas is a crazy place, I hear.

Anyway, hopefully you're home now and have had a bit of time to think it through over a cool can of Fosters and have moved on from the whole folly.

If so, cheers! and good luck with the script and that whole shooting business. Let me know if you need any consultation on cloche hats (they're a personal fave).

If not, well.... *shakes fist*

Love, your fan,

Bel xxx

| Posted by Bel | The time is 12.33pm here in Wellington NZ |


First up, has anyone else been saying "Deadly" Hallows this whole time, or was it just me? How embarrassment.

Second up, preemptive SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't finishing reading all of the last book yet, then what are you doing wasting your time here??

Me and three other adults excitedly went along with our token 10 year old to Wellington's best cinema (yes, The Embassy) on a sunny Saturday afternoon to see Harry Potter and the Deadly Deathly Hallows.

The films have definitely gotten bigger and better as they've gone along. Just as the storylines have darkened and the characters grown older, the films have managed to balance keeping pace with the fact that their audience is predominantly children who need to be able to actually view the content. However I do think this film was a bit much for the 7 year old sitting next to me, who was more interested in distracting herself by swinging her feet during the scary bits than being careful about not kicking the nice lady in the chair right by her.

The biggest joy is that the lead trio seem to actually be able to act this time round. Hermione was so painful in those early films, and Ron only enjoyable because you assume he is supposed to be a complete ham. But the kids have all grown up and so has their talent. The dialogue of the script lets them down frequently, but the chemistry is natural and perhaps what we're seeing is their real friendships shining through.

Freed from the confines of Hogwarts, this installment is much more action-packed. The chapters which dragged in the book, where our intrepid heroes do some camping, some bickering, some more camping and then a bit more annoying teenaged bickering, are dealt with in a decidedly better way in the film. I.e. Nick Cave dance sequence.


Though it does suffer from a touch of the LOTRs (jewellery that gives you the grumps? ummm deja vu, anyone?), it's the wonderful magic tricks that makes us love the Harry Potter franchise that makes up for it. People disapperate at a rapid rate, everything and anything is accio-ed, potions are flung over wounds for instant healing. Oh and my favourite, the TARDIS-like tent. I could actually get into camping if that thing was real.

My big disappointment was in not seeing enough of the characters that we've grown to love thanks to the film adaptations. Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood has been gold, and we barely got a glimpse of her and her perfectly on-trend jumpsuit, while the stunt casting of Rhys Ifans as her father seemed to be on the screen for hours. (Does anyone else recall the book stating that Xenophilius Lovegood was known for being weirdly over tanned? No? Me neither. Harrrumphf.)

The biggest scandal even than Neville Longbottom turning out pretty hot in real life or Emma Watson's post-shoot cropping of her previously contractually protected locks has been the ripping off of an Alexander McQueen design for the wedding scene.

Perhaps Fleur Delacour (or rather, costume designer Jany Temime) couldn't magic up herself any originality?

And scandalous also was the deviation from the sacred tome itself, which states that Hermione wore lilac to Fleur and Bill's wedding. Instead in the film she shows up in this number:

Shocking hot red colour? Gorgeous detailing? A-line skirt? Flattering length? Sexy neckline? Sensible shoulder straps? Yep, Lou and I will have one each, thanks. Plus that nifty clutch purse with the Undectable Extension Charm wouldn't go amiss either. Hand it over and all is forgiven for not following the book letter and line!!

| Posted by Bel | The time is 10.22am here in Wellington NZ |

This looks meeeeean!

I am a fan of Jane Eyre, the book by Charlotte Bronte, and Jane Eyre, the character, having Lou compell me to read it. I'd read Wuthering Heights (written by Emily Bronte, Charlotte's sister) and filed it under "L" for lame and assumed Jane Eyre was more of the same. This was around the same time I made failed attempts to get into Austen, causing a near unrecoverable rift in our friendship.

The book is written in the first person and Jane becomes a friend that you rally alongside, even as you are aware of the fate that lies ahead. (Because SPOILER: a lot of this book's plot is already out there in popular culture and in people's blog headlines and so on.) It's a great story of being caught deciding between the nice guy and the bad boy and about kicking your way up from the bottom, even when no one is expecting that of you.

The film has a great team behind it (Sin Nombre meets Tamara Drewe? Um, yes please!) and, from the trailer, appears to be going with the angle that Jane is a smart wee upstart, rather than a swooning love interest.

So now we just have to wait til MARCH 2011 to see it! Man, and you thought that week until Harry Potter 7 was out was going to be bad!

Posted by Bel. The time is 4.23pm here in Wellington, NZ.


You know what? I had half-written a rather level headed review of Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. I acknowledged the fractious process of adaptation and the importance of regarding a story within its own medium. But you know what? No. Not even.

The Lovely Bones sucks. It's a sucky movie, made worse because it is a sucky adaptation of a pretty great book.

It doesn't know if it's a crime thriller or a teen fantasy or some kind of melodramatic family drama. The script neglects key themes of the original novel, leaving you with characters who do inexplicable things or who are inexplicably boring.

Hence, it's filled with tedious performances, whilst you only get glimpses of star turns. Yes, I mean you, o wonderous and photogenic Saoirse Ronan, and you, o joyous scene-stealer Susan Sarandon - thank the computer generated heavens. You two did what you could - but it would never be enough to save this film from a terrible fate: mediocrity.

Clockwise: 1) Teenage fantasy romance scene: Susie loves being in The Inbetween and doesn't give a crap about her grieving family.
2) Family drama crime thriller scene: Susie's dad, Susie's dad's wig and Susie's mum grieve very much for their daughter, whilst not doing much each occasionally asking the useless community police constable if there's been any clues. (Spoiler: no!)
3) Fantasy crime thriller scene: Susie's dad freaks out a bit when Susie tries to communicate with him and also he sees his reflection.
4) Fantasy Weta Workshop jerk-off scene: take that, James Cameron!

Things that Peter Jackson can do:

• Sweet special effects. The special effects in this are pretty sweet.
• Tall, skinny buildings. There is a lighthouse in this which looks pretty good and is only vaguely reminiscent of Sauron's tower. Maybe they recycled the model and just made it a bit different? Like they did with Mount Ruapehu/Mount Doom for LOTR?
• Scary bearded men. LOTR had many of them, in The Lovely Bones, the main guy is one. Perhaps PJ was one of those children scared of Santa.

Things that Peter Jackson cannot do:

• Love, romance or sexual tension of any kind. The meet-cute for Susie and Ray is worse than any scene between Aragon and Arwen or Sam and Frodo. It is awful. Excruciating. Cringe-worthy. And not just because of Ray's floating-head inducing skivvy and spiral perm:

Seriously, WTF? Isn't he supposed to be Indian?

This is a bad thing is a movie which is based on a book which hinges on the main character's love and longing keeping her in a state of limbo, unable to let go of a life she feels she hasn't yet lived to the fullest.

Things that managed to happen anyway, despite Peter Jackson's ineptitude:

• Susan Sarandon went 'fuck this, I'm gonna have me a good time' and set about stealing every bit of limelight possible. She then disappears from the third act of the film. I wish they had just cut in a shot of her passed out behind the couch, you totally would have bought it.

Things that annoyed me most about this sucky film (SPOILERS ABOUND):

• They took out the bit about the mum having the affair with the police detective, okay, fair enough, time constraints, whatever. I'm not mad because he was played by Michael Imperioli AKA Christopher off Sopranos for whom I still mourn, no. I'm mad because they then changed it to being that the mum just decides to up and leave her family (wee boy, teenage girl whose sister just got mysteriously murdered, messed up husband) and they have this shot of her fruit picking. And they didn't have the family react to her abandonment in any way. They all carried on just as before! And then she comes back and there is no reaction to that either!!
  I would have thought they could at least have someone kicking her in the shins for being such a selfish bitch.
  
  
• They also cut out or trimmed down a whole bunch of other characters, the "lovely bones" as Susie explains it, those who grow up around the space she left behind. With this script's heavy focus on the isolated serial killer at the expense of those others, it seems it was more the "loathsome one".
  The worst for me was the way they made Ruth into this random 'weirdo chick' with seemingly little connection to the story, occasionally frowning in a psychic kind of way and then showing up as girlfriend-of-Ray at the end. I can't imagine how the whole transdental body swapping thing would have made any sense at all for a viewer who hadn't read the book.
  
  
• The complete lack of any reference whatsoever to rape. No one says it. Not even once.
  
  
• When the weirdo body swap thing happens at the end, how they totally wussed out of making it a proper sex scene. In the book, when Susie turns her back on heaven in order to have a few moments on earth with Ray, her intention is to indulge physically in enjoying her body with him, with the emotional release that this will bring for her. Alice Sebold's text explicits refers to them having sex together (in the shower, on the couch, in the bedroom) and even makes mention of Susie's reclaiming of sex and of the penis as a (not) weapon, moving from victimhood to an understanding of sexuality in a context of love and sharing and what sounds like some hot raunchy fun.
  In the movie, we get to see them gazing into each other's eyes, then it goes to another scene, then when it cuts back, they are lying fully dressed on the bed. We don't even get treated to the standard Hollywood L-shaped sheet.
  This kind of links back to my point about 'RAPE? AYE? WHAT? NOT HERE. NOTHING TO SEE. MOVE IT ALONG.' but in general, I find it weird that they weren't willing to give her a hint of sexuality or adult passion.

Okay. I could go on. But I will stop now. For my own sanity, let alone yours.

I should have put this link at the top, but my Number #2 Film Critic Girl Crush, Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek has a brilliantly scathing review here which you should have read instead of this. She mentions that Lynn Ramsay (Morvern Callar) was originally attached to this project - oh what might've been!

Posted by Lou. The time is 6:00pm here in London, UK.

Whilst Bel has been ploughing through The List I've been limping through one novel - Possession. I liked it, but I found it difficult to read due to my dislike of convoluted/ old-school/ pre-modern poetry. I actually ended up skipping the poetry excerpts and sticking to the main story in an effort just to get through it, and enjoyed it much better for that.

Even though I had seen the film and thus theoretically knew the storyline, I still found myself drawn in and desperate to know - in this way sampling the fanaticism of the contemporary characters. I could also sense that there are many other layers to the novel that I was not appreciating - intelligent nods and winks to literary mechanisms, literary academia and 19th century writing that entirely passed above my head. (Thankfully I was able to appreciate the critical analysis of the concept of "biographers", so didn't feel entirely dense.) To be able to incorporate those for the more sophisticated reader and still manage to keep the story alive for a pleb such as myself without appearing pretentious or smug is quite an achievement.

I wouldn't necessarily go out and recommend this book to a friend, but I do think that those poetically-minded and/ or more literary than myself would dig it (and probably already did some time ago).


(In accordance with Bel's habits I have used a picture of the version I read - one of the irritants of amazon is not having a choice of book cover. I would never normally buy the film edition of something.)

Posted by Bel. The time is 8:01pm here in Wellington, NZ.

So goes the description by Peter Jackson's partner, Fran Walsh, of Lovely Bones.

PJ argues the point that although the book has a pretty bleak subject matter, the main character Susie Salmon "transcends the horror of her murder" (literally as well, I guess) and that the tone of the book is not one of gloom and despair. It is this hope-filled attitude they've taken into the film apparently - however when asked about how faithful they've been to the plot, he concedes: "There are changes, definitely."


You can read the whole interview here, or you can be like me and try and avoid any further contact with any details of the film betweeen now and December 11th.