Terrapin Station

The book is always better than the movie

I have always known this to be true, for me. 

I think that is as much a personal thing as it is to do with the movies: I just plain like reading anything, much better. I can flip back and re-read. I can spend as much or as little time on a passage as I need to. I can put the book down and process for as long as I need to. Even with instructional materials, I'll fight you to be able to read it rather than watch a video clip. 

It's not that movies show things in a way I didn't imagine, but that I don't actually imagine a full-color illustrated world of the books I read. I don't quite know how to explain it, but it's true. So when I see a movie, it puts pictures in my mind...where there really weren't pictures before. And then, I can never escape them. Harry Potter and his crew are always going to look the way they do in movies, now. 

Also, the current way of making movies causes me severe sensory overload. Most movies (and ALL trailers) require that I shut my eyes to get through them). Too much in the way of juddering images and explosions and flipping from one part of the scene to another just drives me crazy. 

So, as I anticipate the new Wrinkle in Time movie...the book that has shaped my theology and worldview since 1973, written by my all-time favorite author...my primary emotion is not excitement, but dread. 

I saw the trailer today. Mr. Murry lecturing about the Divine? That's not quite right. And collapsing mountains? where'd that come from? Are they going to use the amazing dialogue L'Engle provided, or are they ignoring it? 

I want so much to see and love this movie. I'm thrillled about the opportunity for so many people to be introduced to this story and to Madeleine L'Engle, who was truly ahead of her time. And I'm very, very hesitant to even try. 

What do you think? Do books change for you once you see a movie based on them? How does that feel to you?

 

The Help: Movie Review

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend a free pre-screening of The Help.   It is based on the best-selling book by Kathryn Stockett.  The invitation came through the wonderful director of Women's Studies at my university, who was contacted by the production company and knew that my departmental book club read this together last year. 

It is a wonderful film.  (You can see the trailer here...) The screenplay is not exactly like the book; some parts are rearranged for the story flow, and a few plot bits are added.  Most of the characters were right on; a few not quite what I had imagined.  But that's par for the course with a wonderful book that's made into a movie. 

Overall, it was magnificent.  I was utterly enveloped in the place and the time.  I forgot to be thirsty; was barely annoyed by the woman down the row who was apparently eating her whole refrigerator, noisily.  I was THERE, and that's what a good movie does. 

And I was also in some other places...because, oh my gosh.  The hair, scenery, costumes, settings, everything are perfect.  Spot-on.  And they took me to places in my own childhood!  Aibileen's china?  Is the very daily china that my Memamma used at her house in Tallahassee (white with a turquoise rim.)  Elizabeth's kitchen?  Was painted the utterly unrelieved pale turquoise of that same grandmother's home.  The phone, the stove vent hood with push-buttons, the wallpaper...all took me back.  And then there was the scene when Minny and Aibileen spotted a woman reading their book (The Help, by Anonymous) in the Jitney Jungle supermarket.  I almost took Valerie's arm off then.  I remember those grocery stores from Tallahassee when I was really little!  Amazing. 

The film opens nationwide in August.  Don't miss it.  As my colleague Scott says, "I smell Oscars!"

Well, maybe it's not the movie. Maybe it's us.

We rarely go to movies.  We just don't.  Ken sleeps through most, and I usually get annoyed by something.  Big exception lately: Star Trek!

But Sunday we decided to give it a shot. 

We went to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  Unfortunately, it is apparently a sequel.  We didn't see the first one.  Unlike most sequels, they didn't even try to fill in the uninformed. 

And, uh, it's all machines fighting each other - you can't tell which ones are which. 

We were at the Movie Tavern, so we had some lunch and a nice pitcher of beer.

Suddenly Ken said, "Are you asleep?"  Turns out I woke him up with my SNORING. 

Oh, my golly.  I've never fallen asleep in a movie before.  I also do not normally snore.  (Really!) Beer...

Paid our bill and skulked out like the elderly and bored people we apparently are. 

However, I greatly enjoyed the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince trailer!