Books and Movies. Movie and Books

Books and Movies. Movies and Books

     Recently the movie Brooklyn came out, based on the book by author Colm Tóibín. You may remember the book as that thing you got over the summer before freshmen year and never read....well I read it. I read it because I like to read, and you know what? It wasn't that bad! Until you got to the ending and then it was just plain terrible. It tricked me into thinking it wasn't a shitty book, but oh...it was a shitty book. On the popular website A.V. Club they gave Brooklyn (the movie) an A-! An A- is a pretty good grade for a movie on A.V. Club, and the author just spoons it loads of praise, it's actually sickening to read. Will I see the movie now? Probably not. Is it really as good as they say? Could vert well be. The reason I bring this all up is because I wanted talk briefly about the sin in Hollywood of turing books into movies. And that may not apply to Brooklyn, but just seeing it brings this idea to mind. 

     Today (and yesterday) in a world of 100% unoriginal ideas it has come to the attention of Hollywood scriptwriters everywhere that the easiest way to make a quick buck is to make an "adaptation" of a movie. The stories already written, tried and tested, so why the hell not? 

     

     You've heard the term "Oh well the movie wasn't as good as the book" in every way possible and at this point it comes across as arrogant to the process of filmmaking and storytelling. That's because it's unfair to do so; movies and books are different and shouldn't be compared to one another. My quarrel isn't with the fact that the books are usually better than the movies, which they are, my quarrel is in the fact that today adaptations have become the staple of Hollywood cinema to the point where I just have to say "Hollywood, take a break." 

     I think there's a lot of good adaptation that will (and have) come out this year, The Reverant, Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, but there;'s also been a lot of bad. And my biggest pete peeve is when they take a short book and make it into three movie to take the poor suckers money who goes to see them. I would love to go into a case study about this but I'm honestly just exhausted of thinking sbout the state of Hollywood Cinema today so I'll quit while I still have some form of judgement about me. Not my finest blog post, but not my worst.