Books vs. Movies : Part Trois

This week's Books vs. Movies showdown is between Lovely Bones, the book written by Alice Sebold and the movie adapted for the screen directed by Peter Jackson.

First on to the book, written in 2002 by an unknown, it became a hit and was an instant success staying on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year. The movie rights were purchased by Peter Jackson personally, so I thought that it would be well done but I was incorrect.

The girl that they got to play Susie Salmon was too beautiful. In the book, she is described as a plain girl and there is nothing plain about Saoirse Ronan at all. There were a couple things that were a bit over the top. Like the heaven sequence, and the fact that there was no transition; she just sort of walks away, and finds out that she's dead. That's not how the book has it. Other than that, the movie was alright. I will never get used to Mark Walberg playing a father, he seemed too young to be playing the father of teenagers. Everyone else seemed adequately casted, except the ones aforementioned. Don’t get me wrong, Saoirse is an amazing actress for her age, which is saying something because most of the teen actresses, such as Emma Roberts are quite awful. 

I didn’t really expect much, because of the fact that so far, the movie adaptations that I have seen that don’t have the author directly involved, with the exception of Chuck Palahniuk books’ movie adaptations, suck. They don’t stay true to the core of the book, because they are entirely unaware about that core. The interesting thing about the adaptation is that those who read the book were mostly on the fence about whether they liked it or not, and those who didn't read the book mostly loved it. But I think the movie will be forgotten, which is sad because Saoirse is such a phenom. 

The book wins this round, but check the movie out if you want. But don't say that I didn't warn you. 

Making a Choice

Tonight, I choose my friends over my family. I don't regret and maybe that means that I don't have my priorities in check but I think that when people say that you should always pick your family over your friends, haven't met these people. The only other people that I've ever felt at home with are my Theatre family, which is now and forever disbanded. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that my own family is not family like, it's just that these people have a way about them. They accept me for what I am. Warts and all, you know the saying.

My OHPC family. I don't feel like I have to change for them, or get perfect grades. I'm never disappointing them and I can always get a hug, without even asking. When I get to that point with my own blood family, then maybe I will choose them over DA, but for now, I will not be guilted into feeling bad. Deep down, I know that I made the right choice. No one can tell me differently.

That's what happens when you are at my stage of life, where you're in the nest, but you are partly gone as well. You have to start making decisions about what is most important to you. 

Can Everyone Stop Talking About Weiner?

At the beginning of the week, I started to hear jokes about Rep. Weiner and the scandal, about the tweeting of naked pictures of himself. At the beginning of the week, they were funny. Now, they are not funny; they are just pathetic. I hate to think the American people have nothing better to do with their time than make fun of a man that some Americans, his constituents, deemed worthy enough to represent them and their voice in a public office, for seven terms (14 years). Obviously, I'm not defending him; I don't know him personally; however, he hasn't done the worse of any of it. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a child with his own housekeeper and no one is insisting that he step down or resign from his office. Celebrities, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, do a lot worse and we still idolize them; we don't boycott their movies and we don't stop watching their shows. We don't think it odd for them to want to keep doing the job that we pay them to do.

So why is Rep. Weiner different? Is it the name? Because I know that there is a worse name out there: Rep. Boehner, (pronounced bo-ner), anyone? Is it so ridiculous that a Congressman actually uses his Twitter instead of making some unpaid intern do it for him? And yes, the pictures were inappropriate, but you have to be aware, if you aren't already, that we elect people to public office, not perfect people, just people, fallible people. People make mistakes. And ridiculing them for those mistakes doesn't make you better. Doesn't make the situation better. Whether or not, you find it funny, he's still going to have to answer for his mistake.

I just think that we should get over it, because using him as a punchline is getting old. 

Book Recommendation: Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives

I recommend a lot of movies on here, but never any books, unless of course, the Books vs. Movies Series counts. So instead of recommending a movie to you, and I watched quite a lot of them to pick a movie that would be suitable, then changed my mind, I drove to the library which I haven't been to in a long time and picked up a few books. I went through the motions of it all, going to the fiction, checking if my favorite authors had come out with something, if they had it here in their shelves. Score with Palahniuk: his new book "Tell-All" rests in my bag as we speak, Miss with Coupland: they only had "Hey Nostradamus" and I've read that one before. Then when I had given up and was making my way up the aisle to check out, I found a little book out of place, so I picked it up to put it in its right order and then I read the title, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman, (it was with the Bs). It sounded interesting because I'm a religious studies major and the one thing that all religions have in common is that they have some theory about what happens after death. The book contains a series of short descriptive pieces called vignettes, which were about the various theories about life after death. My favorites were the pieces called : Mary, Mirrors and Search. There are a few others that I love. The best thing about this book is that it is memorable, almost addicting, last night, I couldn't put it down. Literally I had trouble with it. So much so that I was drifting off and parts of words were lost to me.

Reading it felt like I was entering a kind of new imagining. It inspired me to live my life, unafraid and trying to do all the things that matter most to me. I definitely suggest it for anyone looking for different perspective or even just looking for a good read. It's short, only about 100 or so pages, but after reading it you are going to want to carry it around with you. It is mind-expanding, and even if none of these tales are true, it's still a great thing to look at.