Book movies

I took my daughter to see The Hunger Games on Thursday, and even though I haven’t read the books, I quite liked it (if you can ignore the whole ‘kill off 23 kids every year’ thing).

My daughter on the other hand devoured the books in the week leading up to opening day and was quite irritated with discrepancies and missing scenes (especially seeing as she was looking forward to seeing Josh Hutcherson take off his shirt). I reminded her, “Would you rather they didn’t make the movie at all?” The answer of course being, “NO!”

It took me back to when we avidly awaited each of the Harry Potter movies. If you treat them as movies in their own right instead of trying to bring a book to life, then they’re good movies. They’re not going to be able to fit every little detail in a movie.

First there’s the time factor. You just can’t fit it all in and have a reasonable length movie. Then there are the slow moving parts of the books which would make for boring viewing and lastly we have things that don’t come across well. In a book, reading about a character’s thoughts is alright. Constantly hearing a voiceover so you can hear what they’re thinking is entirely different.

Are there any examples that you can think of where you would rather they had just not done the movie at all?

Besotted by Wednesdays 22-02-2012

Bringing you things that have me drunkenly infatuated. Or is it infatuatingly drunk? Either way, it's things and places I love. 

For (probably a long) while, some of the links may seem like old news. This is because I currently have a backlog of pure awesomeness to sort through.

I can’t be the only that doesn’t read the newspaper or watch the news on TV because I’m sick of hearing about all the dreadful things. I know that things happen in life, but that doesn’t mean I want to give energy to the bad things. I’d rather focus on the good and wonderful things that happen. Along comes ‘The Optimist’ to present you with news the way I think it should be.

There are times when I’m feeling very nostalgic and I think about things I used to see on TV when I was growing up. The old Cadbury Flake ad with the woman in the boat. Watching My Secret Valley. Being introduced to the Fourth Doctor. YouTube helps a lot, but what if you’re not looking for anything specific, just something from a certain year? Enter, the YouTube Time Machine.

Got a painting project coming up but need help with your inspiration? Colortopia can sort you out. You can upload a photo of your inspiration, or answer a few questions to get colour suggestions.

I love my books. I love reading them several times over. Imagine my shock when I learnt that there are people who only read a book once (‘I’ve already read it, why do I need to read it again?’) or worse, don’t even buy books? They just use the library! Not saying that there’s anything wrong with the library, but to not buy books at all? Well, apparently they’re missing out on some health benefits from only reading a book once.

Warwick Davis has done some amazing work. I first saw him in Willow and I was excited to be able to show him to my daughter when we did the Harry Potter movies. He put out an invitation on his Twitter account to ask him anything and he will answer it. His answers show us his wonderful sense of humour.

Trompe-L’oeil pictures trick us into seeing something that isn’t real. Usually on walls that show us a room, or open area that couldn’t possibly be there but looks so real or mind has trouble believing it’s just a flat area. Couture Deco have these amazing Trompe L’oeil door stickers. So many to choose from, it’s almost hard to decide...

Most people love Superheroes. Generally they have a favourite as well. They help dish out justice in whatever way they can and the town/city/village can feel safe again. They seem immutable. Always going to be there, always going to be the bad guy, always going to help us. Always is a long time though and people age. Even if they have superpowers. A gallery on Behance shows us what it might be like when that day comes.