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Thursday, December 5, 2019

Thursday Movie Picks #282: Adaptations



Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Adaptations

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This an easy theme, I'm sure everyone is spoiled for choice. I'm picking recent watches that are adaptations of books I've read.

How I Live Now (2013)
I read the book quite some time back, so I don't remember much of it by the time I saw the movie. I do remember finding it an ok book and the movie was an equally ok watch; in short not very memorable.

The Spectacular Now (2013)
This movie is notable I think for starring a few young actors (Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley and Brie Larson) before they broke out and it's a pretty good movie and a pretty faithful adaptation as well.

The Dressmaker (2015)
I picked this before for TMP #258. It's here again because it fits today's theme wonderfully and I did enjoy this dark drama comedy a lot. With "dressmaker" in the title, the costumes certainly did not disappoint.

Ready Player One (2018)
I actually did not like the book, so I thought since I didn't like the source material I would be less critical of the adaptation and would actually like it more. Nope that did not happen. The movie is quite long and yet a lot of the things that happen as he tries to solve the three puzzles was not really covered. Actually if I'm remembering correctly I think how he came about to solve each puzzle was just drastically changed from the book, not for the better in my opinion.


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7 comments:

  1. I haven't seen your first or last but I did like The Dressmaker for the most part though it had a rather sharp change of tone in the middle. Kate Winslet was marvelous.

    I D-E-T-E-S-T-E-D The Spectacular Now. The lead character was a vile waste of space and the girl a pathetic doormat.

    You're right about being spoiled for choice on this one. I dealt with that by doing a mini theme within the theme using my favorite author John Steinbeck's adaptations.

    The Moon is Down (1943)-During WWII a Norwegian mining town falls under Nazi domination because of its strategic location. The commandant attempts to bring the townspeople to his mindset through gentle persuasion, instead the citizenry form a clandestine underground to combat the enemy.

    Of Mice and Men (1939)-Two migrant workers, the clever George (Burgess Meredith) and the strong but feeble minded Lenny (an exceptional Lon Chaney, Jr.) drift through Depression era California relying on each other’s friendship to get them by until a turn of events leads to tragedy.

    The Wayward Bus (1957)-In a remote California backwater a collection of downtrodden people-chief among them hard luck bubble dancer Camille (Jayne Mansfield), traveling salesman Ernest (Dan Dailey), bus driver Johnny Chicoy (Rick Jason) and his insecure alcoholic wife Alice (Joan Collins) embark what starts as a routine bus trip but ends up being a journey of discovery both good and bad.

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    1. Dressmaker - yeah I expected the tone change, I was quite surprised how much they kept the darker aspects in the movie.

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  2. For your picks, I've seen How I Live Now and The Spectacular Now and read Ready Player One. Spectacular I really enjoyed. I hated How I Live Now and also Hated Ready Player One so I never bothered watching the movie version of it.

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    1. Ready Player One - If you hated the book, don't watch the movie, in my opinion the movie was no improvement.

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  3. I really liked both book and movie of the Dressmaker!
    With Ready Player one the novel was right down my alley while the movie was such disappointment.

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    1. Ready Player One novel was supposedly right down my alley too...but the nostalgia aspect was too much of a crutch, without it there was nothing to the story, so I didn't enjoy it.

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