Every Tuesday, the site The Broke and the Bookish posts a prompt for a top-ten-style list, and book bloggers around the web respond to it on their blogs. This week the prompt is Best/Worst Movie Adaptions. I have a few good ones, a few bad, and a few ambivalent. (I’m not including Harry Potter, because that’s obvious. In my mind, the Harry Potter movies are the standard for all movie adaptions to aim for.)

First, the good:

1.) THE HUNGER GAMES. The Hunger Games movie was the best adaption I’ve seen since Harry Potter. It was perfect, actually. There’s not a thing I would have changed about it!

2.) I know this will make a lot of lists today: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. That was a solid movie, and it had Logan Lerman in it, who I love.

3.) Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I was in love with this movie long before I read the book, and it remains one of my favorites now that I’m a fan of the book, too. So good.

4.) A Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s kind of a pity they only did the one movie, but at the same time, it’s worthy of respect in this world of endless sequels. And I think they did a good job of capturing the off-the-wall, indescribable spirit of the books.

Now some I’m ambivalent on:

1.) We in the Percy Jackson fandom struggle with the Lightning Thief movie. It took a lot of liberties with the plot, and I don’t really understand why they felt they had to do that. But at the same time, the heart was in the right place. And I love Logan Lerman as Percy. He’s got the attitude down for sure.

2.) This is kind of random, but it came to mind– Aquamarine. The book was kind of strange and uneventful, and the movie glitzed it up a lot, but maybe that was a good thing. I’m not sure what to think about that whole thing.

And ones I don’t like:

1.) The Tale of Desperaux. Of course, I was young when I read this, so I might have a warped view, but I remember it being a very sophisticated and elegant book. But the movie was a kid’s movie in the least enjoyable sense of the term, very juvenile. Good for little kids, I guess, but it was disappointing for me.

2.) I struggled with this one, because I know so many people, including myself, grew up with this movie/movies. But I just don’t think, as a huge fan of the books, that I can put the Princess Diaries  movies anywhere else on this list than in the disapprove section, because the original books are so not shiny Disney-movie material. Grandmere in the books is NOT Julie Andrews, and she would NOT slide down a slide on a mattress. Mia doesn’t get a magic makeover and turn into Anne Hathaway. Her hair is shaped like a yield sign. And just… meh. I understand they’re loveable movies, but it’s hard for me not to get worked up when I think about the books.

[insert smooth conclusion statement]


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