Books to Movies

 Kitty in a bucket!

Truthfully, if I have a choice I'd much rather see the movie before reading the book.  My reasoning is then I can be pleasantly surprised with the "extra" things in the book that the movie left out.  I understand others like it the other way because they think it clouds their imagining the characters and I agree with that, except that I'd rather have the image of someone in my mind and be surprised by the "extras" than be disappointed because the movie left out things that I thought should be in the movie.

I also get annoyed by the mis-casting of movies.  There are some book characters where I think the movie really does the story a disservice by casting certain actors that are too young, too old, too pretty, or just not what I feel the author described as the character.  Not that any of these actors are bad actors, there are just many that I really don't agree with at all and then clouds my judgment of the movie.

Or my favorite is when they completely and totally just abolish the story and the only thing that is the same between the movie and the book is the title.  Ugh.  I can't even get through the first 10 minutes of the movie 'In The Heart of The Sea.'  That book is wonderfully researched and written and the movie just completely changed it all.  And it's non-fiction!  Who changes non-fiction like that?? They really should've called it something else and put a credit of 'based on the novel' (ever so loosely).  I'm still appalled by it.

I have a point to all this rambling, I promise.
I went and saw 'The Girl on The Train' with my Mom yesterday.  We both read the book a few months ago and were excited by the movie coming out.  I was a little hesitant because I think Emily Blunt is too pretty for the main role, as the character in the book is written as a little overweight and a bit dumpy (she's an alcoholic, so bloated and bad skin, etc.).

But, I was pleasantly surprised.  I still think Emily Blunt is too pretty for the role.  They tried to make her more plain, but she's just a pretty woman, so it's not so easy.  However the movie was pretty good!  Kept super close to the book and only left out some minor details that were okay to cut.

As to the book, since this is a book blog, I know it's controversial, some love it, some hate it, I actually liked it.  I have to firstly admit, I did not read Gone Girl.  I did see the film and liked it. It's that love-hate thing.  Where the characters are deplorable, but great story! And I know that these two books are similar in that the characters are awful and there really is no hero, but only anti-heroes.  And then in the end there is still no redeeming qualities about any of them.  However, I kinda like that idea.  Who needs a protagonist?!  Long live the anti-hero!  Now, I didn't love The Girl on The Train, but I really did enjoy it.  It was well-written and very hard to put down.  And the movie did it justice.