Sunday 24 February 2013

And The Oscar Goes To...

Did you watch the Oscars tonight? What did you think of the show? I didn't watch this year for two reasons -- 1) my husband had claimed the TV tonight to watch the final game of the Scotties women's curling event, and 2) well, truthfully, I just wasn't really interested. I've seen very few of the Oscar-nominated films this year, unfortunately, and while it's always entertaining to celebrity-gawk, I had other things to do.

But I digress. As this is a blog about writing and publishing, I thought I'd ask this question: do you have a favourite book that became an Oscar-nominated film? Several nominated films this year started as books, including The Life of Pi, Les Misérables, The Silver Linings Playbook and The Hobbit.

Have you read any of these titles, or any of the others? Would you classify any as your favourite book? What about the movie adaptation? How do you think the transition from page to screen was handled for these stories?

On the other side of the coin, are there any books out there that haven't been made into movies that you'd just love to see on the silver screen? Me, I'd love to someday see Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series on screen. What a visual spectacle that could be!

What are your thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. Whenever possible, I try to read the book after the movie! Too many times I have been disappointed at how much movies cut out of the book. You can't get away from the adaptation not living up to the book, but sometimes it just drives me nuts! I think the Harry Potter series was well done for the screen. Hunger Games was okay. But I'm frightened for "The City of Bones" coming up this year. The book was ok, but I'm afraid they will just kill the thing in the hopes of being the new "Twilight" epic series. The Twilight and Harry Potter kids have grown up, but I guess they want to sink their teeth into a new paranormal teen series. (ha ha)
    I wait.
    Impatiently.
    And Cringe.

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  2. Agreed, Paula -- Harry Potter was well done (yes, you can have debates over which parts were left out and the result, but overall the films capture the essence of Potter. Which is all that matters.). And you can never go in to a movie thinking it will be exactly the same as the book was, because that's just impossible.

    You're right -- hope is all we have!

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