Thursday Movie Picks - Television Edition: Book to TV Adaptations

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You can take part too - all you have to do is pick three movies that fit the week's theme and write a bit about them!

Well. Here we are again, back in TV Land for this week's Thursday Movie Picks. And we're talking about one of my favorite things: Adaptations of books! Novels actually lend themselves better to TV mini-series than they do to movies, in my opinion. The extra time allows you to include the full scope of the novel and paint in all the little details of the world. Films can be good for getting to the heart of a novel, but for my money, I'd nearly always prefer a TV mini-series. This week, I've picked one great mini-series, one great short-lived full series, and one absolutely terrible clusterfuck of a full series.

Big Little Lies (2017) What is there to say about Big Little Lies that hasn't already been said? I devoured each episode at least twice by the time the thing was over, and it was worth every second for these richly drawn, beautifully performed characters. It barely even needed the murder mystery framework, even if that was the supposed hook of the series. I can't believe they're doing a second season, let alone that they now have Meryl Streep(!!) and Andrea Arnold(!!!!) involved. This was so perfect as it is, I really hope they don't tarnish it with the next installment. I could heap praise on this for days, but in the interest of time, I'll just say this: Nicole Kidman's character arc, ESPECIALLY the therapy scenes, is the most compelling thing I've seen on TV in a long time. She deserved every award for it - and actually got them!

The Leftovers (2015-2017) The show that introduced The Great Carrie Coon to the world, The Leftovers is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta - or at least the first season is. The second and third seasons were written by Perrotta and series co-creator Damon Lindeloff as expansions of the world that Perrotta created in the novel, and holy WOW is this show tremendous. I get why people didn't want to watch it or stopped after the pilot episode: The premise and execution are downers: 2% of the world's population just up and vanished some time ago, and the people who remained are having a hard time dealing with it. Some go about their business like everything is fine. Some have a newfound death wish. Some are just doing their best to get through each day. And some have rebelled by refusing to speak, wearing only white, chainsmoking cigarettes, and accosting people as living reminders of what happened. And yes, the show is pretty depressing. But it is also utterly fantastic, producing several all-time great episodes. View each episode of the show as a short story set in this world, and its brilliance becomes more clear. I can't recommend it enough. Get past the first two episodes and OH what riches of writing and acting await you!

The Magicians (2015-Present) OH what wasted potential! Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy is stunning: Imagine if Harry Potter was an American high school student and Hogwarts was a college, and that gets you about halfway there. Grossman brilliantly deconstructs every single fantasy trope, making for a decidedly adult version of books like The Chronicles of Narnia. After the success of Game of Thrones, this could have been another great adaptation. But instead, it's listless, and most of the changes they've made to the novels make no sense and bear no fruit. I hate-watched three-quarters of the first season on Netflix before giving up because life is just too short to spend that much time watching something you don't like. Any fans in the house? Does it get any better? Or did I do the right thing?

Thursday Movie Picks - Ghost Movies

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Be part of the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling us about them!

This week, Halloween week, we are picking Ghost Movies. There are really two kinds of ghost movies - scary and sweet. And so, I have picked two from each. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the two older movies are sweet and the two newer films are scary.

I should also say that I saw Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak this weekend, and...... I was underwhelmed. I get that, in the end, it's less of a ghost story than "a story with a ghost in it" to use the film's own language, but it didn't go far enough into the gothic grandeur and melodrama for me. Disappointing, despite some absolutely fantastic elements.

The Canterville Ghost (Jules Dassin, 1944) Cowardly Sir Simon of Canterville has been cursed to haunt his family castle until one of the family's descendants performs a brave deed while wearing his signet ring. You see, he ran away from a duel and his father would NOT have him besmirch the Canterville name by being a coward. Three centuries pass full of cowardly Cantervilles, but when a soldier in a battalion stationed in Canterville Castle appears to have the Canterville birthmark, the portly Simon thinks he's finally found the one to break the curse. Based on a story by Oscar Wilde and starring Charles Laughton as Sir Simon and Margaret O'Brien as his youngest descendant, Jessica, The Canterville Ghost is all sorts of fun.

The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Makiewicz, 1947) Young widow Lucy Muir (a luminous Gene Tierney) finally decides to strike out on her own and live with her daughter in a cottage by the sea. She was warned against it, but moves in anyway... only to find out that the place is haunted by its previous owner, the salty sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison, playing Rex Harrison as only he can). Their relationship starts off antagonistic, but soon cools into a mutual respect and then warms into.... can it be? YES!... love. With Natalie Wood as the Muir daughter Anna and George Sanders as the living part of the supernatural love triangle that inevitably forms, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is one of my favorite romances, and couldn't be more different from the classic TV sitcom it inspired.

The Others (Alejandro Amenábar, 2001) It is not long after World War II on the fog-flooded island of Jersey off the coast of England. Grace (Nicole Kidman in what is probably her best performance) has been living with her two children - who suffer from a rare disease characterized by "photosensitivity"; they could die if exposed to natural light - in a large house while her husband is away at war. Thankfully, three new servants have shown up to help her and the children. And just in time, too, as her daughter has been seeing a family of ghosts in the house and windows and doors have been flinging open by themselves. The Others is a masterpiece of restraint and mood, and also genuinely scary in moments. Even after you know all the story's twists and turns, the film is still a marvel to behold. And its final shot is one of the new millennium's most chilling, haunting images

The Conjuring (James Wan, 2014) Based on a true story from renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring is the best scary movie to hit theaters in quite some time, and it achieves that by taking horror back to basics: long takes, deep focus, a respect for craft, and care for its characters. The Perron family (led by Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston, perfectly ordinary empathetic) moves into a fixer-upper in 1971, and not long after moving in start to experience supernatural happenings. In fear and desperation, they turn to the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, both fantastic), who confirm that the house is indeed haunted. By some mightily pissed off spirits. The letter-perfect period trappings contribute to the throwback feel of the film, but what really elevates The Conjuring above most horror films of the modern day is its structure: The film does not work unless you feel for the characters, and the early scenes make us feel like part of the Perron family. When things finally go south, it's not just horrifying, it's heartrending, because we feel for these characters, just like poor innocent Regan in The Exorcist and Rosemary in Rosemary's Baby.

Thursday Movie Picks - Unrequited Love

Written for Wandering Through the Shelves' weekly blogathon. In order to play along, just choose three films that fit the week's category.

This week's theme for movie picks is Unrequited Love. My favorite kind. But in trying to make my picks this week, I had to remind myself of the definition. According to Wikipedia, Unrequited love is "love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep and strong romantic affections." The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines unrequited as "not reciprocated or returned in kind."

You could argue that nearly every Romantic Comedy involves unrequited love in some way, but they usually end with the beloved's realization that SHOCKER, their true love was right in front of them the whole time! I rejected all those films outright, and insisted on some other parameters: The love must be made exceedingly clear, if not stated outright, and genuinely rejected (goodbye, In The Mood for Love, The Great Gatsby, etc.); no mid-film flings (sorry, Chasing Amy); and no anthology-type films where the unrequited love only plays a part in one story out of many (apologies, Love Actually). Fortunately... or unfortunately, depending on your point of view... I immediately thought of one perfect pick and two other picks for which I wanted to talk about anything BUT the unrequited love part. The fact that this is a gif-heavy post might give you a clue as to what I wanted to talk about instead...

Pretty In Pink (John Hughes, 1986) - Finally, a hero for the GUY with an unrequited crush on his GIRL best friend! I may never forgive Pretty In Pink for unleashing Jon Cryer on the world, but it's kind of hard to deny that this film, and Duckie, are damn good and iconic for a reason - and it's not that HIDEOUS dress Molly Ringwald wore to the prom. Much like John Hughes's previous classic The Breakfast Club, there's something here for any teenager to relate to. And really, enough cannot be said about that perfect final scene, scored to OMD's "If You Leave". No matter who you want Ringwald's Andie to end up with, it's impossible not to get caught up in the romance of that scene.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Glenn Ficara, John Requa, 2011) - A young boy not-so-secretly in love with his babysitter, who's secretly in love with said boy's father - at least until her own father discovers the nude pictures she planned to give her unrequited love. Oldest story in the world, right? Okay, fine, this is really just a Trojan horse to talk about Ryan Gosling's Photoshopped body. Can you blame me? The man is PERFECT. The mid-film scene with Gosling and Emma Stone is a masterpiece short film, a sex scene that-really-isn't.... a love scene in the best sense of the word. This is one of the best mainstream romantic comedies Hollywood has produced in years, primarily because it treats its characters like real people with real emotions (and perfect bodies).

The Paperboy (Lee Daniels, 2012) - Jesus, who WOULDN'T be in love with Nicole Kidman's Charlotte Bless?!? Because, really, how fucking brilliant is she in Lee Daniels's batshit, tonally confused (and still somehow slightly dull) Southern Gothic? It's one of the most audacious star turns in recent memory. You can't blame Zac Efron for going all head over heels for her crazy sexy/sexual hairdresser. It's hard to believe she doesn't reciprocate for him in those wet briefs, but, well... she kinda has a thing for creepy psycho backwoods murderers played by John Cusack at his most repugnant, so... Plus, I think it's pretty obvious she's WAY too much woman for poor little Zac - she'd chew him up and spit him out in five minutes.


BONUS PICKS:

These are two of my favorites, ones I almost picked but determined they didn't really count for some reason.

My Best Friend's Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997) - I was seconds away from choosing this one, but then I remembered that there's one scene where Dermot Mulroney makes it pretty clear that he wants Julia Roberts to tell him she loves him. We don't know that he feels the same way back, but the subtext is that he probably does - or at the very least is considering running away with her. If you don't know this one (and you should), Roberts's Julianne and Mulroney's Michael made a pact that if neither of them were married by the time they turned 28 they would marry each other. Three weeks before that happens, Michael calls Julianne and tells her that he's getting married to the preppy Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). Julianne freaks out that he's marrying someone so "wrong" for him and realizes it's because she really loves him. But he sees her as his best friend so much that Kimmy asks Julianne to be her maid of honor. So of course, Julianne decides to split up the happy couple before they even get married. Of course, things don't exactly go according to plan. Julia Roberts is deliciously bitchy in one of her best performances, and Cameron Diaz is perfect as Kimmy. And also, Rupert Everett plays the ultimate Gay BFF.

A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009) - I had already written this up when I suddenly had a crisis of conscience: Does Julianne Moore's Charlie ACTUALLY say to Colin Firth's George that she loves him? Panicked, I checked. Unfortunately, the answer was yes AND no. She tells him that she is jealous that she never had the kind of love with him that he had with his now-dead lover of many years Jim (Matthew Goode at his most perfect), but then immediately follows it up by saying, far too honestly to be covering anything up, that she never had that kind of love with anybody. That would have to include George, so I have to say that it isn't true unrequited love. This is one of my favorite Julianne Moore performances, such a finely-detailed character study in really only one scene. And to say nothing of Colin Firth's heartbreaking, career-best work. And Tom Ford brings his flawless designer's eye to every single frame. He's not quite Wong Kar-Wai, mind you, but I still treasure this film, flaws and all.