Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies (or, on the last week of the month, TV shows) that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
Sometimes, especially when dealing with a series of books, it makes more sense to adapt a book to TV than to a movie. The extra space gives the story the same room to breathe as it has in a book, and the episodic nature of TV mirrors that chapter structure of most books. And so, herewith, are two great adaptations and one terrible one, for contrast.
Game of Thrones (2011-present) OHMYGOD YOU GUYS THE FINAL EPISODES START IN JUST OVER A MONTH AND IT'S GOING TO BE OVER SOON AND WHAT WILL WE ALL DO WITH OURSELVES?!?!?!? In case you've been living under a rock for the past eight years, Game of Thrones is based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, detailing the events of the fictional country of Westeros, where seasons can last for many years, in the wake of the death of the King's advisor. The novels still aren't finished, meaning that for the past... three seasons or so, I think... creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have been working off an outline of events Martin gave to them. Some say that the series has gone down in quality of writing since then, and while I generally agree, I don't think the drop-off is as bad as they have said. Basically, Game of Thrones on a bad day is better than most other shows on a good day. The epic sweep of its stories, and its reckoning with storytelling conventions we have come to expect from stories like this, is unlike anything we have ever seen on TV, and it's downright stunning.
Younger (2015-present) Liza Miller has just turned 40, and has recently gotten divorced. Since her lout of a gambling-addict husband lost their savings and their house, she has to find a way to support herself, and her daughter's college education. So she moves to Brooklyn with her artist friend Maggie and starts hunting for jobs in publishing, as that's what she did before having her daughter. But twenty years out of the job market has put her right on the bottom, and no one wants to hire a 40 year-old intern or assistant. But after a smoking hot 26 year-old tattoo artist mistakes her for a fellow 26 year-old, she gets a brilliant idea. She lies about her age, and lo and behold, she gets a job as an assistant to chunky jewelry enthusiast Diana Trout at Empirical Press. If you can get past the absurdity of its premise, Younger is a fun show to watch, even addicting. Sutton Foster is a ray of sunshine as Liza, and Hilary Duff, of all people, is great as Kelsea, her ambitious young co-worker and new friend. The entire cast is fantastic, and the show is a well-appointed Sex and the City-style fantasy of New York life. The whole series is on Hulu, and you can easily binge it all in almost no time.
The Magicians (2015-present) Quentin Coldwater and his best friend Julia Wicker are a bit adrift in the end of their college days. Until, that is, they both end up taking an entrance exam at the mysterious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Quentin, a lifelong fanboy of the fantasy series Fillory and Further, gets in. Julia does not. The show follows their respective journeys as an official and unofficial student of magic, respectively. I was a HUGE fan of Lev Grossman's trilogy of novels, a sort of American version of Harry Potter where Hogwarts was college instead of boarding school, thus making the stakes much higher. But the show made a large number of changes to the novels that were unnecessary and much to the story's detriment. Most damningly, while the books are a deconstruction of the "chosen one" narrative, the series fully embraces it. I hate-watched the first season before coming to the conclusion that there are just not enough hours in the day to spend time on something I hate. But really, this show is a mess, and the things that made the novels interesting and exciting are so dulled that it has almost no value.
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?
