Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Top Ten Tuesday and Contest Reminder

Yesterday we hit 10,000 visitors to our blog! We had to go back and look a couple times - that's really 10,000, not 1,000? We got so excited, we decided to do what every book blogger does when she gets excited - give stuff away! For the rest of this week (up until midnight Sunday), for every post you comment on, your name will be put in a drawing for a goodie pile (list and picture to be posted later today). Only posts from this week (starting with Monday's) count, so if we get off our collective turtle rears and post every day, that will give you seven chances. Or, if we post twice in a day (like the goodie post later), there could be more than seven chances, so keep checking in! Winner will be announced on Monday.

Once again, we are joining The Broke and the Bookish for their Top Ten Tuesday. Today's theme: top ten book to movie adaptations. This was hard, because

a) We are turtles. Going to movie theatres just doesn't work well for us - we can't get the stupid folding seats to stay down, and even if we could, we couldn't see over the backs of the seats in front of us. So, we have to sit in the front row and crane our little turtle necks way back, and then if we lean too far back the seat flips up again and sends us sailing into someone's popcorn.

b) Thus far, Miss Ami has neglected to install a TV/DVD combo in our tank. She doesn't even have cable in her own home, so she doesn't think we are missing out on much. Phooey!

We did manage to come up with a few, though, so in no particular order:

1. The Princess Bride. Okay, we lied, this one is definitely first on our list, and always will be. Perfect casting, and absolutely faithful to the book, even to the point of the conversations between author and grandfather. Hands-down favorite.

2. Holes. A very close second. Again, perfect casting, and we still cry at the end when it rains.

3. Harry Potter. Yes, they changed things/left things out, but hello! The books are 8,000 pages long! We would have liked to see more of Dobby - and is Hagrid's half-brother just not important? Whatever. Still well-cast, and faithful enough to make us happy.

4. The first two Chronicles of Narnia movies. Finally, a lion that doesn't make you laugh when he appears! We just wish Hollywood hadn't felt the need to mess around with the third (evil green haze? Wha????). Guess there aren't enough folks there able to recognize moral lessons when they see them, so the book as written didn't make sense to them.

5. Lord of the Rings series. Miss Ami was in love with Aragon when she read the books as a teen, and the casting there did not disappoint her. Oh, and all the other parts were good, too.

6. Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightly). It can be hard to faithfully produce a book with less-than-modern speech and still make everything understandable to those not familiar with the books, but they did a marvelous job.

7. Little Women (with Winona Ryder).

8. Vampires S***. Being a little facetious here - we enjoyed the Twilight novels, but not all the hype, and the bits we've seen of the movies are terrible. This movie was juvenile and awful, but made a lot of great points - in a very juvenile and badly written way!

Hmm...still not 10, but we had some collections in there, so we'll call it good. tell us what we missed in the comments section, and get your name in our drawing!

6 comments:

  1. Hi--I'm a first time visitor and I found you through the Top Ten host. Some of my choices overlap with yours--Harry Potter, LotR, and the Princess Bride. (I eliminated all Jane Austen adaptations because there wouldn't be much room for anything else on my list!) I'm a new follower--congrats on your 10,000th page view!

    Here's mine:
    http://asthecrowefliesandreads.blogspot.com/2011/02/top-ten-tuesdays-book-to-movie.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's funny how many list-makers chose the same movies this week! I feel like the odd one out for missing the Narnia movies, but I did get HP and LOTR in there. Great list!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bridge to Terabithia - the book was wonderful, and the movie is simply beautiful

    The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - the movie is much better than the book

    Gone with the Wind - the best movie adaptation ever. It helps that Margaret Mitchell's dialogue was so good that the screenwriter just had to copy it. The casting was spot on as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ooh, you made us think of another one we loved - Tuck Everlasting! The movie really brought what is largely an introspective book to life.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love Masterpiece Theater's newest version of Emma. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Have you considered getting a Netflix subscription? All you need is Internet and a computer and you can stream movies. Fixes that pesky seat problem.

    Little Women made my list too, and I've seen The Princess Bride on lots of lists. Excellent choices, my dears. And congratulations on 10,000 views!

    ReplyDelete