Book-to-Movie: Divergent

This week we showed the movie "Divergent" here at the library.  The books upon which this movie was based, written by Veronica Roth, have been hugely popular - so much so that the multiple copies of the book that my library owns are always checked out, with an incredibly long hold list that ensures that we won't be seeing the book anytime soon.  It's no surprise that, in a movie market that is happy to turn successful YA books into film, this series was quickly optioned and adapted to the big screen by Summit Entertainment.  The film was released in theaters in March 2014 and came out on DVD and BluRay on August 5.

Our showing of the film here at the library was quite successful.  Thirty people attended this program and, just as when we showed "The Hunger Games" back in 2012, I was impressed at the number of adults - several parents and a few stand-alone adults - who were interested in seeing this movie with the teens.  It is exciting to see more opportunities for intergenerational programming here at the library thanks to the growing cross-appeal of YA books and movies.

Clearly, the movie is popular.  But was it actually any good?

In my humble opinion, the answer to that question is highly debatable.

When it comes to the movie's ability to translate what happens in the book onto the big screen, I would say that it did quite well.  As I was watching the movie I could think of only one event from the book that was left out of the movie, and though this scene was powerful in the book, I completely understand why this cut was made (time, lack of lasting impact on the series).  As far as my memory is concerned, watching the movie was just like reading the book when it comes to plot. This should please most fans of the book immensely.

There is actually very little significantly wrong with the film.  Fights are well choreographed.  Kate Winslet is significantly villainous as Jeanine Mathews.  I truly enjoyed being able to see the different factions and how each one is symbolized by a different color scheme and sense of design.  Yet this movie just didn't "wow" me.  It was fine.  Maybe I'm just a bit tired of the genre, but I couldn't help but feel that I'd heard this story before, only told better.

My biggest complaint will probably spark some debate since most critics seem to feel differently than I did:  I just didn't care for Shailene Woodley as Tris.  In both the book and in the movie, Four comments that fear doesn't shut Tris down; it instead wakes her up.  I frankly never really saw Tris wake up in this movie.  I saw her jump off of trains and get into fights and go through all of the brave motions she is supposed to.  But I never saw that spark in her eyes, that moment of desperation that drives her to be brave and to enjoy her new freedom.

Still, even if the movie isn't perfect, it is reasonably entertaining.  And since it does such a good job of portraying the plot of the book I'm willing to bet that the majority of fans will be satisfied.

Overall Quality of the Film:  C+
Overall Faithfulness to the Book:  A

Divergent Trailer

Today I stumbled upon another trailer for the upcoming Divergent movie.  I was not thrilled with the first trailer, but this one is a lot more compelling:



What do you think?

Divergent will be released in theaters on March 21, 2014.

The Fault in Our Stars

The trailer for the movie "The Fault in Our Stars," based on the widely popular book by John Green, was recently released to the public.



Despite the fact that I feel that this trailer really focuses its attention on the more uplifting/romantic aspects of the story, it still makes be cry every time I watch it.  Perhaps the raging pregnancy hormones have something to do with that.  Hard to say for sure given the content - the book made me sob too.

The film will appear in theaters on June 6, 2014.

Three Movie Trailers

I think today is a good day to watch some good movie trailers. First, a trailer for the recently-released movie "City of Bones," based on the book by Cassandra Clare:

 


 Next, a trailer for "The Book Thief," based on the award-winning novel by Marcus Zusak. This movie will be released in November 2013:

 


 Finally, the newly-released trailer for the upcoming movie "Divergent," based on the book by Veronica Roth. This movie should appear in theaters in March of 2014:

 


 I'm often hesitant about seeing movies based off of books that I enjoyed, but I'm actually pretty enthused about these book-to-movie adaptations. Anyone else looking forward to these?

Catching Fire Teaser Trailer

 

Last night at the MTV Movie Awards a teaser for the upcoming "Catching Fire" movie was finally unveiled.  Enjoy!

Hunger Games Movie Event

I put a lot of effort into planning programs for my teens. But my most successful program of the year in terms of attendance required almost no effort from me! In case you hadn't heart, August 18 was the release day for the highly-anticipated movie "The Hunger Games" onto DVD and Blu-Ray. Since my library is lucky enough to have the licencing required to show movies to the public, I decided to invite the teens to the library to watch this movie.

We started advertising the movie event about three weeks in advance with posters.

Anticipating a large amount of interest, we decided that we would require everyone interested in attending to pick up a ticket in advance. There is a lot of benefit to ticketing for an event like this if you have concerns about there being too many people in the room. Tickets make it easy eager patrons to understand why only so many people are allowed in the room. They also can give librarians peace of mind knowing that the room will be filled past capacity. I made the tickets myself on the computer and printed them on golden paper:

Tickets were available on a first come, first served basis two weeks before the event. We gave away the last of the tickets about one week before we showed the movie.

Food is also essential for any sort of teen event and everyone knows that snacks are great to have during movies, so it seemed pretty important that I serve something to eat. I've had truly horrific experiences with serving popcorn in the past (it's easy to spill and is hard to clean off of carpet when it gets stepped on) and I had a little bit of money left in my summer budget, so I decided to order cupcakes. These cupcakes weren't super fancy - chocolate with orange-tinted buttercream, no fancy decorations. But the color scheme was very appropriate for the movie. You could almost imagine that the orange frosting was a flame. I also served juice to go with the cupcakes.




I hadn't expected everyone who had picked up a ticket to come to the program. There are always a couple of no-shows, and this program was no exception. But any program that has 60 people (mostly teens!) in attendance is a success in my book. Everyone really enjoyed seeing the movie - many for the second or third time, but some for the first.

Another unexpectedly cool aspect of this program was the intergenerational potential. I had targeted teens in the advertising for this event but decided to ultimately leave the program open to anyone who wished to attend. Yes, many teens came alone or with friends. But there were also a good number of teens at the program with Mom or Dad in tow. It was actually very cool to see families in the audience so that they could share the experience. "The Hunger Games" is one of those rare gems with appeal across all ages and I was happy that so many families took advantage of the opportunity to see it together.

The Hunger Games Movie

Did everyone go and see The Hunger Games this weekend? This movie came very highly anticipated with much hoopla surrounding all elements of its production. But the question that fans of Suzanne Collins' myriad fans really wanted answered: Would the movie do the book justice?

One of the biggest concerns when a beloved book is adapted to the big screen is in the how true the plot and overall sequence of events stays true to the book. As a whole, the film was very successful in this regard. It probably helps that one of the film's screenwriters was Suzanne Collins herself. Very few big changes were made to the plot, and what few did exist seemed designed to foreshadow the events to come in Catching Fire. A few added scenes showing Seneca Crane and President Snow helped to really establish the Capitol and its authorities as the cruel opponents they are, and also gave viewers some necessary background knowledge about the Games. But as a whole, the plot was very much true to the original story.

My only complaint in terms of plotting: The scene between Katniss and Peeta on the train as they return home. I found this scene disappointing in the film. Peeta's words were far too ambiguous and I think it would have packed a lot more emotional punch if their dialogue had more directly addressed their relationship rather than the games as a whole.

But what about the movie's feel? Did director Gary Ross manage to capture the gritty urgency of the Games? In my opinion, he was mostly successful. There were plenty of moments while Katniss was in the arena where my heart was pounding in anticipation. Similarly, Katniss' home life in District 12 very nearly matched my own mental images of the area. However, I'd hoped for more visual "wow" from the Capitol. I understand that this would have required additional, expensive effects, but I did find myself feeling a tad under-whelmed during a few of these scenes.

Kudos to the film's casting department for rounding up such a strong, charismatic group of actors. Jennifer Lawrence was great as Katniss, and I really thought that Wes Bentley and Woody Harrelson shone in their roles as Seneca Crane and Haymitch Abernathy, respectively. Even still, I have to say that the film's emotional punch was, while certainly present, less than I'd hoped. I can't quite pin down an exact reason for this. Was it the change from first to third-person narrative? Was there too much packed into the time alotted? Is it my own fault thanks to high expectations? Or was it something else entirely? I'm not really sure.

Even still, The Hunger Games was as a whole a good movie. Not a great movie, but a bit better than average and definitely worth my time and money. Fans of the books will be pleased. I would, however, be curious to see this movie a second time to see how much the feeling of anticipation affected my initial response. If I can spend the duration of the film lost in the characters and the drama instead of worried about the quality of the adaptation, will the film be more enjoyable? Only one way to find out...

In the interest of full discolsure: This movie was rated PG-13 for intense violent thematic material and disturbing images. It's also a long one at 142 minutes.

Overall Quality of the Film: B+
Overall Faithfulness to the Book: A-

Edit: I came across this review outlining the high and low points of the movie. I more or less agree with their comments on the movie's successes and failures.

Hugo

Not too long ago, I was given a copy of Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret for Christmas. This coincided brilliantly with the release (and my subsequent viewing) of the movie "Hugo," based on this Caldecott Medal-winning book.



For those of you not familiar with the book that this movie is based on, please do yourselves a favor and track down a copy today. At 533 pages long, the books is certainly thick and heavy and may seem intimidating at first. But when you open up the book, you will quickly discover that more than half of the pages feature stunning pencil illustrations! Despite its heft, The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a fairly quick read that will keep readers turning the pages.

Hugo is a young boy living in the walls of a Paris train station in 1931. An orphan, his survival relies on his ability to remain hidden and keep the station's clocks in order. But soon Hugo crosses paths with an old toy seller and his secrets are slowly revealed. What follows is a fascinating mystery connecting Hugo's dead father, a mechanical man, a key, and silent movies.

Brian Selznick's acclaimed book is a fascinating piece of storytelling. The way that words and pictures are combined to create a sort of movie in book form is absolutely inspired. I was a tad anxious about the movie version as I feared that some of the magic would be lost on the big screen. Fortunately, in the end the movie did not disappoint.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, "Hugo" manages to capture all of the brilliance of the book. The cinematography is very well done and helps to set the tone and feel of the movie in the same way that the pictures did for the book. It is also worth noting that very little in the movie seemed to be obviously computer generated. This tone of realism is necessary for a film set in this time period and is especially important given its focus on early silent films - early filmmakers didn't have access to computer graphics, so it is fitting that "Hugo" uses such graphics very little and integrates what they do use seamlessly.

The film generally stays very true to the book in terms of story, the greatest notable change being the development of the station inspector's character. Hugo's interest in magic is also greatly glossed over, allowing the movie to focus more on his relationship to his father. Even with these alterations, the story is still completely absorbing and the setting atmospheric. I highly recommend the film to all fans of the book, as well as to anyone who is a fan of movies.

Overall Grade (Book): A+
Overall Quality of the Film: A
Overall Faithfullness to the Book: A-

*disclaimer* I saw this movie in 2D, not 3D. I debate if 3D would detract from the old-fashioned, magical tone of the film. Then again, what do I know?

Hunger Games Trailer

For your viewing pleasure:



I'm more and more excited about this movie as we get closer to its release!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I have a deep dark secret. It's so against "the way things should be" that sometimes I feel like I must be a bad children's librarian for feeling this way. But I think it's time to come clean with my readers.

I do not love Harry Potter.

You may be wondering: How on Earth can this be? It's fantasy, and you love fantasy! And for crying out loud, it's Harry Potter! Everyone loves Harry Potter!

Yes, all of that is true. And it's not that I hate Harry Potter. I read and enjoyed the entire series, and the first three books are actually quite brilliant. But somewhere along the way I feel like J.K. Rowling stopped putting together an awesome series and started writing her own fan fiction. I truly think that the latter books in the series could have been edited down to a solid 500 pages or less rather than the 800+ pages they currently require. And when the books stopped being about Quiddich and Harry's schoolwork and started focusing more on fighting Voldemort, well I really just started to miss the happy, magical haven that Hogwarts had been.

More specifically, I really actively dislike the fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This particular book has a few major problems of its own. In this volume we basically transition from the younger, happier Harry to the older, darker, and more dangerous version. And that's really all it is: 800+ pages of transition as Harry deals with his grief and frustration. Harry spends a lot of time whining about how everything is so awful and while his reaction is honestly very normal for someone in his situation it doesn't make for very interesting reading. And don't get me started on the obnoxious convention in YA lit used here to simply leave the main character in the dark about what is really going on. So annoying.

Because I hated this book so much I absolutely refused to see the 2007 film version when it was released. But this weekend it happened to be showing on cable and I didn't have anything better to do, so I finally caved and gave it a shot. And I have to say, I was much more impressed with the movie than I expected to be. A lot of the details from the book were glossed over due to time constraints, but in the case of a this sort of plot this was actually a good thing. I give actor Daniel Radcliffe and the movie's writing team a lot of credit for making Harry seem legitimately angry and confused rather than selfish and whiny. There is quite a bit going on visually in this movie, and the climatic scene in the Department of Mysteries was especially interesting to watch. The movie still isn't perfect and - let's face it - it's still all transitional material. But I can honestly say that this is one of the few cases I've seen where the movie was better than the book.

Overall Grade for the Book: C
Overall Grade for the Movie: B
Book-to-Movie Adaptation: B+

Whip It

Excitement abounded when I managed to track down a copy of the recently released DVD Whip It, staring Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore. The film is based on the book Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, which I reviewed here on this blog a few weeks ago.

Overall, I was pleased with the movie. It was actually a good adaptation of the book, staying true to the plot through most of the film. The film actually did a much better job than the book of explaining exactly how roller derby works - what the rules are, what a bout is like, all that good stuff. Yes, there were plenty of moves shown in the film that, while exciting for the sake of cinematics, would never be allowed in actual roller derby. But oh well.

My only complaint is that they majorly changed Bliss's character. In the book she's very sure of herself, very indie rock and tough in her own way. She's an independant spirit who knows what she wants, even if she isn't always sure exactly how to get it. The character was altered in the film to be more doe-eyed, unsure of herself who uses roller derby as a means of finding her own strength. Roller derby isn't another form of rebellion - it's her only form of rebellion. Frankly, I liked the tough Bliss better. Despte this change, however, the central theme of finding your own place in the world and the excitement of the derby shine through.

Not a terrible choice for a fun, laid-back movie night.

Overall Quality of the Film: B+
Overall Faithfulness to the Book: A-

Derby Girl

Last weekend I had the coolest experience ever: I went to see some roller derby. The concept of the sport is to score points by flying around a track on roller skates faster than your opponent. However, both teams also have a series of blockers whose job is to get in your way, knocking you to the floor if possible. It's exciting and intense and a whole lot of fun to watch.

Part of my excitement comes from the fact that several months ago I was able to read the awesome teen novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, which features roller derby within its pages. In this story, Bliss is totally indie rock, but her mother is totally a pageant queen. She feels like nothing exciting will ever happen to her in her small Texas hometown, which is way too lame for her sensibilities. Bliss finally thinks that she's found everything she's looking for when she discovers roller derby in Austin, where the girls have tattoos, awesome costumes, and wicked names like Malice in Wonderland. There's even amazingly hot guitar-playing boys around to enjoy. But will she be able to hide her love of the derby from her mother? How will she balance the derby and her new boy toy with her best friend? And what will happen when said boy toy leaves to go on tour with his band?

This is a fun, fast read that, while fairly generic in its themes (mother/daughter conflict, teen rebellion, betrayal of best friend, first love) is nonetheless edgy and interesting. This book was my first exposure to roller derby and while I really wish that the book would have shows us more of the action on skates and explained the rules a bit more clearly, it gave us just enough to pique my interest. But to really discover roller derby, take it from me: Go and see it yourself! It's something that really does need to be experienced in person.

Overall Grade: B

Will the movie Whip It (staring Ellen Page) live up to the book's expectations? Surpass them? I'll let you know soon, pending the upcoming release of the film to DVD.

The Tale of Despereaux: The Movie

Yes, I realize that the animated film version of Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Award-winning book The Tale of Despereaux was released a whopping eight months ago in December. But I could never bring myself to go and see it. Why? Well, the trailer scared me. I saw this short preview and became convinced that the movie would never be able to live up to one of my favorite children's books ever; that it would be ruined by an overabundance of goofy humor:



Well, not too long ago I finally saw the movie. And all things considering, it wasn't too bad! The movie itself is rather quirky and fun and if you allow it to stand alone, it's a pretty well put-together piece of children's cinema. And while the movie did a better job than I expected of staying true to the story, there are a few major discrepancies between the movie and the book however that will continue to bother me, namely:

Roscuro's back story is completely changed. In the book, Roscuro is different from the other rats simply because he is different. In the movie, Roscuro is different from the other rats because he's foreign. Perhaps because of this, I never really bought it that Roscuro ever ever really was evil - he was way too nice throughout the whole movie.

But except for the Roscuro problem, most of the changes that were made made a certain amount of sense for creating an exciting and interesting movie. Because let's face it - not all books translate well to the screen, and if you're going to try sometimes changes need to be made to account for the new format. But I will say that at its core, the film version of The Tale of Despereaux stays faithful to the idea that it's OK to be different, and that forgiveness is necessary for overcoming difficult times.

Overall Quality of Film: A-
Overall Faithfulness to the Book: B

Twilight Movie

I finally made it to see Twilight yesterday! I actually really enjoyed it. Yes, it was a cheesy low-budget teen film, but it was highly entertaining and stuck very nicely to the book.

Especially Nice Things:
-Robert Pattnison (Edward) was much more attractive and far less over-drawn than I expected from what I saw of the movie posters.
-Billy Burke (Charlie) was excellent. And uber-feminists will be happy that they didn't have Bella slaving over a hot stove for him. :P

Especially Obnoxious Things:
-Kristen Stewert (Bella) really needs to see a respiratory therapist. She kept breathing deeply and gasping in really random places. It was probably supposed to help build tension, but it really just made me laugh.
-Every last one of the boy vampires, save Emmett, needed a haircut. The whole windblown thing was just a little crazy. Jasper's was especially bad.
-I actually did not like the scene where Bella revealed that she knew that Edward was a vampire. Too much gasping (seriously, give the girl an inhaler) and Edward was much too crabby. It was too bad considering that scene in the meadow (which they worked into this scene) was so good in the book.

Nick and Norah - The Movie

I went with some friends to see the film version of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist over the weekend. For the record - they made a LOT of changes from the book, all of which bothered me. The movie isn't exactly great cinema, but it would have been entertaining enough if I hadn't been so caught up on the book.

The movie have a few very gross moments that I won't get into here. And Michael Cena is really not the actor I would have chosen to play Nick no matter how adorable the guys is. Nick and Norah's friends also have much more prominent roles than they do in the book.

Of the five of us who went to see the movie, all but one had read the book. I was the only one really bothered by all of the changes. Like I said, the movie has the potential to be entertaining if you can get over all of the changes.

The movie was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sexuality, language, and crude behavior - but it was far less vulgar than the book.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

In honor of yesterday's release of of the film staring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, I finally present my review of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, co-written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

The story is told in alternating voices, with Levithan writing from Nick's point of view, and Cohn writing from Norah's perspective. Nick has recently been dumped by his girlfriend of 6 months. When she appears at the club where Nick's band is performing, he is so desperate to avoid her that he asks the nearest girl - Norah - to pretend to be his girlfriend for five minutes. Filled with her own excess baggage from a past relationship, Norah responds by kissing him, leading to an intense night of falling in and out of love and finding closure with their pasts.

I can definitely see why someone would love this book. It's an edgy exploration of love, rejection, and recovery. And while the book starts a bit strangely as we jump headfirst into the story without much of a reason given for why Nick and Norah seem to be so strongly drawn to each other, it finishes strongly with the promise that our protagonists' hearts can and will heal.

Unfortunately...I honestly didn't much care for the book. Perhaps this is because in the past I've not been a fan of David Levithan's writing. It might also be that I had a hard time identifying with the characters. Wisconsin is very different from NYC, and the characters have a super-hip lifestyle that is almost completely foreign to me. I also found the book to be excessively profane. Normally, swearing in a book is not enough to completely turn me off, but given my other reasons for not liking the book, the profanity seemed way over the top. If you worry about your ears burning, this might not be the book for you.

Overall Grade: B/B+

But don't let my opinions stop you from reading. It truly is not a terrible book, just not my cup of tea. It may be especially worth checking out if you're planning on seeing the movie - from what I've heard, they took a number of liberties with the book to bring Nick and Norah to the screen.