how do i look?

I was recently reading Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, & despite Capote's casting requests, I just don't see Holly Golightly as a Marilyn Monroe. She's so clearly an Audrey Hepburn.

To no surprise, there have been thousands of films based on novels, short stories, & comics. This season's line-up of movies contain a number of adaptations from books I've already read - ultimately diminishing my desire to see them. When I do watch a book-based-film I must try to forget my preconceptions of, well, everything - for they rarely coincide with the director's. Although fantasy films may serve as visual indulgence, they're no game for (highly resourceful) imaginations. & despite never actually having re-read a Harry Potter book - Danielle Radcliffe was in. my. head. after the premier of Sorcerer's Stone.

During my A Beautiful Mind phase I not only repeatedly watched the film, but also spent hours listening to the (instrumental) soundtrack. Boombox in the washroom during baths? I was all over that shit. I actually brought the movie to a friend's birthday party along with an excuse like, "Your name is Alicia & so is the heroine in this supersupersuper movie!". So it was obvious to me to read the book which had inspired the movie. I remember a school secretary asking me one afternoon how the book was: "Great! But...different than the movie."

As a child, Jane Austen, Roald Dahl & the Narnia series served as wonderful material to get drunk on, & became so perfectly & elementally set in my mind, making early books the hardest to grapple with on screen. Colin Firth is a fox, & although being the quintessential Mr. Darcy to many girls, he just isn't mine. & despite thinking Tim Burton delightful - the only thing we share are the proportions between James & his giant peach. I love books & I love films. Sometimes I love films based on books - but I'd prefer to keep both entities separate.



Twilight comes out this December & I'm already sick of hearing about it. I'm looking forward to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, not because it's my favourite Fitzgerald short story (it is), but because David Fincher is attempting such an ambitious plot. I'm terrified of how Blindness is going to turn out (a novel can only handle so much butchering, & there's enough of that between the covers). Choke remains, like most Chuck Palahniuk related things, up in the air. & of course, I've already made plans to watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.