(from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)
A good adaptation is not necessarily one that is faithful to the events in the original text, but one that is faithful to its concepts, characters and consequences while also using the advantages of, and understanding and finding solutions to the limitations of, the silver screen.
As I mentioned on Day 10 I like Danny Boyle's take on Alex Garland's novel The Beach. What was marketed as quite a mainstream movie turned out to be edgy and profound in many ways. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't like it and it received quite bad critical reviews. I'm not sure whether good old expectations had something to do with that.
I also like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which remains by far the best of all the Harry Potter adaptations. (I haven't seen HP7 Part II but seeing as it is a continuation of Part I I'm not expecting it to be any better than the book).
Alfonso Cuaron's direction on Prisoner of Azkaban is tight, horrifying in all the right places, and he gets the best from the cast. I emphasise 'tight' because the others tended to have a scene-by-scene deference to the book, which made the narrative choppy. Cuaron cuts all the right parts without sacrificing much in the way of plot, and best of all he deftly handles the time travel elements, making it seamless and easy to understand.
I'll add Watchmen and Sin City because I really like the films, although I haven't read the respective graphic novels from which they come.
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.
Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.
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