The Trouble With Adaptations, or Why I'm Sick of Hearing That The Book Was Better

We've all been in this kind of situation before. You've picked up a book, you read it, you loved it, you've read it front to back, fell in love with the characters, scoured its pages for little nuances, references, or clever details you may not have picked up on the first, second, or seventeenth time. Then you get the news: that book that you love so very very much is getting its own movie. You're super excited to see this story brought to life on the big screen. You count down the days til the premiere, you show up first in line for the very first screening, you're in a room with dozens or hundreds of people who adore this work just as much as you do. The lights dim, the film begins, and two hours later... you find yourself underwhelmed. Or disappointed. Or even angry. Something didn't go right. Maybe they left something out. Or several things. Or  they changed things. Maybe the director's vision didn't exactly match yours. Maybe the adaptation was in name only. It's a conundrum that cinephile and bibliophile alike have suffered through. Either way, there's no more disappointing feeling than walking out of the theater and thinking to yourself, “The book was so much better.” And there's no more infuriating feeling than discussing it with someone else and hearing them flippantly say “Of course the book was better. The book is always better.”

Silence - Middle of the Road Scorsese is Still Pretty Damn Good

Silence is probably the most aptly titled movie to come along in a while. The latest from masterclass filmmaker Martin Scorsese is an exercise in restraint. How much can you do with so little? In this case, the movie's lack of sound and the absence of the frenzied urgency that is Scorsese's signature is both an aesthetic and thematic choice. We watch in silence, the film presents itself in silence, and its main characters suffer in silence. Based on the novel of the same name by Shuzaku Endo, this is a passion project that Scorsese has been trying to get off the ground since the late 80's, and while Marty has made a name for himself as a master of the art of excess, here he shows how much he can really do when really subdued.

The Top 5 Worst Movies of 2016 (in my opinion)

Last week I made my top 10 list of the best films of 2016, which means I have to pay the price of being a movie-goer and cover the bad stuff. However, this list will only be five long instead of ten. I try as best as I can to avoid seeing bad movies in theaters because I don't like wasting my time or money. When I choose to see a movie in the theater, it's because I see some kind of potential for it to at least be entertaining. But even then some stinkers manage to slip through the cracks, or morbid curiosity gets the best of me. So if you're wondering why infamous turds like Gods of Egypt, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and God's Not Dead 2 aren't here, it's because I knew that them sucking was going to be a foregone conclusion and I didn't want to waste my money. (Also, if you're the kind of person who needs me of all people to tell you those movies are garbage, then there's nothing I can really do for you.) Alright, enough beating around the bush, let's get this over with.

The Top 10 Movies of 2016 (in my opinion)

2016 has been a pretty rough year. How bad was it? David Bowie died in January and that was just the beginning. This was such a bad year that the joke about 2016 being a terrible year got old by summer. This has been a year of riots, mass shootings, natural disasters, celebrity deaths, societal and political turmoil, and the world at large losing its collective shit. But there have been a few bright spots among all the dread, fear and paranoia, and one of those bright spots was a surprising amount of good movies. Sure, there have been a couple flops and failed franchises here and there, but there were tons of new talent, hidden gems and even a couple crowd pleasing blockbusters that made for some great viewing experiences. Thankfully I got to go see more movies in the theater than I normally get to, which means I was able to put together a solid year-end list for the first time in a while. Full disclosure: this isn't some definitive list, just a list of my personal favorites ranked in the order of how much I liked them. I'm not a professional critic, I'm just some random asshole from Cleveland who really likes watching and talking about movies, so my opinions only count for so much. Plus, since I just started this blog about two months ago, this list should give you a good idea of my personal taste. With that said, these are my top 10 favorite movies of 2016.

La La Land - Here's To The Fools That Dream

In many ways, La La Land's identity as a modern Hollywood musical is a perfect reflection of its overall themes. A lot of people say that Hollywood musicals are dead, but really they're about as dead as westerns or film noir. Which is to say they're not dead at all, just in a state of cultural dormancy, only coming out of hibernation every couple years to remind us why it was once a dominant cornerstone of the movie system. Most musicals of the last decade or so have been adaptations of well established Broadway shows (Trust me, it's only a matter of time before Hamilton inevitably gets the Hollywood treatment), but there hasn't really been a recent one that I can think of that is unique to film. La La Land fills that niche and then some with this love letter to Old Hollywood that romanticizes everything that makes the movies so great, while anchoring everything to its disappointing reality, even during the moments when its characters literally fly.

Assassin's Creed - Why Can't We Have Nice Things?

It really sucks that we don't have any good movies based on video games. It's been about forty years since the medium was born and every attempt to bring it to the silver screen has been guilty pleasures at best and downright unwatchable at worst. Hell, we've had three video game adaptations this year and none of them were really any good. (Well, The Angry Birds Movie and Warcraft weren't at least. I didn't even bother seeing Ratchet & Clank, but let's be honest, neither did you.) I think a major problem they all share is that the writers were tasked with adapting a story from an interactive medium to a passive one, but even then there is still a plethora of stories in gaming that are pretty hard to mess up. And with Ubisoft, one of the biggest game developers in the world, forming its own movie studio with the intent of bringing some of its biggest IP to the silver screen, we might have a good video game movie in our future. Granted, Ubisoft is one of the kings of horrible business decisions, so my optimism should be taken with a grain of salt. But the Assassin's Creed series has a deep lore that can make for an interesting movie, and it's got some legitimately talented people working on it. So how does Assassin's Creed hold up as the studio's cinematic debut? Can it rise to the challenge and break the curse?

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - I'm One With The Force, The Force Is With Me

Disney acquiring the rights to the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas back in 2012 was a decision that turned quite a few heads and had more than a few people tugging at their collars. On one hand, it was a good thing that the series was being taken out of Lucas' hands after his unquestioned creative control lead to the prequels becoming one of the most disappointing spectacles in cinematic history. On the other hand, people were afraid that the series was going to become overly sanitized under the control of Disney, and while The Force Awakens was well received and made all the money, they did play it a little too safe by making the plot a retread of A New Hope, which didn't assuage any of those fears. While I have faith in Disney since they were able to turn Marvel into a well oiled machine with a track record so good that even its missteps are easily glanced over, it's way too early to be making judgments on the future of Star Wars after only two film. But Disney has other plans for the galaxy far far away. While we are looking at a future with a new Star Wars movie nearly every year, they're trying to keep things fresh by pulling double duty and maintaining two storylines. Even years will present the main story with Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren and BB-8, while odd years will contain stand-alone tales within the Star Wars universe. And this Christmas, we were given the first chapter of this anthology, Rogue One.