Turning Books Into Movies

It's Discussion Monday again and today's topic is about books that get turned into movies.

Let me start by saying I am both a book and a movie person. I'm the kind of person who watches the director commentary and all the little bonus stuff that nobody but me cares about. I'm also a person who needs to have a perfectly organized bookshelf. So you see, I care about them both. I think a lot of people don't like it when books get made into movies because they think it ruins them. Well that's not what I see. For example, The Hunger Games, fabulous book, fabulous movie. The Hunger Games is my absolute favorite series ever. So when the movie came out I was nervous because I cared about it. But when they made changes I didn't mind because I knew they had to be made. Things that work in books don't always work in movies. You can have a character with like nine pages of just thought in a book. You cant do that in a movie because movies are visual.

Percy Jackson, great book, terrible movie. Sometimes they don't get it right. Sometimes they butcher everything. This was a movie I came out of upset. I think it was one of the first movies I didn't like. They made a lot of changes. I think when you are making a movie out of a book it's important to only change what you need to change, like in The Hunger Games, but when you change everything that's just a bad idea waiting to happen.

The Great Gatsby, good book, great movie. Sometimes the movies are better than the books (I know most of you wont agree with me on this one but that's fine). Sometimes the changes they make only add more to the original story. The Great Gatsby 2013 movie did that. I know a lot of people were mad when in The Hunger Games movie they killed Seneca Crane by having him eat the berries instead of him getting hanged, but that was a good change. It was more poetic. It made the movie better. Sometimes changes need to happen.

So I don't mind when they make books into movie. I think that as long as the movie somewhat matches the book then all will be well. I think if people started agreeing that sometimes things have to change we would have a lot more happy movie goers.

So what do you think?

Don't Forget To Vote

Hey guys! Don't forget to vote for your favorite series on the poll I've recently put up. Which will you choose? Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, or The Mortal Instruments? Only 39 days left to vote.

The Wolverine

The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold, was slightly above average. It's good enough to be something that I want to own when it comes out on DVD but at the same time it wasn't the best thing I've ever seen. I'm kind of afraid to talk about it because I feel like it's one of those movies where just saying one thing could give another thing away. So I'm going to give you a pretty dry review of this.

The plot was decent. It was basically about Wolverine/Logan (Hugh Jackman) going to Japan to say goodbye to a dying man he saved many years ago, and then it ended up turning into much more than that. There was a lot of action which was nice. I feel like a lot of superhero movies lately have been less action more emotion. There was basically a fight every scene in this one, or maybe it was more like the movie was one giant fight scene. But don't worry, there was still some love, for those of you that like that sort of thing. The acting was great, which is to be expected.

Don't leave the theater when the credits start! Just because it's not technically a Marvel movie (because you know, Fox owns the X-Men movie rights and that includes Wolverine)  it's still a Marvel movie. If that makes sense? Which means there's a scene at the end of the credits. Personally this little scene was my favorite part of the entire movie and made me really excited and I was about ready to die.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this movie and I cant wait until it comes out on DVD.

I give this movie three and half stars

How School Ruins Reading

It's time for another Discussion Monday. Today's topic: How school ruins reading. I'm a big believer that the education system is messed up and being done wrong. I think one of the biggest things they've screwed up is English classes.

Elementary school is the biggest offender. They sort you into groups based on your reading level and make the not so good readers feel stupid and give praise to the smart little know it alls. They base these groups on how well you read out loud (mostly), or at least that's been the way I've seen it happen. Well this doesn't really work because some people just suck at reading out loud. Like me. I can read fine in my head but don't ask me to read in front of people or I'll be stuttering and will barely be able to get through it. It's more nerves than anything else. You see kids are smart, people don't give them enough credit. If you put a kid in the bad reader group they're going to know. Sure the teacher can lie and tell them that they're the same as everyone else but the kid isn't going to believe them. And when somebody, or a messed up system, tells you that you aren't good at something you aren't going to want to do it. If somebody says you are terrible at sports and makes fun of you, especially at a young age, you aren't going to want to do sports. It's the same with reading. Thus causing a lifelong hate and fear of reading.

I think one of the ways to overcome this is to not sort kids into these groups. And that goes for every subject. Instead of treating each of the students different based on their skills they should all be put on the same level. Some kids aren't going to be as good as others, but that's just part of life. They either need to catch up or fall out. The real world doesn't help you by making thing's easier for you. Being soft is one of the biggest crimes against humanity there is.

Jr. High and High school have a habit of making people read books that are old, and for most people, hard to understand. I'm not one of those people but the majority of students these days are. I think if schools picked more modern books students wouldn't hate it as  much. Most teenagers (again, I'm not one that thinks this way) think that if something is old it isn't going to be good. So they just don't try. Teachers get mad when kids don't do their summer reading but did they ever stop to think that maybe the books on the list were ones that kids weren't going to be interested in? Maybe if they picked better books more students would read them. I've asked several of my non-reader friends why they don't read and most of them either said it's because "it gives them headaches" (which is a stupid excuse, clearly you just need glasses if that's the case) or that they didn't want to read the books from school because they're boring. So I asked why not pick a book for yourself and after a bit of prying we get the conclusion that because school books are boring all books must be boring. It's an incorrect conclusion, but it's what most arrive at.

So I think school really does destroy reading. I think school creates a hate of books and a negative feeling for reading. I don't think school is doing books right and I think something needs to change. What do you think?

Short Books VS Long Books

So I'm going to try something new today, which I'm calling Discussion Monday. (Look at my poorly made design thing.) During which I will introduce a book related topic and provide my opinion on it and then you can feel free to agree or disagree in the comments. This is another attempt by me to get more posts on my blog. So lets see how this goes.

Today's discussion: Short or Long books. Which do you prefer? For me I've always liked long books better. Both have there pro and cons but for me I just like beefier books. If I'm going to spend sixteen dollars on a book I want it to have some length to it. Sure long books may take a little while to read, but if it's a good book it shouldn't feel like that. I feel like in longer books I have more time to get to know the characters and I'll probably end up caring about them more because I've spent more time with them. Not to say a short book cant do that, because it can, but sometimes if the writer isn't skilled enough and the book is short the characters can fall flat. So when I'm in a bookstore and I'm trying to pick between two books and one's 500 pages and the other is only 250 I'll probably choose the 500 pager just because I want more. I think maybe it's just a human thing to want more of something good and to have the bigger is better mindset.

So, what do you think?

World War Z

I went to see World War Z with a couple of my siblings last night. It will be the last time I see a movie with Amy and Emily because they talked the whole time, making me want to strangle them. Seriously, if you're one of those people that doesn't shut up during a movie then don't go see movies. It's annoying and I hate you. I would see a movie with my brother Travis again though. I get the feeling he didn't like this movie, but I did.

Actually, I loved this movie. I know that it's also a book but I've never read it because it didn't seem interesting to me. I still don't plan to read it because everyone says the book and movie are a lot different. I think one of the reasons I liked the movie so much is because it had a lot of scienceish undertones to it. I expected it to be more horror, which is fine, I love horror movies, but it wasn't, which was also fine. It did have a few parts that made me jump a little but it was nothing that would make someone lose sleep or anything.

Another reason I loved this movie was because Gerry (Brad Pitt) was a good guy just trying to protect his family. He was doing everything he could to keep them safe. I thought it was a refreshing change. I feel like most movies and books are going overboard with giving their main character an edgy and dark past/personality. That just wasn't the case here.

World War Z, directed by Marc Forster, is a must see. I know in most theaters the movie is already done playing, but if you live near one where it's still in you should go see it. Or when it comes out on demand or Netflix you should consider renting it. If you liked Contagion or Outbreak I think you would like this movie because that's kind of what it was like, except the virus turns people into zombies which is way cooler. Also there was a good amount of violence so that's always a plus.

I give this movie four stars

Movies?

In hopes to get more posts in I've decided I'm going to add movie reviews to my blog. I mean, hey, I keep dvd's on my bookshelf at home. Mostly because I have no space, but whatever. The movie reviews will not take over the blog, it will still mostly be books. I just saw a movie last night that I will be reviewing later. It got out at like midnight so I'm going back to bed, but when I wake up again I will review it.

The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams

I recommend this book

There are two reasons why I would finish a book in a day. One of them would be simply because the book is just that good. The second is because the power is out. I'm happy to report that I found a book worth reading in a single afternoon because it's just that good. I do have one problem with it though, but I'll get to that later.

Our story features Seraphina, a six hundred year old woman who has mastered the art of living forever. The only problem is to live forever she has to steal the bodies of somebody who is already living, thus killing them. Seraphina realizes what she's doing is wrong and plans to leave and die when her time in her current body is up. But when she tries to save the life of a teenage girl, Kailey, she ends up accidentally taking her body. While all this is going on she's also trying to get away from her evil boyfriend of six hundred years, Cyrus. Well there's your basic plot. I wasn't sure if I was going to be interested in a story like this. It sounded kind of cookie cutter. I was wrong. This book is amazing.

Williams has a good writing style, good characters, a good plot, and a great ending. And with the book being under three hundred pages it's an easy, relaxing, read. I'm really glad i picked it up. I enjoyed seeing Seraphina try to live as Kailey and I could see her struggles. With it being such a short book I was worried that the characters would be boring, but they weren't. Despite it's length I felt like I was getting a story that was more detailed than most.

Now, back to my problem. Despite how great this book was, one word just keeps popping into my head. And that word would be "average". I cant really explain why I feel this book was average, but that's just what I'm getting. I don't even know how to rate this book because despite it being amazing I cant stop thinking it was missing something, even if i don't know what it is. I would, however, recommend this book. I don't think anybody will be disappointed.

I give this book four stars

#Oops

So every now and then this terrible thing called life gets in the way of my reading. According to goodreads I'm like four books behind scheduled and it's actually making me sad. Even though with my job I'm working like a significantly less amount of hours than I would be if I were going to school I find it harder to find time to read because when I get home my feet hurt so bad that I just lay down and take a nap which ends up lasting for three hours. So starting now I'm going to try harder to get reading time in. Sorry. My bad.

Happy Fourth

Hello and Happy Fourth of July to everyone in America.