Skip to main content

Weekly Geeks: Film Adaptations


Here’s my answer to this week’s Weekly Geeks Question, which can be found here.


I have a couple of favorite movie/TV (I’m expanding this theme a bit) adaptations. First is the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. I originally bought this in 2002, and I’ve gone through two more copies of the DVD since then (including the 10th anniversary one with that gorgeous green box. There’s just something really comforting about watching that adaptation of Pride and Prejudice; it’s done so well, and it really stays true to the book (granted, some things are changed, but the spirit of the book is still there).


Another favorite film adaptation of a book is 84, Charing Cross Road, with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Really good acting combined with a great story; it, too, stays close to the intent of the original book.


I do also love Bridget Jones's Diary, which is cute and charming and very funny (sense a Colin Firth theme going here?).

Comments

Kristen M. said…
I have the pretty Pride and Prejudice box too. :)

I just re-watched 84, Charing Cross Road a few weeks ago now that I have read the book and I really did appreciate it so much more. It was sweet and she was so saucy and I loved it.
pussreboots said…
I've only seen two Colin Firth things and they're not on your list. My post is here.
Icedream said…
Love your choices, I agree with them all. I was surprised that I enjoyed the Bridget Jones movie (the first one) as much as I did because I really loved the book and didn't think they could pull it off as well as they did.
Kristen said…
I'll have to check out the Anthony Hopkins film, it's one I haven't seen (I'm sure its fabulous)
Anonymous said…
I also talk about the BBC series of P&P, how fun! It is the best ever, I don't know how often I've seen it - countless times.
Anonymous said…
The BBC Pride and Prejudice was one of my picks too. :)
Anonymous said…
Hadn't heard of 84, Charing Cross previously, but love both Bannecroft and Hopkins.
Memory said…
I didn't know there was a film version of 84 CHARRING CROSS ROAD. I feel like I hear about that book everywhere I go these days.

I also loved the Bridget Jones film. (The first one; the second one didn't do as much for me). My mother and I went to see it at IMax as part of a charity fundraiser, and it was awesome.
Dreamybee said…
I liked both versions of Bridget Jones's Diary too. I haven't seen or read 84, Charing Cross Road, but how can you go wrong with Anthony Hopkins?

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...