We are 9 days away from my favorite night of the year: Oscar Sunday! I love the Oscars - the hype, the drama, the dresses. While I see fewer movies than I used to, I do try to get to as many of the nominees as I can. My favorite categories are always the screenplay categories, because (surprise, surprise) I treasure good writing in a movie. I am especially interested in screenplays that are adapted from books, as I enjoy scrutinizing how the adaptation differs from the original and why the changes were made.
Apparently, I am not alone - I have written a number of posts comparing books to the movies they were adapted for, and those posts seem to generate the most traffic from search engines.
Here are some of my book vs movie posts:
Book vs movie: The Time Traveler's Wife
Book vs movie: Revolutionary Road
My favorite local bookstore, Politics & Prose, has a page on its website dedicated to books that were made into Oscar movies. Scroll to the bottom to see this year's crop of book-to-movies. I haven't read any of the books this year, and sadly have seen very few of the ten movies nominated in the two categories. However, here are my predictions: Best Original Screenplay - The Hurt Locker, because I think people want to recognize this movie; and Best Adapted Screenplay - Up In The Air.
I've seen several of the nominated movies and only read a couple of the books. I do think Precious and Up in the Air will receive some awards.
Posted by: bermudaonion (Kathy) | February 27, 2010 at 08:46 AM
I loved Up In the Air (got to see a sneak preview, too) because I love George Clooney, but I am interested in reading the book.
My favorite book and movie, A Room With A View (the 1985 Merchant and Ivory version) won three Oscars, including best writing on a screenplay based on another medium! So there you go! It can be done!
Posted by: Kiki | February 27, 2010 at 09:17 PM
The bookstore website left off Crazy Heart! I haven't seen the movie, but I'm reading the book right now. Really enjoying it!
Posted by: Kari | March 17, 2010 at 10:30 AM