The Da Vinci Code started showing in movie theaters on May 19th.
There has been a lot of controversy about it, particularly because other authors claim that Dan Brown has plagiarized their work. I have basically been avoiding any publicity about this movie mainly because i want to be impartial to it and NOT judge how good or bad the movie is until I see it for myself.
I absolutely LOVED the book, once I got past a certain chapter, I could NOT stop reading it. It was a page turner. While in Paris, I had every opportunity to do the “Da Vinci Code” tour, I didn’t do it because i thought the whole idea was kind of cheesy, tacky, or what say you. Once I found out that the Da Vinci Code was being made into a movie and it was going to star Tom Hanks, I was skeptical. But Tom Hanks is a quality actor, but can I look past it being Tom Hanks?
I am usually not a fan of books being made into movies. I think it takes away from your imagination. It ruins everything about the book. Though I have seen several movies that derived from books, each time, I go, “I liked the book better.”
- John Grisham–”A Time to Kill” starring Tom Cruise. That alone just ruined it for me.
- Tolkien–”Lord of the Rings” Granted I’ve never read the book, I have the book, but it’s huge (I know that’s not an excuse). I just haven’t gotten around to it. Though the movies (all 3 of them, I enjoyed) I’d definitely like to read the book though and see how the movie compares to it.
- Jennifer Weiner–”In Her Shoes” starring Cameron Diaz. I was so focused on the fact that they picked Cameron Diaz to star in this movie, that I couldn’t really enjoy the movie. I think if they had picked an unknown actress to star in it, I would’ve enjoyed the movie as equally as I enjoyed the book.
- Stephen King–too many books. I get scared to even view any of his movies because the previews are pretty gruesome. *shudders* Once I read the book with the clowns, I couldn’t read any of his books. It gave me nightmares! I’ve blocked his books out of my memory.
Right now, I’m especially nervous because I just finished an amazing book, “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” And I even thought, Hmm, I wonder how they’ll make this into a movie. It’s gonna be tough to emmulate everything that went on in the book. It’d ruin the book completely. Because while I was reading it, my imagination ran wild, and it made it so enjoyable for me that I couldn’t put it down (I finished it in about 2 days).
There are tons of books being made into movies, half the time I probably don’t know it. However, when it’s on a best seller’s list, and they make it into a movie. It definitely helps the book sales & then everyone wants to see the movie. And in the end, I think it takes away from the quality of writing. Maybe the whole reason behind it is to make as much money as possible off of 1 book.
I will see the Da Vinci Code one of these days (it just takes me a while to go see a movie). and I plan to watch it without any judgment. But I still think I’ll like the book better.
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Let it be on record I hate Tom Cruise.
Is this before the whole TomKat thing, or just always hated him?
Actually, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is being made into a movie and I’m glad to say it’ll be directed by a respectable director, Gus Van Sant. For those of you who are Finding Forrester, Good Will Hunting, and/or Drugstore Cowboy fans, there’s a very good chance that this guy will do the book justice. Granted, it won’t be just like the book but I think this Van Sant fella will make this a sensational viewing ride. It’s inevitable that this would be made into a movie anyway. After all, it’s a sweet love story and Hollywood is a sucker for romance.
the time traveler’s wife is one of my top favorite books - it’s one of the few books that I have reread several times, and loaned to colleagues / friends only to get it back dogeared. I’d have a hard time trying to imagine it as a movie because I imagined things a certain way and set up the scene in my way … we’ll see what happens.
I agree. One of the reasons this book gets an A is because it is so relatable and yet it speaks to each one of us differently. If I had to pick any director to do this movie, it’d have to be Gus Van Sant, hands down. He’s known for his independent spirit. He’s not like Spielberg (Jurassic Park) or Howard (Da Vinci Code) where contents get fabricated or exaggerated just to appease the mass of viewers.(ET and Splash were awesome but I digress). Van Sant’s signature style is to do a film that creates the sense of “being”-where it’d leave many viewers with lingering thoughts hours/days/months/years after seeing it. A lot like the author, the director will leave you with your own interpretations of how the movie should be or have been. That’s often typical in many Indie films and based on his anthology of films, I’m confident he’ll pull out something that’d make us appreciate the movie even if it’s not to what we envision. Besides, I’ve learned a long time ago to never have high expectations when a book is being made into a movie. But, I’d be excited to see this even if it doesn’t exactly jive with the book. And even more so if this comes out with OC!
A Time to Kill was not with Tom Cruise, you’re thinking of the Firm :-)
You’re right. My bad. Grisham has had several movies made into books. but yea the one that stars Tom Cruise is The Firm. Thanks for correcting me.
Oops, sorry! I forgot to change the name. Please forgive me.
You have to read the Tolkien books! I believe the Lord of the Rings books are the second highest read books in the world. Only the Bible is higher. Don’t take my word for that though. Anyway, the movies were *excellent* and held their own against the books. I suggest starting with the book, The Hobbit, the prequel to the 3 books.
i read the entire lord of the rings series after i saw the first movie– it helped me understand the story better, esp after i discovered, while reading, that tolkien loved to go on for pages and pages describing the setting, background, etc. then when the 2nd and 3rd movies came out, i found they portrayed the books pretty well. granted, there were some things that had to be omitted from the script, but i believed they were good omissions. took me about 2 weeks to finish the whole set!
and yes, i LOVE the time traveler’s wife. so much that when i realized i had loaned the book to someone but couldn’t remember who, i went and bought another copy :) i hope the movie will be a good one….
i thought the da vinci code was controversial because of its anti-catholicism and its epousing the fact that jesus himself married mary malgadene, not for the plagarism?
yeah, that appeared to be the original controversy (and is still the overarching one) but it was overshadowed by that whole legal case (which was big news because of that original magdalene controversy). a controversial book, huh!
I really can’t think of a book-turned-movie that I’ve liked. I think the only one that I think did the book justice was The Client, also written by Grisham. Brad Renfro and Susan Sarandon delivered a great performance then.
Maybe Fight Club too? It was difficult to adapt the whole Tyler Durden-inside-one’s-mind thing, but they did a pretty good job.
Oh, and the worst movie adaption ever has to be Battle Royale. I read it for a book club and the movie just was horrible, horrible.
Oh, and I forgot about Adaption, easily the most creative book adaption movie ever. It’s based on Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief. Watch it and you’ll gain appreciation for how original a book-turned-movie adaption can be (and how hard it is to make such a thing work).
I think a lot of us don’t realize that many movies that have great box-office records were often based on novels. Think: Godfather I and II. Those two are probably the best movies of all time and they are based on Mario Puzo’s work. It’s easy to think that if a movie’s based on a novel, it’d automatically suck. I’m thinking of The Color Purple by Alice Walker. That movie *should* have won the Best Picture Oscar. It was remarkably acted and directed. The secret of a good screenplay adapted from a novel is to basically not follow exactly what happened in the book. Like Adapation, it became ingeniously dimensional. Imagine if the director adapted exactly as the book, it’d lose its creative luster.
Anyhoo, here’s a good-kinda-trashy website for movie trivia. Take the 10 question quiz.
http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz255ac90.html
I can definitely relate to this post. I LOVE this novel very much that I read it in 2 days. Then, when I found out the Da Vinci Code novel will be made into a movie, I was rather skeptical. Like you said, we have our imagination of what this and that looks like, etc. For some reason, I had a specific actor in my mind for the role of Robert Langdon, who would be Harrison Ford. This simple thought of Tom Hanks playing Robert leaves me like, hmmm Tom Hanks?? That makes me very curious what he will be like in this film.
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