{Always SomeThings}

Reading books,Word Nerding, and taking names.

Archive for the tag “Adaptations”

17 Apr 2010

This Week in Hollybook: Apr. 16-18

The City of Your Final Destination

Starring: Anthony Hopkis, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Laura Linney
Director: James Ivory
 Based on: The City of Your Final Destination
 By: Peter Cameron

Official Synopsis: The story is about a young American academic, Omar Razaghi (Metwally), who attempts to persuade the reluctant heirs of a celebrated Uruguayan novelist, Jules Gund, to allow him to write an authorized biography of the writer, who has recently died. Undeterred by the executors’ adamant refusal, and urged on by his vehemently ambitious girlfriend (Lara), another academic, Razaghi turns up uninvited on the family’s doorstep in a remote corner of Uruguay, hoping to change their minds. Before long, he is joined there by his super-efficient girlfriend, Deirdre.

The Gund family, living in two big rundown houses on an overgrown, steamy estancia named “Ocho Rios,” reacts to the intrusion in different ways. The writer’s widow Caroline Gund (an unusually acerbic Laura Linney) stubbornly states with every breath that she will never, never give her permission. The writer’s brother Adam Gund (Hopkins) has a contrary opinion: a biography can only help to keep the writer’s name before a book-buying public. The writer’s young mistress Arden Langdon (Gainsbourg) at sides with Caroline. Then, as she begins to fall for Omar — or is she succumbing only to the charm of someone, anyone, new? — she changes her mind. Two furtther supporters of Omar are Gund’s ten-year-old daughter Portia, and Pete, Adam’s practical-minded companion (Sanada).

How Omar comes in time to have his wish granted, and the effect of that on his future, makes up the plot of this film about the random nature of love and the ways in which we avoid or confront life’s choices.

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24 Mar 2010

This Week in Hollybook: March 26-28

Sadly nothing in the theaters that is based on a book. However, Masterpiece Theater comes to the rescue.

Sharpe’s Challenge

Starring: Sean Bean, Daragh O’Malley, Toby Stephens, Padma Lakshmi

Directed By: Tom Clegg

Based on: Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, and Sharpe’s Fortress,

By: Bernard Cornwell

Official Synopsis:

It is 1803, and Sergeant Richard Sharpe has been left for dead in a bizarre massacre in India instigated by a renegade English officer, William Dodd. Fourteen years later, Sharpe is a retired colonel and a celebrated veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, when he is asked by the Duke of Wellington to return to India to find a missing British agent who is investigating a rebellious raja.

RANDOM FACT. Strangely, this movie stars Padma Lakshmi, mostly known as the “hot” host of Top Chef. She is the former Lady Rushdie, as in Sir Salman Rushdie, the controversial author of The Satanic Verses. It is rumored that one of the characters in Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence is based on his ex-wife. The former model seems to be the perfect choice for leading lady–she belongs to the rare breed of women that can have a baby and still look ridiculously pre-baby good afterwards.

RANDOM FACT #2. Sorry, not relevant at all. But in a weird twist of famous people fate, it turns out that the father of Padma Lakshmi’s child is Adam Dell, brother of Michael Dell (of Dell Computers).

I can’t even try to disguise how gratuitously gossipy and non-literary this is.

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17 Mar 2010

This Week in Hollybook: March 19-21

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Starring: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, Devon Bostick

Based on the series by Jeff Kinney

Director: Thor Friedenthal

Official Synopsis:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid chronicles the adventures of wise-cracking pre-teen Greg Heffley, who must now survive the scariest time of his life…middle school.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Alt title: Men Who Hate Women)

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist

Based on a novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Director: Niels Arden Opley

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10 Mar 2010

This Week(end) in Hollybook: March 12-14

Note: I decided I was just going to stick to films coming out in theaters because looking at the TV schedule was too time consuming. I figure most people can tell if a movie has been adapted from a book on TV. I will, however, still keep an eye out for big Masterpiece-y adaptations….

Anyway, enough of that silliness. On with the post…

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08 Mar 2010

Baloney has a first name…it’s O-S-C-A-R.

Okay so the title may be a bit misleading (but catchy,right?). To tell you the truth I’m not particularly upset with the way the Oscars went yeseterday because I sat through the whole broadcast. ALL 3 HOURS AND 37 FREAKIN’ MINUTES OF IT.

Oscar

By the end of it my mind was mush and I was simply too bored to fight anything. I couldn’t remember what I would fight about. The few things I did notice were:

1. George Clooney was awfully cranky. Yes, I understand that he was in on the joke at the beginning of the show, but still. Throughout the broadcast the camera would cut to his Royal Sourpussness.

2. The costume design winner was kind of snarky. If you win an award, don’t point out that you have two just like it at home. No matter how much you work that dress, snarky is not a good accessory. In fact, it starts to look an awful lot like something else beginning with a “B”.

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07 Mar 2010
2 Comments

Is it terrible that…?

I’m kind of excited about this new movie coming out?

As you may have noticed I’m a bit of an Austenite. While browsing for a gift for a friend of mine, I ran across a little tidbit on a website. Apparently, Sense and Sensbility is getting remade but Latino style! The movie, which was originally Sense and Sensibilidad (now From Prada to Nada) is about two spoiled Latina girls (a law student and a free spirit) whose dad loses everything. As a result, the girls have to go live in the Barrio with their aunt and adjust to their new life.

As a Latina and a mushy Austen fan I am just way excited. While reading Jane Austen I always try to put myself in the position of the protagonists and find that although we are centuries apart and my family is Mexican, there is some amount of mirroring. I mean, my family can be just as conservative and obsessed with marriage as the Brits were in the Regency Era. A few other similarities:

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