Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Book To Movie Adaptations I’m Looking Forward To or Ten Book To Movie Adaptations I Still Need To Watch

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme by The Broke and the Bookish where fellow book bloggers, and anyone who wants, can contribute to a themed top ten list. This weeks discussion centers around Top Ten Book To Movie Adaptations I’m Looking Forward To or Ten Book To Movie Adaptations I Still Need To Watch. (I’ve not stuck strictly with movie adaptations, sorry.) These are in no particular order, unless you count that they are in the order I thought of them.

1.The Magicians by Lev Grossman will be adapted into a TV series on the SyFy channel. Love The Magicians, read my review, and I can’t wait for this show. You can see a sneak peek here.

2. Mocking Jay Part 2: I love Katniss, and while the movies may not be exactly like the books, I still love them. So very much.

3. Paper Towns by John Green. First I need to read this book and then I can watch the movie. I’ve avoided John Green even though I know he is an excellent writer because I avoid sad endings, and from what I hear that is all his stories. But this trailer entices me to delve into that abyss.

4. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. My husband is not a fan of the adaptation of The Hobbit. And I get it, they added a lot of unnecessary things to make it a three movie money maker, but I still really want to see it.

5. Supposedly Matched by Ally Condie is in the works to become adapted into a movie. I always thought it was written rather like a screen play than a novel at times, and if done properly, would be a really pretty movie.

6. Cinder. This book has only been optioned, but I really really really hope this becomes a movie and I can watch it and fall in love with the universe the Marissa Meyer created allover again.

7. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, also only optioned, but I am crossing my fingers and toes real hard and I hope this becomes a movie some day!

8. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. Why or oh why are these books not been made into movies! Ugh. I want to see them. Please?

9. Chaos Walking: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Apparently this one has made it to the writing stages. This might be a hard adaptation, considering that the people can hear each others thoughts, but it would be interesting, and I would definitely go and see it.

10. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith. While this was not my favorite adaptation of a classic piece of literature, I do think this will be a fun movie. Also, Matt Smith is in it? Yes please.

Awesome Adaptation with a Tough Heroine

Awesome Adaptations is a weekly bookish meme, hosted at Alisa Selene’s books blog, Picture Me Reading. Each week she writes about an adaptation of a book that she think is worth seeing and has challenged herself to come up with suggestions to match a category. Any format (television series, film, web series, etc.) is acceptable as long as it is based in some form on a book. Today I’m participating in An Awesome Adaptation with a Tough Heroine.

 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is one of the first (self identified?) YA book series that I read. It is the story about a girl, Katniss, who grows up in the hills of coal mining country (I imagine West Virginia). She spends her days scrounging and bartering on the black market for food because after a civil uprising the United States has been divided into 13 districts centered around the Capital which now controls the districts by limiting food and her district gets very little from the government. The Capital also makes one boy and one girl from each district every year fight to the death in the Hunger Games to maintain control over the districts and prevent another uprising. Plus, the winner of the Hunger Games gets to bring food back to their district enough to feed everyone very well for a year. But they have to kill all the other tributes to do so.  Katniss volunteers in the place of her sister who was chosen and must take her survival skills from the woods to the arena.

I enjoyed the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games when it came out in 2012. I thought it kept fairly close to the original story, with some minor tweaking to make it more accessible to a wider audience. Some of Katniss’ thinking and analyzing was lost, which was something I enjoyed about the book version of Katniss, but I understand as a medium movies don’t always adequately portray a character’s thinking. But I enjoyed Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of the character and think she did a really great job. Unlike the rest of America, I actually liked Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. (I’m team Peeta all the way, FYI. Gale chose to be in the background and talked a bigger game than he acted upon.) I’m excited to see Hutcherson in Catching Fire which is where Peeta’s development in the books really took place. I thought it interesting that in the books he’s a kind of patsy from Katniss’ perspective, it takes her a long time to see him as he really is, thoughtful, brave, and endearing. I hope this transformation is well portrayed in the next movie.

While I could have done without all the camera shaking, I thought it was a fun movie and a decent adaption. And Jennifer Lawrence is hot.

cc Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards Mingle MediaTV derivative work: Tabercil via Wikimedia Commons

Nodds & Nends: Le Cats, 3D Street Art, and Frost Flowers

Cats cast in Les Mis as Les Meowserables. Adorable. [via The Mary Sue]

Speaking of cats, I came across illustrator Jenny Parks version of Catniss. Ah hahahahaha. Hilarious and wonderful.

This 3D Street Art is just amazing. It is so amazing that a lot of the street art gets cordoned off to preserve it. I really like it when people interact with the art. It helps give depth and perspective to the pieces.

I shared this Piano Bookshelf with Stephanie a while ago, and she posted it on Twitter, but I wanted to throw it up here on the blog also for those of you who may not have seen this amazing repurposing of a grand piano.

Did you know the stems can blossom into Frost Flowers? Or that that can form into Ice Ribbons? I didn’t. I’ve seen icicles that where as big around as a small child and hung ten feet from the roof of our house, but these creations are even more amazing. Gorgeous. I want to see one in real life! Pictured below is an Ice Ribbon by flickr user Sherri Terris as crestedcrazy. [via The Bloggess]

cc flickr user crestedcrazy

[Not a real] Hunger Games Themed Wedding

I stumbled across this Hunger Games themed wedding on Pinterest, where all awesome ideas and pictures eventually end up. Seriously, if you aren’t on Pinterest check it out. And when you get hooked, follow me! A little digging showed me the people were just too pretty and continued to look just too good throughout the shoot to not be the product of a professional styler, floral designer, and photographer. Plus, there were no wedding guests. As I am quite the amateur detective, (what? I’ve read a lot of books!), I deduced that this is a staged concept for a wedding. It is still really pretty! Check out more pictures here.

 

Hunger Games Mash-ups

The Hunger Games hits the big screen this Friday, and I’m super excited. There is no way I’m going to the first showing with the long lines and crazy crazies, but I can’t wait to see this amazing book come to life.

In the mean time, this T-shirt is amazing, I just wish this game was real  game! [via]

And hopefully these amazing Simpson and Hunger Games mash-ups will tide me over until I can get to the theater. [via]

Hunger Games Stills

Stills from the upcoming movie Hunger Games appeared on the internets this week. I’m soooo super excited for this movie! I’m also super excited that the author Suzanne Collins approves of the movie, because that is a load off, and hopefully means I’ll approve of the movie too. More pictures here. [via The Mary Sue]

 

 

Horny Hunger Games Parody

This parody of Katniss and Gale made me giggle. But then, I can stand a little ribbing of the things I love. Nothing is perfect. [via Topless Robot]

Hunger Games Trifecta

Cool Hunger Games jewelry on Etsy by Annie Nygard.

Hunger Games fan art of Katniss and  her fire dress by Muchacha10. [via]

And io9 asked, what if the Hunger Games was a Disney movie? What indeed. Would it look like this?

 

Nodds & Nends: Geeky Valentines, King Leonidas, and Hunger Games Trailer

Have a Geeky Valentines Day. Buy one of these funny geeky Valentines cards for the Geek or Nerd in your life. Check them all out on The Mary Sue.

Watch King Leonidas and Master Chief rap in a war of the words. Only slightly entertaining, not deserving of its own post. But I’m not a big rap fan, and mostly I’m not a big fan of the extras going on in this video. Its a little messy.

A new trailer for The Hunger Games came out. I can’t wait to see this! I may have to be crazy and go to a midnight showing. The trailer isn’t up on YouTube as of this evening. But you can watch it here. Click on it and play it, it says it’s been removed. But it hasn’t. Confusing I know. Still, it gave me chills.

Edit: There is now an official YouTube video.

The Koman foundation has decided to keep funds away from all the poor people needing breast exams. OK. Not *all* the poor people. But they have decided to no longer give donations to Planned Parenthood for breast screening, because of politics. One Sci/Fi writer, John Scalzi, decided this was unfair and he is sending all his eBook sales (with Subterranean Press) through February 8th to Planned Parenthood. As of this morning at 11 a.m. he and Subterranean Press have raised $1681.79. Mr. Scalizi, I think you deserve an award. here is  your Geek Cred Gold Star!

Hunger Games Tidbits

Hunger Games Poster

Hunger Games picture