Eat Pray Love

I'm not sure I don't have a post called this already, but Luis (quite surprisingly) added the movie Eat Pray Love to the NetFlix lit. While I give Luis credit for being able to sit through some "chick flicks" (he may even sit through more than I can - I find too many of them insipid and terribly uninspiring), this proved to be too much - i.e. too slow - even for him. But I was not unhappy with the movie.

This is a surprise for me, as normally I am quite the purist when it comes to movies based on books. I realise it is rather impossible to put an entire book into a movie format unless the books are the size of C.S. Lewis' Narnian Chronicles, which even then was screwed up completely by the incompetent who did The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I had looked forward to in a big way and was so disappointed by the finished product. It is the best book in the series and the company that bought the rights from Disney Films did not follow the book in any fashion and did it on a cut budget. (I will give credit however to the actors and actresses and of course the wonderful voice talents of Liam Neeson as Aslan for an excellent performance. They were great.)

Eat pray Love was an incredible book and to put the true anguish of the ending of a marriage and a poor following relationship would have alone been impossible - this was the first full chapter of the book and to go through it with the author was a different experience - as only personal despair can be - from the scenes included in the movie. Her journey through the eating in Italy, the true finding of God and self in India and the experience of love and fulfillment in Indonesia, however, were done rather well, given the limitations of transferring a book to a film format. I have to give credit where it is due - it was very well done.

I have no doubt that the second book, Commitment, will also be put to film... and in some ways it will translate well but in many ways it will not. A large part of this book is history of love and marriage and varies facets of those topics. It will not make it into a movie format and it is key to the book. The understanding of marriage is far more than just the fluff that one can put into a film.

Not all movies are disappointing although admittedly I am a more harsh critic than most.

I was extremely happy with the remake of The Clash of the Titans. Not only did they follow well the original more campy film from 1981 with Harry Hamlin as Perseus, but Sam Worthington (of Avatar fame) was an excellent choice for the new Perseus. And I do think very highly of Ramin Djawadi's music skills. He also did the music for Iron Man, another excellent remake. Even Iron Man II was very well done. When's the last time a second movie to anything was good?

Luis sat through the new Tron movie. I'm not sure how, although I never could get through the first film from the 1970s. And except for flashy technology, the movie had nothing to offer. It was given a half a star out of a possible four-star rating - the poorest rating I have ever seen. The movie's only appeal was to former Tron fans and the technology. That wasn't enough to pass muster for me when it came to Avatar, which had an annoyingly preachy story that was underdeveloped and acceptable acting and rested solely on its technological merits. Had the story been better developed, it would have been a top movie.

He wants to go see the Jack Black movie based on Gulliver's Travels, which is neither my kind of book nor my kind of movie. Jack Black is infamous for playing the fool and I hate movies like that. I'd rather not see that. I don't know that there are any movies coming out that I'd want to see... maybe The King's Speech with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, two of my favourite British actors. A well-done historical movie is a delight.

There are movies I want on my Amazon list: Despicable Me, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and whenever it comes out, Tangled (always a fan of Pixar films). There are also plenty of soundtracks as well. Always give me music!