By now you have probably heard the hype…Jonathan Tropper’s book This Is Where I Leave You was made into a movie!

I love it when books are made into movies!  I love to see the director’s vision of the story compared to mine… honestly, I think in recent years the movies made from books are pretty good.  So lets begin with looking at my thoughts on this book… and then the movie.

Recently I read and reviewed This Is Where I Leave You.  When I heard the movie was coming out, I knew I had to read the book first.  (1 point for movie, as that is why I read the book).  I really enjoyed the book.  It was witty and laugh out loud funny at times.  The opening scene of Judd finding his wife on her birthday…. seriously, horribly funny… I could not wait to see that scene in the movie, I knew it was just going to be fantastic!

Book received 5 shiny points for being a page turning-laugh out loud-tell your friends about it-kind of read.  That’s right, a page turning-laugh out loud-tell your friends about it-kind of read.  I loved it, I gushed about it, I passed it to a friend and she gushed too.

Then, me and my gushing invited girls from my book club to go and see the movie… and…

The movie starring the funny Jason Bateman as Judd, and also funny Tina Fey as Wendy his sister AND Jane Fonda as the mom looked to be a great line up.  I had my popcorn and I was ready to laugh and laugh…

and I really didn’t laugh too much at all.

That opening scene I could not wait for, was there and it wasn’t.  The funniest part of that whole scene was not in the movie.  Then, the movie felt forced.  I found myself thinking how the acting did not seem natural, it felt like they were acting – which I know, I know, they are… but usually you can fall right into the movie and feel like it happened.  This one – not so much.  (I take away 1 shiny point from the movie for not keeping to the opening scene).

Overall, the movie was ok, but not great.  The book club gals that were with me all agreed.  The movie fell flat.  I may have been a bit critical because I had just finished reading the book, but I think it is more than that.  Watching it kind of felt like this:

and afterwards I felt like this:

The winner of this battle is….

The Book.

Read the book.  If you want to see the movie, wait until you can pick it up at Redbox.  You will thank me for saving you the box office price, the annoying person talking on their phone in the row behind you and the popcorn kernel that will no doubt get stuck to the roof of your mouth and distract you from really paying attention anyway.

Have you read the book?  Have you seen the movie?  What are your thoughts?

Jerry Renault is sent to a Catholic school after his mom has died.  The school is very strict and has a yearly chocolate sale that all students are EXPECTED to participate in.  Brother Leon gets it in his heard that the school can bring in a lot more money if they double what they sold the previous year making it 50 boxes of chocolates sold by each student. 

Jerry finds himself mixed up in an encounter with the schools “gang” called the Vigils and he is instructed not to sell chocolates for the first ten days of the sale.  Jerry complies and creates a very annoyed Brother Leon when Jerry does not do his part.

The real kicker is that after the ten days, Jerry decides he has had enough of people telling him what to do and when to do it so he continues to refuse to sell the chocolates on principle.  It should be a choice to sell.  Not an order.  By doing this Jerry creates an uproar in the school of support that angers the Vigils who feel this is like a slap in the face to their control of the school.  As time passes the Vigils work hard to gain control pushing kids to sell their chocolates making Jerry an outcast and eventually leading to what is referred to as the chocolate war.

I read this book this last October for banned book week.  The book was banned due to the strong content, language, and deemed unsuitable for the age group it was written for.  Of course, I loved it. ♥ There is a powerful message within The Chocolate War.

The movie, made in 1988, was well done.  Ilan Mitchell-Smith does a good job of portraying Jerry, a boy who appears meek on the outside but has a strong sense of right and wrong on the inside. The head honcho for the Vigils, Archie (played by Wallace Langham, now on CSI) was also very good at his role.  I felt the same emotions watching the movie as I had reading the book.  I felt unsettled and angry at times.  And in the end, neither the book or movie leave you with a feel good “all is well” feeling… you know.. that there is more to be done, and in this case, that is an ok and appropriate feeling.

I would say I enjoyed them both just about equally.  The book was one I have wanted to read for a while and I was glad I finally got to it.  The movie, was the big finale for me, to see it after reading it was perfect.  I feel I can talk about The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier with some knowledge and opinion.

If you get the opportunity, I recommend reading The Chocolate War and then treating yourself to the movie.  Perhaps maybe, for this next Octobers banned book week?

A long time ago…  (long before this blog or before I even knew what a blog was) I had read Janet Evanovich’s book One For The Money.  It was light, it was funny.  It was about this big haired girl named Stephanie Plum from New Jersey who was down on her luck after losing her job.  The bills were piling up and she found herself looking for a job from her cousin Vinnie who owned the local Bond Agency.

Then it gets hilarious.  Stephanie has no idea what she has got herself into but tries to bring in the biggest bail, Morrelli, who she had a brief encounter with many years ago and thinks this could be some pay back.  Morelli is not only a good-looking guy, he is also a cop – on bail for a crime he did not commit but all evidence to say so seems to has disappeared. 

When Stephanie requires a little assistance in her new job, she is introduced to Ranger (yay!!!!  Three cheers from my section *doing the wave* !!!!)  Ranger is dark and mysterious and has a way of showing up just when Stephanie needs him.  He also teaches her how to shoot a gun, and how to break into a suspects home… but you know… that’s just part of the fun.

The book… is fun.   Really it is.  SO much fun in fact I went on to read Two For The Dough, Three To Get Deadly, Four To Score, High Five, Hot Six, Seven Up, Hard Eight, To The Nines, Ten Big Ones, Eleven On Top and Twelve Sharp.  (In Twelve Sharp the book irritated me/ got a little gross and I stopped reading the series there).  Currently I think the books are on eighteen.

The series is just funny bail bond situations that Stephanie gets involved in and Morrelli and Ranger dig her out of messes.  She usually winds up accidentally uncovering something that leads to big arrests….

Movie…

On Saturday I went to the movie with four other Bookies (my book club).  Although we never read this book as a book club, we had read a couple of the later ones in the series.  A few in my book club are HUGE fans of the series and have read every book. 

I felt the movie was well done.  Although there has been grumblings of the casting of Katherine Heigl as Stephanie (too tall, and too sophisticated), I thought she did a great job.  Morrelli and Ranger were wonderful and over all I personally thought this movie version was even better than the book.  Yup.  I did just say that.

If you are looking for a fun laugh out loud movie, I would recommend giving this one a try. 

As the story goes… Kitty (Naomi Watts) has found herself to be quite choosy on who she will choose as a husband.  It certainly it is not from lack of effort on the men’s part, yet Kitty knows she is beautiful and really feels that a woman does not need to have a man in her life to feel complete.  Her parents disagree.

One day, after a particular awkward argument at home when her mother flat-out asks Kitty how much longer she plans to count on her father to support her – Kitty takes a walk and finds herself in the company of a fairly new acquaintance, Walter (Edward Norton).  When out of the blue, Walter proposes, Kitty is taken aback and laughs telling him that she hardly knows him and surely he does not expect an answer.  Upon returning home, she overheard her mother on the phone gushing over Kitty’s sister new proposal and saying that of course Kitty will probably never get married.  Kitty quickly returns to Walter with a “yes, she will marry him.”

As expected, Kitty soon finds that her lack on knowing Walter is a problem.  He in quite introverted, used to accompanying himself only and honestly she finds him boring.  When they attend a party together and she is introduced to Charles Townsend, Kitty finds herself drawn to this man who is exciting, adventurous,outgoing, and really everything that Walter is not.

An affair is soon taking place between Kitty and Charles, never mind that Charles too is married and Kitty is sure that if they could only dump their current spouses that life would be a fairy tale of happily ever after.

When Walter inevitably finds out, he offers Kitty a divorce if only Charles will marry her.  Kitty soon finds herself in a rude awakening that carries her sullen and broken to where Walter is taking her, to a small Chinese village where Walter is to help with the cholera outbreak that is taking the lives of everyone in contact with it.  Kitty is sure that Walter is trying to kill her… but soon finds herself taken in with her surroundings of the poor and the abandoned, and grows into someone she never knew was in her. 

I recently read and reviewed The Painted Veil by  W Somerset Maugham and I was surprised how much I fell in love with this story.  As mentioned in my review, Kitty annoyed me to no end.  She was selfish and stuck on herself.  Even in the end when I thought there may be a turning point in the story – Kitty again let me down.  I can say by the end of the read, I understood Kitty and her weaknesses, but I sure did not need to accept them or like them. 

As per my habit, I have found that I enjoy reading books and then if movies are available to actively search them out.  That is what I did in this case, and added to my Netflix Que this movie. 

Having now seen the movie I have to say, no matter what you thought of the book, the movie is worth seeing.  First of all, you never have to twist my arm too bad to have me watch anything with Edward Norton in it.  I think he is a brilliant actor and he came through again in Painted Veil. 

Book and movie are not the same.  I wish, the book would have been written as the movie was.  Yes, I just said that.  I found the story more heart wrenching the way the movie came together – and I found that in the end, Kitty was someone who truly had grown and became a woman I was impressed with.  She truly found herself literally and figuratively in a monastery for orphans.  And to see how both she and Walter deal with the affair is very realistic.  Truly, Walter is a more likable character too – as the movie gives him more heart and depth than the book did.

I was touched deeply by this movie and encourage you if you have not seen it to really treat yourself to an amazing story.