Books at the Oscars

I ran across an interesting Oscar edition book meme over at Book Memes and Quizzes, which tried to bring the Academy Awards to books by asking readers and bloggers some interesting book-movie/movie-book questions:

Q: What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

A: We here at LitSnit love the idea of books being turned into movies, just check our numerous Friday Casing Call session (a blog feature currently on hiatus.) I made a bunch of picks in 2010. In 2011, the book I would love to see hit the big screen would be A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Without getting too deep into CCF mode, here are my picks for the actors who I’d like featured in the movie version of this great novel:

Mariam - Shohreh Aghdashloo

Leila - Indira Verma

Rasheed - Anil Kapoor

Tariq - Naveen Andrews

Note: Here is a list of 5 popular books, whose movie versions are set to hit movie theaters in 2011:

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (US version starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara)

One for the Money (starring Katherine Heigl and Daniel Sunjata)

One Day (starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess)

The Help (starring Emma Stone and Viola Davis)

Water for Elephants (starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon)

Q: What movie would you most like to get a book version of?

 

 A: Blue Valentine. Derek Cianfrance worked on Blue Valentine’s movie script for 12 years. It is his baby, and what a marvelous baby it is. I’d liken this story of a relationship falling apart to Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. What I saw on the big screen was mesmerizing, but I’m a book person and I would love to get my hands on a novelization of this story.

Q: What's your favorite movie adaptation of a book?

A: I have to go to a three way tie for this one:

Apocalypse Now (based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad)

Let The Right One In (based on the book Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist)

Breakfast at Tiffany's (based on the book Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote)

If you haven’t read these books, go get them!

If you haven’t seen these movies, you don’t know what you’re missing!

What's your favorite book adaptation of a movie (or tv show)?

 

 I’m not a big fan of the movie novelization genre. It seem that the majority of successful movie-to-book transitions come from science fiction plotlines, and sci/fi is just not my thing...yet. The one movie-to-book adaptation I've read and liked was the Natural Born Killers novelization by John August. The movie is a grisly, crazy ride. The book version (also entitled Natural Born Killers), supplements the on-screen action, describing some of Mickey and Mallory’s murders which were omitted in the movie.