19 October, 2009

Rant of the Day

There are things in this world that delight me. Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, peppermint mochas, puppies, kittens, and The Dish with Danielle Fishel. Just to name a few. I just wanted to bring up the fact that I do find joy in the world before I let loose with another tirade.

There are things in this world that displease me. The aforementioned lack of toilet seat covers, for example. And now I would like to present another item to add to the list of Things That Annoy Me...

I discovered this annoyance on my last trip to Border's. The annoyance has been brewing; I have felt this way for a long time, but the gravity of the annoyance was magnified on this particular trip. I love to read, but when my favorite books are turned into movies, things begin to go horribly wrong. First there is the problem with the book being destroyed in translation to film, like with Confessions of A Shopaholic. All the charm of the book was lost, and all the things that made the book so endearing were changed, and the tone of the movie became shrill and silly. Or take the recent Harry Potter films. So much of the content is cut and even changed to keep the movie to a reasonable length. Supposedly. But let's face it, the true Potter fans would sit through a six hour movie if they made it exactly like the book. I know I would. But it's not even the plot changes and omissions that bothers me the most, it is the blatant disregard for the details that make it Harry Potter; the last couple of movies the Hogwarts students have been running around in Muggle clothes, Dumbledore is stern and abrupt instead of warm and kind, and don't even get me started on Harry and Hermione's hairdos.

These things are what make the movies less magical and charming than their books, and whatever they do in the films, they can't change the books I love. Until now.

The new Thing That Annoys me is (drumroll please) when books become rereleased with the movie poster as their cover. I enjoy book covers how they were meant to be. This is what makes them mine; I can imagine the characters as I want. I admit it, I enjoyed the Twilight series. I do not enjoy the new movie poster covers that look like a bad romance novel. I know the books are a little melodramatic and everything, but I feel like Stephenie Meyer wanted the covers the original way for a reason. I liked the original covers. Going back to my issues with miscasting the novels turned movies, Becky Bloomwood in the Shopaholic books is described as a brunette. And, in one of the later books in the series she says of another character "she's a red-haired bitch and I hate her." So why is a redheaded Isla Fischer on the cover of the book?? I don't want to see Isla Fischer or Dakota Fanning or Hayden Panetierre on the cover of a novel. They're actors, not fictitious characters; I want to see them in my local movie theater or television set, not in a bookstore. That is all. *gets off soapbox*