Lights, Camera, Action!

It's been a while since I've done this, but it's time for Booking Through Thursday again:

Tami inspired this week’s question:
What book do you think should be made into a movie? And do you have any suggestions for the producers?

Or, What book do you think should NEVER be made into a movie?

I almost hesitate to name any book, because these days it by seems that any book turned into a movie has to have a BIG NAME as the star, and have a minimum of at least one long sex scene, even if there wasn't one in the book. It seems that they spend so much time with those two things, the book gets lost somewhere ...

But, two books that I think would be interesting to see as movies would be ones that I think would be better served by miniseries, a la HBO's John Adams. That format would provide more opportunities to really tell the stories.

Martha Washington: An American Life, by Patricia Brady could make an excellent movie, particularly since most people know so little about her. I am not sure who I would cast to play Martha, but I would hope it would be someone who could portray her as well and as believably as Laura Linney portrayed Abigail Adams in the miniseries named above.

Typhoid Mary, by Judith Walzer Leavitt is another one. This book is so very interesting, as it takes the case of Mary Malon and looks at it from the social, political, medical, and moral standpoints of the time period. Once again, I can think of some people who may do a good job in the role, but at the moment no one seems the *only* possibility.

Two books that I know are being made into movies, that I wish were not, are The Time Traveler's Wife, and Julie & Julia. The first because I just have a feeling that a Hollywood movie will not be able to capture the nuances of the characters and the importance of their internal dialogues in a film. And the second because it just isn't the type of book I usually enjoy in movie form.

And though I am a knitter, I will definitely not be going to see the movie of The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs. I haven't read the book, so I am not able to comment on the story/plot/design/whatever. But I do know that Julia Roberts is in it, and she is someone I just cannot take. (And yes, I know she is a knitter in real life (good for her), but it doesn't make her any more appealing to me ...)