It was an interesting show for the Oscars this year.  From the “Kanye” moment to Sean Penn somewhat proudly proclaiming he’s not part of the Academy.  Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role (The Blind Side) the very same year she accepted a Razzie for Worst Actress (All About Steve).  And, of course, the gross upset of Avatar at the hands of The Hurt Locker.  With 41 million viewers, this year’s Oscars had something for everyone but, perhaps more interestingly, it best reflected the two sides of Hollywood which exist today.

How fitting to have two hosts on the one Oscar night that would truly exemplify both faces of Hollywood.  For so long many have seen Hollywood as one massive, filmmaking entity but that really isn’t the case.  Now more than ever there’s a division between what I’m calling (for the purposes of this article) “mainstream” Hollywood and “performance” Hollywood.  The names pretty much say it all.

Films in the mainstream category are all the summer blockbusters, tent pole movies studios rely on to turn a healthy profit year over year (e.g. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Avatar).  In contrast you have the performance pictures, lesser known films with limited release and all too often far less money behind them (e.g. Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker).  These are two very different types of films, each vying for the attention of movie goers.

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Shortly after I read The Lovely Bones in 2002, I started hearing rumblings that it was being optioned for a movie. My immediate reaction was “Why?” The emotionally devastating novel about the rape and murder of a fourteen year old seemed like dubious source material. The murdered girl resides in a self imposed ethereal limbo-land between heaven and earth for most of the book, making it logistical nightmare to film. I just didn’t understand how a filmmaker could pull it off.

In the case of director Peter Jackson, he couldn’t, and he didn’t. Jackson worked his magic with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he is woefully out of his element here. The most shocking thing about seeing the film is that it is completely devoid of any emotion or warmth, the very characteristics that made the book so beloved. So much consideration is given to unnecessary special effects (that don’t even look good) that the crucial human interactions are lost, and that is a true pity. If you take those away, there is no reason to see this movie.

Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) plays Susie Salmon, who disappears on her way home from school one day. A nerdy and harmless looking neighbor, Mr. Harvey, lures Susie to a root-cellar like building in the middle of a field with the sheepish confession he has built a playhouse for the neighborhood kids. Susie feels honored to be the first child to see the playhouse, but she is ultimately raped, murdered, and dismembered in the claustrophobic dwelling.

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The release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has reopened discussions about what makes a good book to film adaptation. The Potter series often divides fans, and the latest chapter is no exception. I’ve heard from a number of fans of the book series who are  disappointed with the current film’s adaptation, while I’ve also talked to fans who are satisfied. Brad Brevet from RopesofSilicon reflected on some of the more negative fan reactions and he asks, “how faithful should film adaptations be?”

Adapting a book into a film is not an easy process. Squeezing a 300-page novel into a 120-minute film is difficult, especially if the book has lots of exposition or other elements that are not easily cinematic. For books that are rich and deeply characterized, like the Potter books, adaptation is almost always going to mean losing some characters or the minute characterizations that many fans hold dear.

That said, making an adaptation that is too close to the original work can often be just as problematic as making an unfaithful adaptation. Brevet mentions this spring’s Watchmen as an example of a film that while remarkably true to its graphic novel counterpart, still didn’t end up endearing itself to even diehard Watchmen fans. I would argue this was because despite getting the character and plot details correct, Watchmen didn’t effectively bring enough of its own cinematic virtues to the project. In contrast, Frank Miller’s Sin City was a tremendous adaptation of various vignettes from the graphic novel series, and it managed to be both accurate and bring in its own voice.

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