By Jennie

The big news in the entertainment world this past week was the breakup of Jennifer Lopez’s third marriage. Lopez and her emaciated, unhealthy-looking singer husband, Marc Anthony, announced that they were splitting up this past Friday. They are the parents of 3-year-old twins, Emme and Max. I’m no fan of Lopez, but I always thought she could do better than her creepy husband, who in addition to being kind of unattractive (IMO, obviously), has been rumored to be controlling and even, by some accounts, abusive. Hey, maybe this will open the door to a J. Lo-Steven Tyler romance on American Idol!

The Women’s World Cup finale was held Sunday in Germany, with Japan beating the US women by a score of 3-2. I’m not that interested in soccer, never mind women’s soccer, but I am interested in fair-weather fandom. Even so, I couldn’t be too disappointed in Japan’s win – if ever a country needed and deserved something to lift their national spirits, it’s Japan. It sounds like it was an exciting and well-played game on both sides, anyway. Congratulations to Japan!

In movie news, the final Harry Potter movie (sniff), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II, made a gazillion billion dollars this weekend. I haven’t seen it yet, but I hear Voldemort wins. Bummer.

Congratulations to new mom, Ivanka Trump, 29. She and her husband, Jared, welcomed baby girl Arabella Rose on Sunday morning. I like this name – it’s different, but not as odd as some recent celebrity baby names. What do you think?

Would you ask Justin Timberlake or Mina Kunis out on a date? A little intimidating, no? How about Betty White?! Well, three Marines did just that via YouTube. They extended invitations to Timberlake, Kunis and White to attend upcoming Marine Corps Balls. Timberlake and Kunis accepted the invitations, but sadly White was already booked that night and had to decline. All we can say is Oorah!

Charlie Sheen will reportedly be returning to the small screen in an adaption of the Jack Nicholson film Anger Management. The project has yet to find a network, however. Charlie Sheen is no Jack Nicholson, and personally I have zero interest in anything involving “the drug Charlie Sheen” as he so modestly refers to himself. What about you – do you want more Sheen?

By Jennie

The film version of Eat, Pray, Love, starring Julia Roberts, came out yesterday. The Elizabeth Gilbert book was a bestseller, remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for years after its publication. As such, no doubt there are many devoted fans who will flock to the theaters hoping to recreate the special experience they had reading the book. But is that possible?

(I should say, as an aside, that I read Eat, Pray, Love a couple of years ago and liked it but didn’t love it. I don’t plan to see the movie; I’ve gotten tired of Julia Roberts over the years. Though I loved her in Mystic Pizza and Erin Brockovich, her sour performances in Ocean’s 11 and Closer turned me off, and I feel like she’ll accentuate some of Gilbert’s most unattractive traits as portrayed in the book.)

I am very wary of film adaptions of favorite books. In my experience, the more one likes a book, the less likely a film version is to work for them. The relationship a reader has to a favorite book is complicated and can be intense; it’s not unusual to feel proprietary about the story and the characters.

So it’s easy to get one’s nose out of joint about what one sees as miscasting, for instance. I read the A.S. Byatt book Possession years ago, and really liked it. I ended up seeing the film version when it came out in theaters with a bunch of people who had not read the book. They all liked the movie, but I could not get over – still cannot get over – how miscast Aaron Eckhart was in one of the main roles. Grr, it still makes me mad. The movie was ruined for me (despite being generally a good movie), and I can’t stand Aaron Eckhart as an actor, now. And this wasn’t even one of my favorite books – just one I liked.

Readers will also carp about plot changes and plot points/storylines being left out of films. I know that there are dedicated Harry Potter fans who pick apart the films and complain about important storylines and characters being left out. The fact is, it’s hard to condense an 800-page book into a film, even one running two and a half hours long, as some of the Harry Potter films have. There’s a reason that both the last Harry Potter book and the last Twilight book are being split into two films. (Well, besides the obvious reason – both franchises are cash cows for the studios that produce them.)

(I do think that Twilight fans, from what I’ve seen, are a little less critical of the film franchise – perhaps because they are largely tweens enamored of Robert Pattinson and/or Taylor Lautner. Or maybe – and this goes for Harry Potter, too – the fact that it’s a series rather than a single film based on a single book allows fans to get invested in the film version of the characters and story on their own, independent of the books.)

My general rule when I’m interested in a book and film and haven’t read or seen either yet is this – see the movie first. I’ve never had a book ruin a movie for me, but movies can…well, not exactly ruin books for me, but sour me on a book I loved, at least to the point where I can’t think of the book without thinking about what I disliked about the movie.

How about you? Do you have any book-to-movie horror stories? Any really good experiences? Or are you able to separate the book from the film and view each as a separate entity?

Written by Eydie

What’s a director to do when the big, shocking climax of the movie is already known by everyone who’d want to see it?

That must have been a tough one for David Yates, who directed this summer’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The answer may have been controversial, but it’s one with which I wholeheartedly agree: Make the film as different as possible from the original novel. A month after the movie’s release, it’s time to analyze why.

Movie adaptations are a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. The first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, drew fire because it was too much like the book. Critics complained there was nothing to be surprised about, no ingenuity shown by the filmmakers, nothing compelling beyond the special effects. Meanwhile the decision to veer away from J.K. Rowling’s sacred text hasn’t always played well–witness the last movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I myself, perhaps because it’s my favorite of the books, was horrified at the steamroller approach and the cheap play for laughs (having the cool black wizard compliment Professor Dumbledore’s “style” was a little too cliche). That film, also directed by Yates, changed the wrong details, which in turn changed the characters’ relationships as well as their personalities–for example, in the tome Harry didn’t dump Cho Chang because she was a traitor, he dumped her because she was a nutcase.

But with Half-Blood Prince, the filmmakers and cast preserve the essence of the book, even while changing some things completely.

For one thing, certain characters are a lot more likeable in the movie. Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) isn’t an insufferable name dropper; he’s an old man bearing a terrible burden, keeping secret something he did to help Lord Voldemort become immortal. The look of shock and guilt when Ronald Weasley (the always excellent Rupert Grint) drinks poison mead meant for the professor conveys more about the character than Rowling’s purple prose did. Ginny Weasley, Harry’s love interest, is no longer the crazed harpy who screams at her brother at the drop of a hat, the “Mary Sue” that fans disliked because she always came up roses despite her flaws. I credit actress Bonnie Wright, who throughout the Potter films has portrayed Ginny’s longing with subtle facial expressions and body gestures, as well as scriptwriters who have made Ginny’s importance to Harry grow more organically. Conversely, Harry himself is less angelic, more like an actual teenage boy, who hits on a very pretty girl in a Muggle (i.e. real-world) diner near the start of the film. Maybe his nude stint in the play Equus caused this more authentic look at Harry’s romantic urges? He’s no less a Christ allegory for it, anyway.

What really makes Half-Blood prince work for me is that it’s got a style unique to all the other Potter movies. The metaphor of elite Death Eaters as a demonic Blue Angels squadron is genius! So are the “steampunk” outfits worn by many of the characters, mostly the antagonistic ones. Steampunk, which strives for a post-modern, post-apocalyptic effect, is roughly a mix of Victorian and goth fashions. To me, these costumes symbolized the struggle between old values–long ago, wizards used to be open and proud of their superior status in the world–and those who want to preserve peace with Muggles. Besides, I have a mini top hat just like Narcissa Malfoy’s.

Not everything works, of course. I’m not sure why the attack on the Weasley family home was necessary, except maybe to showcase the Death Eater Blue Angels some more. But the biggest change is one I applaud: Out of necessity, Dumbledore’s death–the plot point everyone knows is coming–is not the ultimate destination of the film. It’s not even exactly the same as it happened in the novel, though actor Alan Rickman (who portrays Professor Snape at his tortured best) makes the look on Snape’s face one of horror, not hatred as the book wanted us to believe. I loved how the actual climax was the heartbreaking, yet hopeful, show of solidarity that the Hogwart’s School students and teachers display upon viewing Dumbledore’s body: Love can eradicate the Dark Mark, and maybe Voldemort too.