Romeo + Juliet

Sorry for the late posting, I'm horrible about these things. Here is a link to a review of William Shakepeare's Romeo+Juliet movie directed by Baz Luhrmann. This link was found on Amazon as the "most helpful" movie review by a user.

I watched this rendition of Shakespeare's work my Freshman year of high school after finishing our Shakespearean reading, and I must say that I think that it was an excellent idea and it executed exactly what it needed to for it's audience. This contemporary, gangster-like film stars Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes and just really was a homerun for me. Not because it had wonderful acting or special effects (those aspects of the film were actually poor), but because it used Shakespeare's verse in contemporary times, which is normally something I'm horrible about interpretting and brought it to life in a modern-day setting with guns, gangs, violence, etc. Everything that appeals to our generation. And I thought that this would be incredibly helpful for students or interested persons who just didn't find what they were looking for in the text and needed to view some action that they could relate to. I know that some may see it as a disgrace to Shakespeare's amazing story and whatnot, but it serves its purpose and offers and interesting point of view in a more recent setting. The story remains the same, and think about it... it's an over-exaggerated tragedy... the acting and setting aren't poking fun at his work, they're simply recreating it in an interesting and fun way.

Now, for the record, I'm not saying that movies are better than books in many ways, or any ways. I am simply saying that when it comes to complicated and often misunderstood verse and language, or even other aspects of literature that make it difficult for the less intellectual to understand, movies can be helpful as a visual aid, or to engage an otherwise disinterested audience to well-known or good stories.

Obviously, in my opinion, and in the opinion of most, books are almost always better than movies. This hold true for a number of reasons that have been discussed in previous posts, and also because, though one cannot see exactly what is going on, he can relate to the character moreso and be exposed to finer details and more importantly, unspoken thoughts and feelings that movies cannot capture. While movies do a very nice job of translating text, as in the Harry Potter movies, the audience cannot identify as closely and miss important points, thoughts, and things that are not spoken aloud by the characters, and aren't thrust completely into the heads and imaginations of characters as they are in books. But, if something is meant to be a play originally, as in my Romeo + Juliet example, it is easier to translate the original text to the big screen, because it was meant to be acted out and the author took into account that we wouldn't be exposed to private thoughts of the characters unless they were spoken aloud on stage. So I think that movies like such are more successful as the directors have been given an easier time.

My questions are:
Have you seen this version of Romeo and Juliet? If so, what did you think of it? Were you in favor of what it was trying to prove and did it do a decent job of appealing to its target audience?

If you haven't, do you think that after reading the Amazon review that you would agree or disagree with it?

Hamlet and Harry Potter

I'm sure we've all read Shakespeare's Hamlet at some point. When I read it in one of my english classes we watched the 1996 movie (the one with Kate Winslet) as we read. I still enjoyed the play more than the movie, but I have to admit the movie was extremely helpful. They stay very close to the actual script and plot. This made it easy to picture what was going on and understand the action of the scenes a little better. This review also gave the movie positive feedback, saying it "engaged [his] intellect, senses, and emotions."

In this situation, the movie was a success and I'm glad it was available; however, this is not always the case. Movies like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter tend to stray from the original text. It's not that the movies are bad, but I'd rather they stick to the plot or go a completely different way, like use the same idea, but change up the plot and title so the book can be its own being. The Harry Potter series, for instance, seems to mean all things Potter - books, movies, board games, etc.

It seems like books become movies to appeal to a larger audience. So many people say "Oh yeah I've seen the movies, I just haven't read the books." For Harry Potter, many people just don't want to spend the time reading thousands of pages, when they can just sit back and watch the movies. This is what's frustrating because in my opinion, the books are so much better. It's not just the storyline that is more compelling, but the way Rowling tells the story. She is actually a good writer, unlike so many series-authors today (i.e. Stephanie Meyer).

In my opinion, a movie rendition can change the value of a book, in the public's eye. The Potter series was unique in that it grew up with a generation. The first book targeted 3rd graders; the last one featured gory death scenes aiming for teenagers and young adults. You can't see that in the movies, its just not the same. Before the first movie came out, everyone went out and bought the book to see what all the hype was about. Now they just rent the movie and say, "that was decent."

In contrast, movie-Hamlet does not change anything about the original Shakespeare piece - that's what's so great about it. Everyone would still rather read the play for the experience of reading Shakespeare. This is one example of a movie that doesn't spoil the original literature, and I'm sure there are more out there. So it goes both ways, in my opinion, but more often than not, the movie doesn't live up to the book's standards.

Here are my questions:

1. What do you think about movies that are based on a book - or real life events - that have a different title and storyline (i.e. The Vow, Rambo, Die Hard)?
2. What about movie propaganda? Do transformers action figures and party favors have any impact on the cultural significance of the film?

Dante's Inferno: 14th Century to 2007

Dante's Inferno is the epic first part of the Divine Comedy following a man on a quest through the nine circles of hell, written and narrated by Dante Alighieri sometime in the 14th century.  Alighieri in 34 cantos (chapters) basically designs every concept of Hell that we have in our heads when asked to imagine it. Furthermore, he creates every punishment for every sin from 1st circle atheism all the way to 9th circle treachery.  The novel is very serious, very frightening, and just a wild story in general.

Fast forward to the 21st century,  Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders re-tell Alighieri's tale in terms of 2007 through their puppet-based film by the same name.  They establish a modern setting with modern idealism and utilize a humorous prose while holding true to the original Inferno.  If the book is too difficult to read with it's verse format, I'd venture to say that the film could give you a detailed grasp on everything within Alighieri's writings.

I feel that books usually become movies whenever some film maker is an avid fan of a work, or when a writer sees the potential movie within an author's work.  I can't imagine any writer creating novels with the intent that his pieces end up on the big screen.  This is why the film people have to be the ones to see the movie potential within a book, because they have much more feel on the length of movies, budgets, actors, etc.  Upon reading the book or getting an adapted script, they have to choose what's the most important, what to omit, think about scenes and what have you.  The makers of the film adaptation of Inferno had an apparent interest in the book, and decided that they would remake the story for their time and their voice.  And they actually do a great job in adapting the writing to a movie.

Which brings us to books vs. movies.  Books will always have the upper hand in that there's no time limitations, and therefore every detail needed is in the story.  They also allow you to make your own ideas in regards to the imagery of each scene, of each character, and of the general setting.  Movies on the other hand cannot be 5 hours long, and they spoon feed you the faces, the places, the things.  So you might miss out on some key parts.  Since Alighieri's work is written in it's verse format,  the film makers where actually able to take the story and dumb it down to common 21st century language.  Because of this, the film does well in capturing every circle of hell, every demon creature encounter, and so on.  The only difference is, is that some of the creatures and scenes are portrayed in a modernized way, compared to the book.

With this specific example,  I feel that someone who has seen the film interpretation of Dante's Inferno before reading the book may not seek out the actual book. And even if they did, I could see them seeing the way it is written, getting frustrated and calling it quits.  The film is also much more comical than the novel, so some audience may even be lost on that principle alone when it comes down to actually reading Dante Alighieri.

The Crucible Vs. The Crucible

The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is both a play and a movie (made based off of the play).  Now whenever a movie is made based off of some text, the question is always asked, “Will the movie stay true to the text?”  And in the case of  The Crucible, a large number of people on Amazon.com agree the movie adaptation was incredibly well done and very historically accurate.  Granted Miller wrote the screenplay so already there was a good advantage of the writing staying true to the text in the script, and since the text was also a play, the formatting is already similar to a screenplay making it that much easier to include as much original content as possible.

Of course not all book-to-movie adaptations are successful in terms of being equal in quality to the original text.  There are many movies out there that butcher a book by completely changing  either the ending or simply leaving out so much of the novel’s original contents that it’s difficult to follow anything super intimate or detailed in a storyline (can anyone say Eragon?).  Which is really unfortunate because movies are the opportunity of taking something readers could only imagine in their minds and turning those images into a tactile moving picture. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that a movie usually can’t be a carbon copy of the original novel, and that there are aspects of a book that must be sacrificed because they don’t translate well into movies.  But still, when key, important details such as the ending or random plot twists that weren’t in the story are thrown in, I usually get angry because it demolishes the integrity the original text.

Even though I love the freedom of imagining the contents of a book however I so choose, it’s always so interesting to see a director’s vision, actor portrayals,  and special effects that bring something that was once only available to visualize in my mind into something I can actually look at and make my own judgments as to whether or not the movie was everything I dreamed it would be.  Isn’t that why we want books become movies anyways? It fulfills a vision we had; when other people in the world say they also envisioned a novel in a similar way we did, it’s empowering to know weren’t officially not alone and also can give the feeling we were right… even though we know we can’t really say another’s imagination is really wrong if it was different…

Now let’s ask ourselves if we’re likely to read a book if we watch a movie based off of a book? Quite honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever read the book a movie is based off of after seeing a movie, but I know that I LOVE to see the movies that are made about books I’ve read and loved.  So does that support the whole reason our earlier reasoning as to why these movies exist?  I think it does. These movies are an entertaining short investment of time compared to reading most books, so it’s easier to watch a movie about a story we may only be mildly interested in but haven’t read the yet. And of course, if we loved the book originally, it’s the opportunity to see the words we loved on paper come to life.

Questions:

1) Do you usually read the book a movie is based off of after you see a movie (obviously assuming you’ve never read the book before seeing a particular movie)? Why or why not?

2) How much liberty should a storyline be given because it’s being translated from a novel to the big screen?

The Wizarding World Once Again...

I constantly use Harry Potter references, get used to it. I'm going to use the reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (The Seventh Book) On Amazon and evaluate the importance and flaws of these reviews.

When I looked up the book, I was very relieved to see that they had illuminated directly underneath the product the most helpful FAVORABLE REVIEW and the most helpful CRITICAL review. I feel that this is a great way to showcase the reviews, rather than just having uneducated or biased jumbled messes of reviews that would obviously contort the buyers. THANK GOODNESS, is what I must say. Users can deem reviews "helpful" if they wish, and that's awesome, so we aren't just caught in a sea of bewilderment and confusion when we are looking for a decent review of a book we are potentially going to buy or read.

The first gives it 5 stars. (<- click to view)

This review is, I believe, on point. He gives a lengthy, appealing, justified review that credits JK Rowling and the plot and characters for being awesome, and the writing for being better than ever, but this isn't the universal point of view about the book.

Review 2: 3 Stars (<- click to view)

This review is rather critical, and has absolute relevance, he says that the book is good, but can’t receive a five-star review because Rowling uses many clichés and shortcuts to make her story work, and also includes many plot holes in her novel.

While both of these reviews are indeed helpful, and seem to be written by intelligent people, I don’t believe that we can entirely base our opinions or desires to read a book solely on these reviews from users who don’t necessarily do this professionally. I'd like to say that I absolutely LOVE Harry Potter, and would say that I'm moderately obsessed in comparison to most. So, obviously I'd give the book five hundred stars on a 5 scale, but that's just me. Based on complete and total literary aspects of the book? Hell no. And that's where we have a problem: average joes like myself rating books and others basing their opinions or purchasing of the books on user reviews entirely.

Do I think that these reviews are a step in the right direction? Absolutely. One can look and see how favorably a book is generally reviewed by an audience of his own people, and it helps to get a more realistic idea of how a book is reviewed by the intended audience. I like New York Times reviews and all that get posted on the back of the books, but they aren’t always realistic and don’t sway me in either direction. Real people with real reviews are important in today’s world. I was also happy to see that when I was browsing on the page for the book, it first lists literary critiques and reviews from other sources before I could even find the link to user reviews, this gives the users the ability to first see what professionals think of the book before they are thrust into an environment where thousands of normal people give their “two cents.”

So, overall I think that the way that Amazon has their reviews constructed is helpful and logical. There’s always going to be positive and negative feedback for books and other entertainment or educational products, and one must be prepared to encounter these and still go into the use or reading of it with an open mind. I know that I’m guilty with biasing movies based on Rotten Tomatoes movie reviews, because I end up agreeing with the critics 90% of the time, but if we are capable of open-mindedly entering the world a book creates, and not continuously recalling reviews and other’s perspectives when reading, these reviews are very helpful and can help us to avoid reading things that are generally unfavorable, IF they are unfavorable for good reason and by those that we seem to be able to relate to on an intellectual level.

So, I suppose my questions are: Do you think that it is helpful or harmful (or both) to read book reviews BEFORE reading or purchasing the actual book? Why or Why not? Should we leave the critiquing up to the experts? Or ignore them entirely?

Twilight

I chose to look up Twilight on Amazon because I was sure there would plenty of reviews to choose from - and I was right. Over 5,000 people wrote critiques of the first book in the series and over 3,000 of these people gave it 5 stars. I think this says something about who's writing the reviews. If someone is going to write a critique, they probably either loved it or hated it. In this case, most of them loved Twilight.

In my opinion, Amazon invites book reviewers for this reason. Books like Twilight will get thousands of great reviews, only further spreading the hype that accompanies fantasy novels. Also, customers would much rather here the thoughts of their peers than professional critics. Who cares what these journalists think when fellow thirteen year olds think Twilight is amazing?

Although I'm not a die-hard fan, I have to admit that I've read the entire series. It was a nice way to wind down the day with a non-challenging page turner. The storyline was good enough, and the writing wasn't distracting enough to stop me from reading. Overall, I wouldn't give it five stars - but thats just me.

I found an interesting review that provided a good amount of insight. The critic basically stated that Meyer's book needed more time and editing to achieve literary merit. She said it felt rushed, that it should've been looked over more carefully and condensed to exclude the unnecessary details. She also explained that the storyline gave a bad message to its audience: the only way to get a guy is to give up everything for him. Meyer should've targeted girls older than thirteen if she wanted to use this theme. This reviewer gave Twilight 4 stars because of the character development and addicting storyline.

This review does a good job of analyzing the Meyer's novel, but the rating seems a little too kind. The critic spends all this time on what is bad, and little time on what is good. Giving the book a good rating makes it seems like she is trying to please her audience of commenters rather than give an honest rating.

Overall, I think reviews can be helpful at times but mostly they can distract you from creating your own opinion, especially if they are read before purchasing the book. I like to read them when I'm finished to see if I agree or disagree with the general opinion of whatever I'm reading, but reading reviews beforehand can sometimes ruin the story.

So here are my questions:

1. Do you agree with Amazon critics that Twilight deserves over 3000 5 star ratings? If so, is it because of literary merit or cultural influence of the series?
2. Since you have the ability to reply and comment on these reviews, is this just another form of social networking?

The Hunger for Book Reviews

Recently The Hunger Games has taken the nation by storm as the newest book and  book-to-movie series fad. So naturally when a book becomes incredibly popular, it also means everyone who is reading will have something to say about it.  On Amazon.com it’s incredibly easy to leave a review about any book even if we didn’t purchase it from their website.  Which is perfect, because then reviews aren’t as biased towards the people who wanted to purchase a desired book anyways.  Currently, on Amazon The Hunger Games has 4.6 out of 5 stars from 7,588 votes, and some of the top reviews range from the book being spectacular to below average and overrated.

Amazon and other popular book websites always encouraging reviews is a huge marketing tool.  People get an outlet to vent their excitement or frustration about the book itself (and possibly can divert any annoying complaints to a company for a poor book that distributors like Amazon and Barnes and Noble may not know really sucks).  Also, reviews are literally a “consumer insider.”  Leaving reviews on a largely used Internet shopping site is the best place to see what people really think void of situational peer pressure to not completely rave about or destroy a book. And that means free reviews for Amazon for other customers to read and determine if they were helpful.  A lot of the time it’s easier to trust a review for an everyday Average Joe than some presumptuous bookworm who has a PhD in Literature.

I personally take into consideration book reviews (or at least the number of stars it has) if there are a large number of reviews (a larger sample of people is indeed more reliable and accurate versus only a handful), mostly because I don’t want to necessarily invest time and money into a book if it’s going to end up being an awful experience.  But at the same time I don’t like the let them dictate my reading selection, but rather a suggested guideline and maybe shift my expectations to a more appropriate level.  Besides, usually only the people who felt passionately (either positively or negatively) about a book are the ones who write reviews.

Now do I actually take the time to write reviews? Nope.  I suppose when thinking about the impact that such a decision(a.k.a. to not write a review) contributes to the literary culture, American culture, and most importantly Internet culture, I realize  it’s actually a lack thereof.  But at the same time, I feel like there are larger ways to impact the thinking of others and the Internet culture than solely writing book reviews on various online bookstores.  So the balance already in place is a pretty good one; those that currently write reviews will continue to write, and I will continue not to (unless I was reallyyyyy bored or feel super passionate about a specific story I suppose).

Granted though, the more experience a person has in writing, even if it’s simply writing many book reviews or blog posts, greatly contributes to overall, individual writing ability.  A person can definitely exploit these opportunistic outlets to develop a unique voice and become more comfortable with a lot of the nuances that are apart of the writing process, which honestly are probably the most important parts of writing academically anyways. The question is whether or not writing is more influenced by Internet or the classroom.  I personally think the classroom still influences writing in individuals more so than the Internet.  And that's primarily due to the fact that most people don't write papers on the Internet.  The Internet has actually caused us to condense a lot of our writing to short statements and hashtags instead of developing and supporting incredibly complex thoughts.  Now I only mean this as it applies to the majority of people I observed in my life.  For those who make a living blogging and writing reviews on the web, the Internet and the people on the Internet most likely influences those people a lot more in their writing.

Regardless of what category any of us falls under, we must also appreciate the significance that the Internet has given everyone the opportunity to write whatever we want about whatever books we read (and really any topic at all) through reviews and blogs and other countless writing options.  We can't deny that in allowing anyone to be critic online we've actually challenged people to step up and voice opinions to the world where they may not have said much about a book or any sort of topic otherwise.

Questions:
1) Is it progress for book reviews to be dominated by ordinary, everyday people instead of literary critiques? Granted literary critiques still exist and are always writing reviews as well, but what other differences can be noted about reviews done by anyone?
2) Do book reviews on the Internet impact literary culture? American culture? Internet culture?
3) Does English composition writing get more influence primarily from the Internet these days or is the classroom still the place writers develop their voice and unique style of writing?