Grand Illusion Cinema

In terms of book-to-film adaptations, 2011 was pretty stankin’ bad (fuck you Twilight and Atlas Shrugged). I haven’t seen Rum Diary or Hugo, or Harry Potter though, but I’m pretty sure my previous statement holds solid.  I also found out this year that the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (coincidentally, a book based on another book) was kaput after two years of waiting. So, I’ve had to ADAPT to this precarious situation. And yes, I like crappy science fiction and horror movies A LOT.

Here’s a list of the 10 best book-to-film adaptations I saw this year:

• Sunrise (1927) directed by F.W. Murnau: A man and his wife fall in love again…after he tries to drown her. A gorgeous film: Unique and Artistic Production winner at the first Academy Awards in 1929. Trailer
• Babette’s Feast (1987) directed by Gabriel Axel: Axel adjusts some components of Karen Blixen’s novel, changing the story’s setting from Norway to Denmark, and interprets Babette (portrayed as a witch in the novel) as a self-sacrificing Christ-figure.
• Saga of Gösta Berling (1924) directed by Mauritz Stiller: Greta Garbo’s breakout role! An interesting adaptation to a really really complicated Swedish novel (Nobel Prize winner) of the same name.
• Naked Lunch (1991) directed by David Cronenberg :  “Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?” William S. Burroughs is the shit and David Cronenberg is the shit, nuff’ said.
• Salome’s Last Dance (1988) directed by Ken Russell: An adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome—ridiculous, sexy as hell, and has one of my favorite monologues, ever (the beginning of which is shown in the trailer).
• The Music Lovers (1970) directed by Ken Russell:  Everything you didn’t want to know about Russian composer Tchaikovsky and his nymphomaniac wife (Glenda Jackson). 
• The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988): directed by Wes Craven and starring BILL PULLMAN, in a great pre-Lost Highway performance; Pullman apprentices with a Haitian shaman and uncovers the ingredients of a sought-after zombie-making-powder!
• Altered States (1980): After a series of drug-induced hallucinations and sensory-deprivation experiments William Hurt turns into an Ape-man! Trailer
• The Lair of the White Worm (1988) directed by Ken Russell: “Stoker’s final novel, Lair of the White Worm – a work so bad that it could come close to being the literary eq. of an Ed Wood movie. It is no wonder that, when Ken Russell adapted the book to the screen in 1988, he treated the material with campy contempt, creating an off-the-wall parody of the horror genre.” –Cinefantastique. Trailer
• Coraline (2009) directed by Henry Selick: I know, I know, this came out two years ago, but it is still awesome, especially after thinking about it in relationship to Freud’s concept of the Uncanny. Plus Neil Gaiman!

Tagged best of 2011