BOOKS TO MOVIES - JANUARY 2023

Read any books that are also movies? Have you read any books that SHOULD be made into a movie? Tellus about it.

Read the chapter on Libeled Lady in Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedies of the 1930s by Gerald Weales after watching the film the day before. Academic in a not so good way -- more about "how many films have I seen" rather than focusing on the movie under discussion. Good on Jean Harlow, though.

I don't plan to subscribe to Apple+ anytime soon, but they're streaming a number of series based on books I've read: Slow Horses by Mick Herron I just finished late last year; unexpectedly good spy novel -- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee; read it years ago on a long airplane flight and loved it; downloaded the Kindle version to reread as time permits -- The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester in high school so long ago, transmorgified in a Tom Hanks series retitled Greyhound, a destroyer captain on the WWII Murmansk run. Still remember the captain zombified by exhaustion and living on (canned) corned beef sandwiches. I've started Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts about lowlife dealings in 1970s India; like it more as a travelogue, but it's pretty long & not sure when I'll finish it; saw an ad for the Kindle version indicating it's also coming to the Apple+ service. Might finish rereading Kipling's Kim which I started last week, but my process is to begin many books because life is short, and if I finish anything, so be it. Speaking of which, downloaded a reissue of Myrna Loy's autobiography, Being and becoming: a memoir* after enjoying Libeled Lady again on the Criterion Channel (TCM did a Thin Man retrospective on New Year's Eve I believe) and reading the chapter on the Jack Conway film in Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedy of the 1930s (see above). I've gotten to the origins of her family in Montana so far.

*Interestingly, the reissue did not have a title page; I believe this was an "as told to" where the editor was James Kotsilibas-Davis, whose name appears in the introduction.

Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
Tom Felton
4/5 stars
Tom Felton relates his acting career and the ups and downs of being a child actor, especially being in one of the most popular movie series of all times. Nicely written and very interesting!

Reading Karin Slaughter's Triptych: A Novel (Will Trent Book 1) in conjunction with the Will Trent series on ABC. The pilot, which leaves the story hanging, was pretty good. I don't know how much control Slaughter has over the production; "Trashcan" Trent is Ramon Rodriguez. Slaughter's Trent is tall, skinny, & blonde; Rodriguez is skinny (with a body covered with nasty scars) but not the other stuff. More interesting character than Alfred Molina's Gamache in Three Pines; Slaughter's worlds are the very opposite of Louise Penny's cozy Canadian town. Slaughter's venue is murder capital Atlanta Ga., the cops are corrupt, and Trent is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who (in the TV series) has just closed a big police corruption case -- he's more in danger of being murdered by the cops than the criminals; his assigned police partner's mom was one of those convicted. His ex-girl friend Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) is a recovering addict undercover vice cop. The opening move of the book series appears to be a serial killer, while the TV series involves the kidnapping of a millionaire's daughter that reveals that said millionaire & Trent grew up in the same foster home, leading to a fistfight on the floor of the GBI. Groovy. Sonja Sohn of The Wire is Trent's GBI boss. Did I mention that Trent is dyslexic?

>6 featherbear: I loved he Will Trent series. I'm always disappointed when I see my book characters on the screen. They never look like I pictured them.

>7 Carol420: The TV series is still worth a look. No Jan. chat thread this month? Happy New Year in any case.

>8 featherbear: DUH!!! I checked the threads before I posted them and could have sworn that they were all there. Thanks for telling me to get a clue:) I am posting a chat thread now. Thanks again.

Ghostbuster’s Daughter - Life With My Dad Harold Ramis
By Violet Ramis Stiel
4/5 stars
This was a very interesting book on her family and her father Harold Ramis who was probably best known as one of the Ghostbusters but was also involved in writing and directing. She relates her unusual rearing and also talks about her children and partners along with talking about her father’s many films.

Biography