Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We’d love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

This week’s topic: Top Ten Best/Worst Movie Adaptations

Not entirely sure it’s my top (well, save for LOTR and Atonement) but all these titles popped to mind when I read this week’s topic =) By the way, I stuck to movie adaptations for this list (I know it says on the topic but I was half-tempted to throw a few television adaptations in there =P)

Six Good Movie Adaptations

In no particular order:

1. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (directed by Peter Jackson; review #1, #2, #3) — Naturalmente, lol. Okay, so Peter Jackson changed a few things, left a few things, amped a few storylines up, but I felt they all worked for the movie version and that the core of the novel was still present throughout. He brought Middle Earth to life in a unique way, and in a way that brought the story to a whole new generation of readers. Plus, you know, the movies totally made up the bulk of my adolescent years soooooo….
2. Ian McEwan’s Atonement (directed by Joe Wright; book review; movie review) — Okay, actually, I’m a bit fan of all of Joe Wright’s book-to-movie adaptations (Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina (movie review)) but this one is my favourite of the lot because of the challenges that the book poses in translating to film. And aside from a few small changes, this is actually a near-perfect adaptation scene-wise from book-to-film that I’ve ever seen. I’m still pressed as hell that James McAvoy wasn’t nominated for best actor for his role as Robbie Turner, his performance was intense.
3. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather (directed by Francis Ford Coppola) — Iconic. I watched the movie before reading the book but I was surprised at how faithful the adaptation was to the plot in the novel. Okay, the ending of the movie was a little more dramatic than the book, which was fitting but the end of the novel was also really good. Plus, the score stayed with my family for weeks.
4. Janet Fitch’s White Oleander (directed by Peter Kosminsky; book review) — I saw the adaptation years ago before reading the book. It was already halfway and I think it was a scene between Alison Lohman’s Astrid and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Ingrid. It was such a powerful, dramatic scene, and Michelle Pfeiffer was just so captivating and fiercely cold as Ingrid that I ended up watching the rest of the movie (pity she wasn’t nominated that year for this role, it was stellar). I think the movie was a good adaptation of most of the content from the book, and Michelle Pfeiffer just really brought Ingrid’s character to life. It’s a tough novel, but you can’t help but be compelled to read and find out what happens.
5. Sebastien Japrisot’s A Very Long Engagement — I watched the movie adaptation first because I couldn’t get my hands on the English translation of the book (I think I had the French version first–which I picked up in Madrid, lmao). Anyways, the movie is just gorgeous and pretty faithful to the the story thematically and just the heart of it. I’m planning on re-reading the book sometime this year as part of a reading challenge I am participating in but it’d also be nice to revisit this lovely movie.
6. Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary (directed by Sharon Maguire) — Okay, they shuffled a lot of scenes and changed a lot of scenes and characters, leaving a few storylines out, but I think what made me put this in my “good adaptations” list is the cast. Renee Zellweger was Bridget Jones for me, and having Colin Firth and Hugh Grant there was fantastic. Plus, you know, their fight scene. Good times =D

Four Disappointing Movie Adaptations

In no particular order:

1. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians – The Lightning Thief (directed by Chris Columbus; movie review) — *le sigh* So many details were left out (which seems to have been inserted in the second movie that’s coming out this summer but I’m still a little skeptical on how they can recover this) and so many scenes were rushed (Annabeth staring daggers at Percy one minute and then being best friends with him in the next? Wut?). And I was disappointed that Sean Bean, Kevin McKidd and Melina Kanakaredes practically had cameos in this (especially Melina, despite the fact that she was top-listed on the posters).
2. Christopher Paolini’s Eragon (directed by Stefen Fangmeier) — Omg, 2 hours of my life I can’t get back O_o If the movie is five minutes in and you have me cracking a joke or two about it, it’s bad. The main actor playing Eragon was wooden (hmm, I suppose he improved since as I was rather irritated by his character in Downton Abbey) and the editing was horrendous. Not even Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich could save this adaptation.
3. Louis de Bernieres’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (directed by John Madden; book review) — In retrospect, the movie adaptation was pretty flimsy compared to the novel. Perhaps more to the point, the casting was just all over the place. I can’t bring myself to re-watch the movie now that I read the novel (and I heart the book so very much)…
4. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code & Angels and Demons (directed by Ron Howard) — Again, not that it stopped me from watching (especially the latter, if only to see Rome on my screen <3). Much as I love Tom Hanks as an actor, he is not Robert Langdon; his casting made it difficult to appreciate any other aspect of the movie because all I could see was Tom Hanks (my dream casting for Robert Langdon was Hugh Jackman, but anyways...)

And those are my ten best/worst movie adaptations! Which movies did you feature this week? =)

By the way, I forgot to mention this last week but since Google Reader is going to be gone for good by the 15th (I believe), there are other ways to follow my blog such as NetworkedBlogs, Feedly and BlogLovin =)