Life of Brian

Back in the days of sunny skies and breathable we were on a walk around the neighborhood when just a couple blocks from home we stumbled on a couple boxes of books on the front wall with a sign that read “Free. Take Some.”

It was a varied assortment of kids to young adult books. Donna picked through and selected several books that she thought were appropriate to send along to the nieces and nephew in Washington and I selfishly picked out three books, that spanned 3 centuries in publication dates, I might like to read. All of them were made into movies, only one of which I have seen, so maybe I’ll read the books, then watch the movies, just to compare them.

Published in 2010 was I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore and all I knew of this book was that it had been made into a movie. A not very successful one if I recall correctly. It was fairly entertaining book about an alien race that looks just like us living on earth until they can return to their home planet and reclaim it. But it turns into teen romance with monsters and hero aliens. Because it turns out to be the first book in a series of seven it doesn’t so much as conclude, buts just stops. The movie is available on IMDB for free (with adds), but after I watched the trailer, I won’t watch the movie because I’m not a teenager any more.

Published in 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, AKA Bladerunner, was the source material for one of my favorite movies of all-time, but I have never read the book on which it was based. I am a voracious sci-fi reader and have actually never read anything by PKD. Though I have seen more than a half dozen or so of the movies or TV shows based on his writings. While the book is different from the movie in many ways, the core plot is the same and I can see where the cinematic choices made for a better movie.

First published in French in 1864 A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne wasn’t translated into English for publication in 1871. According to IMDB there are three movie versions, 1959, 1988 & 2008 to go along with numerous TV series, TV mini-series, TV movies and a video game based on this material. I have seen none of them and I have also not read the book. Now is my chance. Wow. I couldn’t read it. The language was, well, different. Was it the translation, was it the language of the time, was it a combination of the two? I don’t know, but I couldn’t finish through the second chapter.

But as I was hungry, I sallied forth to the dining room, where I took up my usual quarters. Out of politeness I waited three minutes, but no sign of my uncle, the Professor. I was surprised. He was not usually so blind to the pleasure of a good dinner. It was the acme of German luxury- parsley soup, a ham omelette with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of veal stewed with prunes, delicious fruit, and sparkling Moselle. For the sake of poring over this musty old piece of parchment, my uncle forbore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.

The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment-which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?

Probably not going to watch this movie either. The 2008 movie with Brendan Faser is three bucks to rent on Amazon and the 1959 movie with James Mason & Pat Boone is a dollar more at $4. The 1988 version is free on Amazon, it has 3 one-star ratings only because they couldn’t give it a zero. But to top it off, here is a quote from the listed director, Rusty Lemorande: “Only the first eight minutes of this film were directed by me. The rest of it is the sequel to the Kathy Ireland vehicle Alien from L.A. (1988) directed by Albert Pyun, which was tacked on by the producers and renamed “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in order to fulfill contracts with foreign distributors.”