Finally, a movie I can get excited about

I pretty much assume I'll be disappointed by movies made out of books I love. History is on my side. "Marathon Man" is just not the experience it should be--there's absolutely no sense of the main character's transformation--the astonishing evolution that makes the book so thrilling. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was just a mess, despite the inspired casting. Don't get me started on "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (but I bet Bram Stoker would like his name taken off of it) or "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (Ken Branagh's getting two demerits here--dude, what were you thinking?).

There are good ones--I'm not saying there aren't. "The Princess Bride," while it doesn't capture my favorite bits (I'm a sucker for a bitter romance, what can I say, and the book's flavor is a little more pleasantly tart), is definitely a good film and true to the spirit of the original. I think Branagh's "Henry V" is a masterpiece (of course, adapting a play is sort of cheating, but cutting in scenes from Henry IV as flashbacks to support his interpretation was genius). And clearly Emma Thompson was stopping him from screwing up, because after she left him he made "Hamlet" (oh, yeah, there's something rotten in Denmark, all right--yuck to this star-studded failure) and she went and did "Sense and Sensibility," which is probably the best Austen adaptation anywhere--thrifty, economical, and sensitive, which I'm sure Austen would appreciate. "Tom Jones" is the ultimate adaptation--it captures the bawdy, defiant humor and indiscriminate sex appeal of the book perfectly.

There are qualified successes. "Tristram Shandy" felt exactly like reading the book--it stretched its medium and had that special brand of satire that is really only funny if you're on its side to begin with (assuming you can tell that there are "sides" and that you can tell which one you're on--the labels are sort of slippery, and you'll get made fun of for being on the wrong side of the fence at some point, even if you don't know how you got there). It's an interesting experience. It's probably not going to achieve the popularity of "The Little Mermaid," but I'm pretty sure it's okay with that.

So when I see that a book I love is becoming a movie, I have this continual triumph of hope over experience--I get all excited, and then I remind myself that I should really try to be realistic. Stardust isn't my favorite Neil Gaiman book or the one that inspires my imagination the most, but I have a lot of affection for it. I've been finding it harder and harder not to be hopeful about the upcoming film. Especially now, because the trailer just looks amazing.