30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 1

So the 30 day movie challenge is supposed to be something for Facebook, but I really don't want to just put movies up as my status without any clarification as to why I chose a specific movie. So I decided to blog about it. So the first day is supposed to be my favorite movie, but I feel like going in reverse. So the topic of today's blog post is...

YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE ADAPTED FROM A BOOK

Now there are many ways to take this. I have a lot of movies that have been adapted from books, so I'm going to stick with a movie and book combination where I have both read the book and watched the movie. Because anyone can like Fight Club as a movie, but that doesn't mean that they like Chuck Palahniuk's book. With that said, I have a lot of options. The Harry Potter series was a very good breath of fresh air, but I can't single out one particular movie that really stood out. Same goes with the Lord of the Rings series. There are a bunch of books that I've read that I thought were great (The Kite Runner, About A Boy) but I haven't seen their film counterparts. And there are other movies like Die Hard and Slumdog Millionaire that I haven't read the book for. Then there are movies that only take the plot line of the book, so it's difficult as to how I am supposed to interpret that. So for this one I'm going to go with High Fidelity, which is a movie starring John Cusack and a book written by Nick Hornby. I chose this primarily because I loved the strong connection between the two works. The movie is so true to the book that when I read the book, I felt that whenever Rob Fleming (main character) said anything, it sounded like John Cusack's voice. The movie was perfectly cast. From Jack Black (who, as Barry, gave the best performance of his life until he made School of Rock) to Lisa Bonet, everyone followed the exact characteristics of the characters in the book. That is something you rarely see from an adaptation. I mean, whenever I read a book, I always try to cast certain people as each role. I could not have seen any better way to cast it. And even though the film took place in Chicago, while the book took place in London, it had the same feel. And of course, they broke the fourth wall (one of my favorite gimmicks ever). That is why High Fidelity is my favorite movie based on a book.