Greatest Characters of the Last Twenty Years

Entertainment Weekly, or the Bible as it's called in my house, recently listed the Top 100 Greatest Characters of the Last Twenty Years. 

As its title indicates, Entertainment Weekly concerns itself with entertainment generally: movies, television, music, the interwebs, theater, and, yep, books.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the bulk of their hundred greatest characters were known from movies and TV.  Omar Little, Cosmo Kramer, Buffy Summers, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, Homer Simpson.  Hard to argue with most of the choices.

Omar LittleThe list did acknowledge a few literary characters, but most of those were discussed in terms of their dual identities, existing both on the page and in film, such as Dexter Morgan, Bridget Jones, and Harry Potter. 

But as I perused the article, I was struck by how many of the TV and movie characters actually originated in novels and short stories.  My first instinct was critical.  Why, I asked, did the magazine make only brief mention of the original works while reserving celebration for the filmed or televised version of the character?  Why didn't EW discuss both the literary and films versions, as the article did, for example, with Bridget Jones?

I realized, however, that as much as we readers like to say that adaptations "destroy" our favorite books, sometimes actors, directors, and screenwriters create something entirely new from literary inspiration, or at least sufficiently unique to take on new life.  When I think of Red from the Shawshank Redemption and Annie Wilkes from Misery (who both made the list), I think of Morgan Freeman and Kathy Bates, not the works of Stephen King in which they first appeared.

I confess that I had forgotten that some of my favorite characters had literary predecessors.  I can't imagine Tracy Flick, for example, apart from Reese Witherspoon's interpretation of her.

Forrest Gump, in my mind, looks and sounds forever like Tom Hanks.

And, with all due respect to Candace Bushnell, when most of us hear Carrie Bradshaw, we think (for better or worse) of TV Carrie, not book Carrie.

BetterWay worse

Some adaptations stray so far from their source material as to be unrecognizable.  I'm told, for example, that the novel upon which Up in the Air was based did not have either of the two female characters who taught George Clooney so much about life.  Many people did not realize that the film O Brother, Where Art Though? was based on Homer's Odyssey until the Academy nominated the screenplay for best adaptation.  In our own genre, I can't be the only Michael Connelly reader who was, shall we say, surprised at filmmaker Clint Eastwood's take on the character Buddy.

Two questions for discussion, one with subparts:

1) Who are your favorite literary characters of the last twenty years?

2) And which translations of literary characters to TV or film have been most horrific, accurate, or even improvements on the originals?

movies

by Toni McGee Causey

I don't know about you all, but I am flattened by all of the activity from the last few weeks, and what I really want to do is goof off and go watch a good movie. I'm in the middle of creating a new voice for the WIP, which is fairly different from my previous work (this is darker, grittier, different world, no humor), and because of that, I'm interested in how others set up their worlds, hook us, and create their voice. [hmmm. Well, in part. Mostly, I just wanna be a slug in front of a big screen, but let's pretend I made some sort of profound statement on voice here. I think the triptowhateverturkeystuff has kicked in and I'm knee deep in relatives, and I cried Uncle about a week ago. Thank you.]

Problem is, I just don't see all that much at the theater that makes me want to bother. I've never been, nor will I ever be, interested in the Twilight films, much to the chagrin of several friends of mine who've been trying to convince me to give the books and films a try. (One friend even dragged all four books over here and piled them on my desk. Whereupon I made them into handy paperweights 'til she gave up and came and got them back.) I can't explain why the disinterest. I've read plenty of other vampire books I've enjoyed. I've read plenty of YA. Dunno why the combination feels meh, but it does. (Clearly, I am not the one to go by regarding what will work, though, because holy box office, Batman, that did well. Thank you, young female audiences. Hi, Hollywood, hope you're taking notes... females can rock the box office.)

The last thing we saw was last weekend: The Blind Side. (Desperation to get out of the house drove us there. It was... okay. Maybe meh tilting toward not bad.) I actually expected more depth to the story, more confrontation with the aspects of Michael Oher's tragic upbringing, and while that's shown, there's a glossing over that frustrated me, as a viewer.

I honestly can't say I've seen anything extraordinary, lately. I'm curious about Precious and it's probably up next. I'd tried a couple of romantic comedies this summer (The Proposal, which was funny up until the point where it was a complete rip off of While You Were Sleeping, to the point of staging and everthing and that sucked the life out of that ending for me. We also saw The Ugly Truth, which was, indeed, Ugly. If you set aside all taste and moral compass, it had its funny moments. I so want to like Gerard Butler in a film.)

There have been entire months--multiple months at a stretch--where my husband and I will look at the multiplexes and feel completely left out of any thoughts regarding what we'd like. And we'll go see a huge variety, so you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to find something. [Having been a screenwriter for seven years, I grasp how all of this comes about, but still... it's disappointing to truly want to go to movies, to have the time and money, and repeatedly have nothing worth bothering over.]

There are a couple of movies I'm looking forward to. One is Cameron's Avatar:

And another one is Rob Marshall's Nine:

Jim Sherridan's Brothers looks noteworthy:

But overall... that's pretty slim pickings. I may have missed something coming out soon, though, so if you have some suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile, what's a great / decent / worth going to film you've seen in the theater lately? And I'm all over Netflix and have a few good ones in my queue, but I'd love to see your favorites in a list.