Twilight

This is an excellent, faithful adaptation of the first in Stephenie Meyer's series. Jasper was way too freaky, but the other characters matched my mental images. Thank goodness the whole section of "wow, Edward is so amazing" was cut, and the movie went straight from "couple" to the fateful baseball game.

I'm looking forward to the other movies, especially since I enjoyed books #2, #3, and #4 much more than the original.

The Shipping News

It was a struggle to get through the book. Proulx's sentence fragments grated on my nerves. Somehow, I made it through.

It took the movie to help me realize what a sweet story it was. I loved the man "waking up" at his own wake. Quoyle's second daughter was conspicuously absent, but it was probably a cut that made the story somewhat simpler. Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore were both wonderful. I was impressed by how quickly the movie moved, given how the book dragged. The movie managed to touch on all the major themes and plot points effectively and without hammering the viewer on the head with them.