August 22 - The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (a review)

Warning, may contain spoilers.

Like most of the staff at the library, I too was super excited for the opening night showing of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Having just re-read the series in anticipation for the movie and craving a little refresher, I sat in the theater with my fingers crossed hoping it would do the books justice. However, like most books turned movie I left the theater in speechless shock at the overwhelming wrongness of the movie. In a review of the movie by the New York Times, they proclaim the movie to be "Excessively busy and occasionally cheesy...As a result, too much of the film feels like shorthand, a trail of teasing crumbs to lead us to the inevitable sequels." (You can find the full review here). And I can't help but agree they skipped through so much of the book and left out good characters and major plot builders needed for the success of the rest of the movies. I had to wonder if the writers even read the book, or did they just run out of money while filming. The book takes places in a myriad of places, from coffee houses, to clubs and old police stations, where as the movie focused too much of its attention around the institute, even going as far as doing the big battle seen at the institute (which if you have read the books you'd know that's not even close to the right place).

I found the movie to be full of irritatingly inaccurate representations of the book. My list of such inaccuracies and annoyances include. A portal in the institute (there are only two in the book, neither of which are close to the institute), snowing inside the library at the institute when Clary and Valentine blow up the portal (hmm, I do recall Valentine smashing his portal into glass shards, but no snow) and a noticeably non-ratlike Simon (in the movie he gets captured by the vampires so they can get to Clary and hung in what looks like an elevator shaft. Where as in the book he mistakenly gets taken by a vampire as a rat back to the vamp hotel and has to be rescued by Clary and Jace, not the whole Lightwood gang). Besides that I found one other thing odd, the growth of Clary's powers of rune creation. They did not develop nearly as fast in the books and she definitely did not draw them on her own skin to freeze a horde of demons or do the mundane task of putting her house back together.

As disappointed and let down as I feel about this movie, I do have to give it a smidgen of credit. I found Jace's character to be spot on, not only did they give him lots of direct quotes from the book, but Jamie Campbell Bower portrayed his character Jace with a flawless and effortless ease.

Now on to some normal blog natured topics.

Word of the Day
Time for another new addition to the blog. Something that will increase your knowledge and make you seem super smart to all your friends, the word of the day from Merriam-Webster online.

Today's word is:

inscrutable: not readily investigated, interpreted, or understood : mysterious

Books and Movies: The Goods.

This great site found it's way into my mailbox the other day (thanks Mrs. Gates) it highlights all the great summer reading lists check it out for some must reads to get in before school starts back up.

If your looking for some good reads, check out the New York Times Best Sellers list ending August 25th. Publishers weekly also has a weekly best sellers list.

Check out the Kirkus book review for The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes.

Movies that have been released in theaters recently are: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, The World's End and You're Next.
Check out the movie listings for Red Deer and Sylvan Lake.

Joke of the Day
 
What did the horse say when the cow moved next door? 

There goes the NEIGHborhood.

Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!