My dear Grandmother gave me a copy of Dan Brown’s book Angels & Demons – The Novel about two months ago.  Up until that point, I really couldn’t have cared less about the Dan Brown series, other than that The Da Vinci Code was a great movie and I enjoyed it immensely.    After opening the first page, it delightfully pulled me into the story from which I would not emerge until two books later.

The book was AMAZING.  And by amazing, I of course mean that Mr. Brown artfully interwines truth and fiction so intricately that you honestly can’t point out what’s what throughout the whole book.  The characters are complex, and so real that you feel as if you know them in person.  I love the conspiracy element to Dan Brown’s books.

As a serial before-bed reader, I spent a few nights there reading a lot more than I was sleeping.  The book might be one of the best works of fiction I’ve ever set my eyes on.

Then, I learned that Tom Hanks made Angels & Demons into a movie in the series, a sequel rather than a prequel, Directed by Ron Howard.  I had just missed it at the theater and thus had to wait until November 20^th for it to finally arrive on DVD.

Here is my Facebook Status from about 5 minutes after I completed watching the movie.

Angry at Ron Howard

Why Oh Why do Directors feel the need to dissect and change perfect story lines?  I must say that had I not read the book, I would’ve thought that it was a great movie.  However I did, and here’s what I have to say:

My opinion is that when you have such a superb story line, written by creative genius, such as Dan Brown,  Hollywood should do us all a favor and leave the story line alone.  If they were interested in a totally different story, then they could’ve picked another book or  GASP written one themselves.  But when you have something that is completely not broken – don’t attempt to fix it.  Jason and I sat there uttering not nice 4 letter words and scratching our heads throughout the whole movie.

Again, GREAT movie if you haven’t read the book. And regardless, if you’ve invested the time to read the book, you’ll watch the movie, all I’m saying is prepare to be perplexed at why someone would want to have people who die in the book live, and people who live in the book die, and then leave some characters completely out of the movie…it’s probably going to irritate you.

I also read The Lost Symbol during my little Dan Brown stretch, and I can absolutely recommend that as a great read as well.  One thing that I loved about that book, is that he touched on a bit of science throughout The Lost Symbol, through Noetic Science.  That was fascinating to read about.  The Institute of Noetic Science (IONS) is an actual organization, and there was a large writeup about the facility and one of the head scientists there that Dan Brown actually researched and wrote about without ever telling her that he was doing it.  It was pretty neat to read.

Next up, Hollywood actually DID get The Twilight Saga: New Moonright.  I loved it.  Mandi and I waited in line for 2 hours before midnight on November 19th to go see the newest in the Twilight Saga.  As an avid reader of the books (three times read and counting…am I pathetic? <.<  Don’t answer that.) I am a fan of Twilight and New Moon.

My only gripe for the Movie version of these stories is the constant need for Hollywood to throw a bunch of unnecessary fight scenes into a love story, but since we do actually expect males to watch it, I get why they do this.  It’s not as irritating as if, say…they decided that Jacob just shouldn’t be in this story anymore, so they cut him out of it. (COUGH RON HOWARD, ARE YOU LISTENING?)

Since it includes Rob Pattison’s chest in the made up fight scene in New Moon, and Taylor Lautner climbing things shirtless, I’ll do my best not to whine too much.  If you haven’t seen New Moon, I highly recommend it.

During the cancer crap (see here for more information on that), I read The Time Traveler’s Wife.  What a phenomenal story that was.  I’m not really your mushy-mushy romance novel type of girl, but this went way beyond that. To the art of human love and sacrifice, the give and the take in a relationship. It was a really great story.

When I had to go out to the Mayo Clinic for treatment for the cancer crap, Mandi and I went to go see it at the theater there in Rochester, MN.  I have to say that that too was right on the money and I loved the movie. Rachel McAdams has turned out to be quite the talented young actress. She’s beautiful, and I just really enjoy her in roles like this.  It’s kind of on the same lines as the Notebook, but with more mystery and intrigue. As soon as that’s available on DVD, I’ll definitely buy it.  Here’s a link to be notified when it’s available from Amazon.

The Lovely Bonescomes out in theaters this month too, another of my favorites. Such a haunting story.  Here’s hoping they make Alice Seabold proud!