Based on the book by...

Books are always better than the movies they make about them. We can all agree on that, yes?

Lately, though, I can't even tell that the person who made the movie even read the book. I read The Other Boleyn Girl a couple of months ago. It's not really my kind of book. I'm not much for the historical fiction. Plus, I had to put the book down and cool off every thirty minutes for the first few chapters. Having to read about men pimping their 12-year-old daughters out like property really gets to me.

--Let me just break here for a second and say that I'm officially reminded how glad I am that I live in America and that I live now...and not hundreds of years ago (although I wouldn't have minded being up close and personal with the '60s). Men were even larger bastards back then.--

It took me a while to get into the story, but it was interesting. Once your mind conveniently forgets that these are pre-pubescent girls.

If you haven't seen the movie, I'm going to go ahead and ruin it for you. It sucks. And it's really long. Even in the opening scenes, it is different from the book.

The book tells the (historically inaccurate) story of two sisters, vying for the heart of Henry VIII. You remember that guy from history class, right? HUGE jackass. He had many wives, most of whom he beheaded so he could move on to the next. He founded the Church of England and cut ties with the Catholic church. He couldn't manage to impregnate any of his wives with a son to take the throne upon his death. Generally, he treated everyone like a big ball of crap.

Mary, the younger sister, is married off to some older boy when she's barely old enough to wipe her own ass, but somehow she catches the eye of the King. Her family pushes her into a sexual relationship with him (and pretty much tell her husband to shove it), knowing that if she can manage to have a boy child with the King their family will gain great power.

Her sister, Anne, is not at the King's court, but off getting some French schooling or something. She and Mary aren't exactly close. They've had a pretty competitive relationship their whole lives. Anne is headstrong and witty and ambitious, where Mary is soft and caring and has her head in the clouds.

Mary gets knocked up. It might be a boy! So the family forces Anne to "entertain" the King while Mary is trapped in a dark room for her "lying in." Seriously, I'm so glad I will never have to go through that!

But alas, it's a girl (stupid girls, they're good for nothing). Mary resumes her relationship and gets knocked up again. My, my, she's fertile (and this time it is a boy, but it's too late). Anne once again is forced to entertain the King. But this time she decides maybe it would be better for her to be with the King than Mary. She wins the King's heart, convinces him to leave the Queen.

Once they're married, Anne can't seem to conceive a boy either. Eventually, Henry tires of her and has her tried for treason and incest and summarily beheaded.

Netflix delivered The Other Boleyn Girl to my apartment last week. I finally got up the strength to pop it in to the DVD player last week. Immediately, I realized that things were going to be rocky at best.

The story began with the family telling Anne (who is not off at French school) to sleep with the King. She pisses him off right at the beginning by riding her horse better than he can. So he falls for Mary instead. Ugh.

Shouldn't there be some kind of rule that if you're going to base your movie on a book, you should have to actually crack the book open at least once? Just about the only detail that matched the book was Anne's "B" necklace. Oh, and that she got her head chopped off. But that's in all the history books, too. It would have been hard to ignore that little tidbit.

Then this weekend, I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic with one of my girlfriends. Again, in the opening credits, I was already disappointed. If you've never read the books, please stop reading this and go out and get them (unless you're a guy...then maybe you shouldn't). They're hilarious (again, unless you're a guy. I'm thinking some of the subtleties might be lost on the male sex).

This story takes place in ENGLAND. But in the movie, the main character is an American girl who lives in New York. Really. I mean, how hard would it have been to just set the stupid movie in England? Bridget Jones seemed to work out all right (although again, the books are far better).

It's like when I read the book Pay it Forward back in the day. My roommates had read it and they thought I would like it. I didn't. It's a really lame, cheesy story. But I refused to see the movie because in the book, the main guy is a large black man who is missing one eye. In the movie they cast Kevin Spacey to play this role, and he has a little scar on his cheek. I mean, c'mon. Was Morgan Freeman not available?

I understand that things have to change in a book's translation into a movie. The story has to move along much more quickly and well, things are open to interpretation. But really. How does changing the setting really speed things along? How can the color of a man's skin really facilitate the movie? Why would you feel the need to turn the entire story around on its head?

I find this so frustrating. Is there nothing to be done about it?