Why Books Are Better Than The Movie (Most of the time)

  I remember one plane ride last year. My mother sat next to me with her newly bought iPad primed and ready to watch a movie she bought on iTunes. We each took an earbud and pressed play. 30 minutes in, I gave up.
   That movie was "Anna Karenina" based off of the classic novel by Leo Tolstoy. It was supposed to be a pretty good book, but I had never read it. However, the movie was just a piece of crap. I couldn't figure why it was so bad, I just really despised it.

The Pile of Cowpies That I'm Referring To

   This year I saw that Anna Karenina was free on the iBook store on my iPad so I bought it and am currently now reading it in all of it's 900 page glory. It's actually pretty interesting. It's a bit like Downton Abbey, but set in imperialist Russia. And, the further I get into it, the more I realize why the movie sucked so badly.

Tolstoy's Baby

   It was because they writers who had turned the book into a screenplay had completely ignored the nuances of the story. They focused on the book's title characters too much. Sure her illicit affair is a single plot line but the movie focused too much on that one aspect.
   Anna Karenina is not just about Anna Karenina. It's about her brother and her brother's friend and his sister and his wife and Anna's lover. It's not just about the frick-frack. The book actually sets up the background for the characters, it shows who they are as people and how they react to situations. In fact, Anna doesn't even show up until you get about 10 chapters in.

   Lots of movies based off of books suffer from a lack of attention to detail. It's great if a book has an awesome or intriguing idea behind it but you can't just make a film based off of one thing. You have to use that idea as the spider at the center of a web, and from that web weave the characters and ups and downs and everything that makes any piece of art compelling and beautiful.
   

How to make a statement

  If you have been anywhere near a news source in the last week you've probably heard all about the stuff going down in the Ukraine. It started off with just a bunch of riots, then the police came in, and it seemed like a fire ridden protest until about 2 days ago when the square in Kiev turned into the center of a quasi-war. People were shocked and horrified by what was going on, President Obama said  that "The United States condemns in the strongest terms the violence that’s taking place". 



    I too am shocked by how everything escalated  but I also started thinking about revolutions and what makes them "work". It's hard to define "sucess" within the context of a revolution because somebody always gets the wrong end of the stick. Also, "sucess" depends on what you define as "sucessful". Some Americans might  say that our revolution was awesome because we got to govern ourselves on our terms, whilst others might say that we should have just let Britian rule us for a while because look at all the issues we've had and are still having. Regardless, I noticed that the Ukrainian protest and revolution are similar to our own and also those of others in the past.
   Revolutions seem to start with hatred of the current state of things, that is virtually indisputable, but how it all plays out is murky. For us in America at least, we followed what I am calling the "default revolution"
    By that I mean the formula of starting out with actions, simple acts of defiance. Once those don't seem to get much done, we move on to the next thing: violence. The thing about violence is that it definitely, always, makes a statement.
   The Ukrainian rebels seem to know that as well. Violence seems to be the last straw for most revolutions because it is illegal and it causes visible harm, two things that make a very big statement to everybody. 
    We began with dumping tea into the water, when that didn't work, we signed a document, and when that didn't work, we resorted to violence. You can't deny it, revolutions with body counts and smoke in the air certainly make a statement.

We Are Catch-22

"What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for." - Catch-22

   Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is possibly the awesomest book ever. It is a satire meant to explore the absurdity of authority that takes place in WWII, a time when different kinds of leaders were battling each other under their different kinds of authority. It is also hilarious.

  However, the more I think about Catch-22, and remember that it was written by an American author,  I also think more about how it seems to represent America and often times humanity as a whole.

  In the book, each chapter is devoted to a different character, all shown from the perspective of the main protagonist (and occasional antagonist), Yossarian. 

  To me at least, each character seems to represent a different aspect of American society in their actions, words, and personalities.

   Yossarian is the average guy, nothing too special, maybe a little weird, who is always confused by the decisions the government is making and doesn't understand why he can't just live his life.

   Milo Minderbinder is the ultimate capitalist businessman who will do anything for a profit and is good at getting others to hop on with him.

McWatt is the risk taker who lives in the moment and feels untouchable until he isn't.

Major Major Major Major is that next door neighbor who doesn't everything so normally that it's weird. 

Nately is the typical patriot, the idealistic dreamer who thinks he can better the world with a few words and a smile.

Chaplain Tappman is the epitome of the phrase "nice guys(or girls) finish last", he always tries to please people but keeps getting walked on.

Colonel Cathcart and his fellow officers reforest corruption and how absurd out leaders can sometimes be, they twist words and facts and use their positions to make situations better for themselves.

Aarfy is that obnoxious guy who wears tanks tops with the words "YOLO" written on them and thinks that Obamacare is a euphemism,

And lastly, Orr is that one person who seems so clumsy and misunderstood that you never understand how smart they were until they're gone.   

Really?

     I don't know if it's just where I live or what, but I though people were more open minded than this. I really did. I'm not expecting everyone to be super liberal by any means, but I'm shocked at the reactions to what was on TV last night.

    You may be confused; you may be wondering what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad that, according to an article on Buzzfeed, shocked the Twitterverse.
   This was an ad that featured the song "America The Beautiful" sung in many different languages, each verse a different tongue. It was a little dramatic for a soda commercial but I though it was a really beautiful idea.
   Buzzfeed's article, titled "Coca-Cola's Multilingual Super Bowl Ad Inspired A Racist Meltdown Online". Underneath there were m many different tweets describing people's reactions. I thought, "How bad can it be?". Yeah, here are some examples of what people said (and these are the ones without swearing involved)

That Carta Guy@1WiseAlienFollow

@CocaCola Whats with the Superbowl commercial? Do you all support Terrorists or what, bad choice in taste. I love America personally.

Angelina Sclone@AngelinaScloneFollow

@CocaCola You're done. Pepsi all the way. Go to the Middle East and sell your product.

YA BOY TUCKER@tuckerdavis72Follow

The commercial with America the Beautiful being sung in so many different languages??? #speakAmerican

So let me get this straight: America, the country that is supposed to mecca of democracy, equality, and capitalism, is against a stinking soda commercial because it featured people of different cultures and languages singing a stinking song? Really? Are we that closed minded that we're willing to send our troops to get all up in another nation's business but as soon as different ethnicities and languages sing one of our anthems we throw a hissy fit? Is that the kind of people we are as Americans? I hope not. I sure hope not.