... FOR "CINEMA STAPLES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE MAGICALLY BENDING WRIST"

Method acting is a serious craft. It requires you to commit completely to a role, to surrender to it, to take on every quality and mannerism of the character you're playing - in essence, you "become" the character, inside and out. Developed by Konstantin Stanislavski during the years 1911-1916, then later cultivated by "star" practitioners such as Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, "The Method," as it's called, emphasizes the importance of emotional truth, conveyed internally and externally by the actor. Yet the demands of immersing yourself that deeply into the mind of a character can also have its negative effects, often to the detriment of your own health or sanity. Famous examples of actors taking their "Method" to the extreme include Marlon Brando, who confined himself to a hospital bed for an entire month to prepare for his role as a paraplegic in The Men (1950); Robert De Niro, who gained a whopping 64 pounds to play aging boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980); and Daniel Day-Lewis, who never moved from his wheelchair during the entire six-week shoot for My Left Foot (1989), learned how to track and kill his own food for The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), and caught a slight case of pneumonia while shooting Gangs Of New York (2002) because he refused to wear clothes that were untrue to the period.

The authenticity of these performances aside, there are limits, of course, to how much an actor is willing to sacrifice for his art. To play a character who returns from the dead, for example, it's probably unnecessary for anyone to die and be resuscitated in order to achieve the "emotional truth" of the moment (that's what the Internet was invented for, people!). The same goes for trying to relive a past sexual or childhood trauma, or resorting to actual drug use for a part, which any medical processional will tell you, is likely to cause more psychological and physical damage than it's probably worth. (I am reminded of a scene from 1976's Marathon Man, in which Dustin Hoffman kept himself awake for three days straight to accurately portray his character's disorientation and terror. When co-star Laurence Olivier heard this, he told Hoffman, "Why don't you just try acting?")

... FOR "DETAILS YOU PROBABLY NEVER NOTICED IN POPULAR FILMS BEFORE ('DIE ANOTHER DAY' EDITION)"

One of the most derided entries in the James Bond canon, Die Another Day opened in November of 2002 to coincide with 007's 40-year cinematic anniversary. It was Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final outing as the inimitable superspy, and the first Bond film to embrace the use of CGI for its action scenes (which was a major source of said derision). Yet despite the misgivings of critics and Bond fans alike, Die Another Day managed to gross $432 million worldwide - the highest-grossing franchise entry up to that point (unadjusted for inflation). The plot, for the uninitiated, centers around a failed mission in North Korea during which Bond is captured and held prisoner for 14 months. Once released, Bond finds he's been disavowed by MI6 and that his 00 status has been rescinded... but never one to shrink from a challenge (ahem), decides to go "rogue" in order to clear his name and discover the identity of the agent who betrayed him. Along the way, Bond makes friends with a bikini-clad sidekick, engages his enemy in a “winner takes all” sporting match, drives around in his patented Aston Martin with built-in patented ejector seat, hangs off cliffs, has his cover blown by facial recognition software, and disarms a solar-powered superweapon (not in that order).

If any of that sounds at all familiar to you, congratulations: you've seen enough James Bond in your lifetime to know that Die Another Day cribs from the best (and some of the not-so-best) of them. (And those are: Bond going rogue = Licence To Kill; betrayed by fellow agent = GoldenEye; bikini sidekick = Dr. No; sporting match + ejector seat = Goldfinger; cliff-hanging = For Your Eyes Only; facial recognition = A View To A Kill; solar superweapon = The Man With The Golden Gun.) But is this a case of pure laziness on the filmmakers' part, or simply par for the course at this point? Like any good soup or stew, we expect our Bond films to be stuffed with all the familiar ingredients - a sprinkle of outlandish gadgetry here, a dollop of double entendres there, three cups of vehicular mayhem over there. And while I admit having a soft spot for the film itself (I like the devil-may-care, adrenaline-pumping pace of the thing, despite the ridiculousness of the plot), I'll also be the first to admit that Die Another Day, more than The World Is Not Enough before it, plays more like a Greatest Hits assemblage of previous Bond adventures than an actual movie.

The franchise's 40th Anniversary might have more to do with this than we initially suspected. The makers of Die Another Day had two simple requirements: one, make the movie accessible to The Fast And The Furious set, and two, include enough homages to Bond's cinema past while trying to appeal to the The Fast And The Furious set. As such, 007's 20th big-screen endeavor is not only loaded with crash-zooms and extreme sports sequences but also references to every (official) Bond film ever made. Some of these are subtle - others, not so much. Then again, James Bond has never been one for subtlety.

... FOR "'ANT-MAN,' 'TERMINATOR GENISYS,' AND THE ART OF DE-AGING ACTORS FOR BIG SCREEN PURPOSES"

If Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys have taught us anything this summer, it's that there's still plenty of life left in our older generation of actors yet. And I don't mean that in the metaphorical, gee-I-never-knew-they-still-had-it-in-them sprightly performance kind of way. After all, Michael Douglas is merely a supporting player in Marvel's latest bid for superhero supremacy, and spends most of his time standing on the sidelines, spouting exposition. Schwarzenegger, too, plays more of an expository machine than killing machine this time out, trying to make sense of so many fractured timelines and cracking jokes about being "old but not obsolete" (though box office pundits might beg to differ on that last one). The problem is, most of our marquee movie stars of yesteryear simply can't compete with the Vin Diesels and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnsons of today - Douglas, for all his vim and vigor, turns 71 this September, while Schwarzenegger celebrated his 68th birthday on July 30 - so they've been "promoted" to mentor roles or crotchety figures of fun in order to stay relevant. For one brief shining moment in both Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys, however, we're reminded of their past glories (and unwithered faces) with the help of some revolutionary CG effects, and the results, for a change, are breathtaking. Never before has a digital face-lift looked so good.

Granted, CGI hasn't always had the best track record for replicating human flesh on screen. Skin tones tend to look plastic, and contrary to popular belief, human beings do not move with the dexterity of stop-motion animated figures, with rubbery, elongated limbs. And yet filmmakers insist on pushing the technology to its absolute limits, regardless of necessity or common sense. Close-ups of faces, in particular, are especially unforgiving, since we're practically invited to get a cold, hard look at the imperfections of the process. Like this computer-generated visage of actor Bruce Lee, resurrected for a Johnnie Walker whiskey commercial that aired on Chinese television in 2013:

... FOR "THE DC/MARVEL CHARACTER CASTING SHUFFLE"

When we last saw him in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, depending on which screening you were (un)lucky enough to attend, Mr. Wade Winston Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) - aka Deadpool, aka Weapon X - was lying amongst the rubble of Three Mile Island, having literally lost his head in a battle with a certain adamantium-clawed superhero. Of course, not even a good decapitation can keep a good Deadpool down, which is why our final fleeting glimpse of the Merc With A Mouth came as a shock to absolutely no one: As his clearly not-dead hand crawled toward his clearly not-dead severed head, his eyes fluttered open, and his lips offered a pre-emptive "Shhhh...", in a bit of fourth-wall breaking that was perfectly in keeping with the comic books. X-Men Origins didn't get a lot of things right, but that was certainly one of them, and fans have spent the last six years anxiously awaiting the promise of that shot - a Deadpool solo spin-off movie, or at the very least, a follow-up film in which Deadpool played anything other a superfluous side character.

Which, come February 12, 2016, is exactly what we're gonna get. Directed by former VFX artist Tim Miller, and starring Reynolds, Ed Skrein, and Morena Baccarin, Deadpool: The Movie finally sprung to life following a two-minute sizzle reel that leaked to the Internet in July 2012. This bootleg test footage (also directed by Miller), in which a fully-costumed, heavily-CGI'd Deadpool slices, dices, and sarcasms his way through a car-load of hapless henchmen, really seemed to get the character's trademark snark down pat, and wowed 20th Century Fox executives enough to greenlight a feature film. Production then began on March 23, 2015, and ended on May 29; in between, Mr. Reynolds, always the cad, Tweeted a number of memorable reveals about the shoot (most of them NSFW), in an epic attempt to assure fans that the property was in good hands. And then, on July 11, all fears about the movie were finally laid to rest, when an exclusive trailer debuted to cheering crowds at the San Diego Comic-Con. It will be everything Deadpool devotees have come to expect from the character: quippy, profane, gratuitously violent, and a kick in the pants to all other comic book movies that came before it.

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #9 ('THE IRON GIANT'/'WRECK-IT-RALPH'/'THE DARK KNIGHT RISES' EDITION)"

Our continuing series of blog posts in which we take a look at odd movie coincidences – scenes, jokes, dialogue, even specific camera shots shared between two (or more) seemingly unrelated films. Anyone who's sat through a particular scene in a movie and thought, "Gee, haven't I seen someone so this somewhere before?" will know exactly what I’m talking about.

One of the most underrated animated films of the last twenty years, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999) tells the gentle story of a nine-year-old boy who befriends a sentient robot from outer space. It was based on a children's book, The Iron Man, written by Ted Hughes and published in 1968 (then later adapted as a rock musical by The Who's Pete Townshend). The movie was adored by critics but largely (some would say criminally) ignored by audiences, thanks to a half-hearted marketing push by Warner Bros, who apparently couldn't make heads or tails of it. Since then, it's grown in stature not just as a classic of animation but as a classic American film - as much for its rich 50s period setting as its wicked sense of humor, showcased already by Bird during his stint on The Simpsons (1989-1998) and again during The Incredibles (2004) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).

... FOR "A TALE OF TWO 'POLTERGEIST'(S)"

UPDATE: Via this report from Variety.com, MGM and 20th Century Fox have moved up the release date for Poltergeist to May 22, 2015. The article that follows remains unaltered from its original post.

Excuse me for sounding a little churlish, but the newly-released trailer for 20th Century Fox's Poltergeist remake has my stomach in knots, and I don't mean in a good way. The film, which opens July 24th, has been touted as "a revisionist take" on Tobe Hooper's 1982 horror classic, with "modern" updates including cell phones and flat-screen TVs. Which is fine, I guess - I mean, this is Hollywood, after all, where people aren't truly happy unless they're busy ripping off someone else's work or exploiting the latest adventures of the world's greatest superheroes. And this is hardly the first time Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures label has tried rejiggering a modern classic, with remakes of The Grudge and The Evil Dead burning up theater screens in 2004 and 2013, respectively. My question, though: what's the point in remaking something if you don't have anything new to bring to the table? Why reproduce the same thrills and chills if you can't be bothered to give a fresh spin on old material?

Despite the change in cast (Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt make fine replacements for Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams from the original movie), the new Poltergeist looks to be a rehash of the same exact plot - close-knit family moves into suburban home and is immediately beset by supernatural forces. Again, this is nothing new. Remakes have been a part of our cinematic diet since the days of the earliest films, when Cecil B. DeMille remade his 1914 silent The Squaw Man in 1918 and again in 1931. (Trivia bit: DeMille also directed a silent version of The Ten Commandments in 1923, then later reused some of the same props and sets for his 1956 remake.) True, the marketing gurus behind Poltergeist 2015 could be deliberately trying to goad us into seeing the new movie by plumbing our nostalgia for the previous one. And yes, the final film as released could be entirely different from what the trailer lets on. But the fact that so many elements come directly from Hooper's version suggests a paucity of imagination on the filmmakers' part.

... FOR "DISNEY'S 'MALEFICENT' AND THE FARCE OF THE FEMINIST FAIRY TALE"

"In any event, we know what's really going on in the scene.... It's a symbolic assault with sexual overtones, specifically an attack that occurs after a woman has passed out. Maleficent doesn't just lose her wings; they're stripped from her, against her will."

  — Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com

"[A]fter the brutal attack, Maleficent quickly retools itself, heading into a whirlwind of tones while ignoring the darker implications of its opening story. In a brisk 97 minutes, decades of narrative are distilled into boilerplate genre elements: The chills of a rape revenge fantasy, the mirth of slapstick, and the adrenaline of action."

  — Monika Bartyzel, Girls On Film

"[W]elcome to Walt Disney's I Spit On Your Grave."

  — Drew McWeeny, HitFix.com

So intoned the critics of Disney's Maleficent, which (so far) has managed to gross over $756 million since opening May 30th. Many reviews, as a matter of fact, touched on this rape-as-metaphor idea in some form or another, to the dismay of many moviegoers/overprotective parents who outright refused to believe that the Mouse House would sneak such subversively sinister material into one of their patented family entertainments. Never mind that Angelina Jolie herself admitted as much during interviews ("The core of [the movie] is abuse, and how the abused have a choice of abusing others or overcoming and remaining loving, open people," she told the BBC on June 10). The cold hard truth is that, from Hans Christian Anderson to Charles Perrault to the Brothers Grimm, even our fondest fairy tales have always been metaphors for something. What matters is how those metaphors are presented to the eyes and ears of anyone old enough to comprehend them.

... FOR "MACGUFFIN WITH EGG (PART 4 - 'RONIN' EDITION)"

Been a while. Shall we recap? A MacGuffin, lest we forget, is any object or doodad in a story or film that every character wants desperately to get their hands on. It hardly matters what said object is; all we need to know is that everyone wants it, and will do whatever it takes to get it, often at the expense of each other's lives. Done right, the MacGuffin will reveal important truths about the characters (i.e., just how much is this person willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish his/her goals?). Done wrong, or explain it too much, and, well, who cares?

To wit: In Paramount's Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise and his Impossible Mission Force are sent to retrieve any number of mysterious artifacts, from a computer file to a vial full of hazardous material, before bad guys can sell it for profit or terror. Characters resolve their differences with bullets or by beating each other to a bloody pulp. In Jaws, the MacGuffin is the shark - the existence of which will test the limits of the three men who set out to stop it. And in Hitchcock's Notorious, uranium stored in champagne bottles forces a spy (Cary Grant) to put the woman he loves (Ingrid Bergman) in harm's way.

... FOR "MOVIE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY #5"

In which we take a look at a series of odd movie coincidences - scenes, jokes, dialogue, even specific camera shots shared between two seemingly unrelated films. Anyone who's sat through a particular scene in a movie and thought, "Gee, haven't I seen someone do this somewhere before?" will know exactly what I'm talking about.

A Historical Drama and a Sci-Fi Action parable which end with strikingly similar closeups of the same actor's face. Two Horror film sequences seemingly inspired by Fred Astaire. And a gag about urination, used first in a spoof on 70s cop shows and then again during a Comedy about baseball. You look at these films and you have to wonder: Are these screenwriters purposely cribbing from each other, hoping no one will notice? Or are they paying deliberate homage to previous films, hoping overly attentive audiences will? Or is it, in fact, pure coincidence, plain and simple, since there is technically nothing new under the sun?

... FOR "FRANCHISE FACE-OFFS (PART 16 - 'SPIDER-MAN' EDITION)"

The fun of the Spider-Man comics has always been that Peter Parker is intrinsically One of Us. We just may be too modest to admit it. We all feel the awkwardness of our teenage years, we all dream of greater power and responsibility, we all yearn for the courage and the conviction to swoop in and save the day. Swinging through the spires and the skyscrapers of New York City, Peter's world feels grounded in the everyday (well, as "everyday" as a kid in a red-and-blue leotard fighting crime, anyway), and his quips and his wisecracks give him the edge over his enemies, not only stronger and faster but smarter and wittier than they are too. With skills like that, who wouldn't want to be Spider-Man?

Despite his enormous popularity, however, the concept for Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's iconic creation almost didn't make it off the ground. When pitching his initial ideas for the character, Lee recalls that his publisher, Martin Goodman, asked, "Don't you understand what a hero is?" Goodman felt that the idea of a teen-aged superhero - especially a high school nerd who was unpopular with the ladies - wouldn't appeal to readers, since most teens in comic books (think "Bucky" Barnes or Dick Grayson) served only as sidekicks to more experienced crimefighters. Little did he realize that audiences were clamoring for a character they could call their own; unlike Superman, say, with his godlike powers and chiseled physique, or Batman, with his unlimited gadgets and millions of dollars at his disposal, Peter Parker struggled with more conventional problems, like passing his classes or trying to hold down a job. And comic book fans fell immediately in love with him. Spider-Man debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 in June 1962 and sold in record numbers (in 2011, a near- mint edition of this issue sold for $1.1 million to a private collector). He has since become Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, appearing in multiple comic titles, cartoons, radio plays, movies, books, video games, even a Broadway musical (with music by U2's Bono and The Edge).

... FOR "DETAILS YOU PROBABLY NEVER NOTICED IN POPULAR FILMS BEFORE ('SPIDER-MAN' EDITION)"

In which we take a look at the movies of yesteryear and bring some of their more subtle, less- noticeable idiosyncrasies to the fore. Do some of your favorite films exist in the memory purely as entertainment and nothing more? Well, look again...

The first thing you notice about comic books is that they're color coded. Sure, it's the characters and the storylines that keep you coming back month after month, issue after issue, but it's the bright, shiny colors that catch your attention first. In this regard, the colorists' job is just as important as the penciler's, or the script writer's. Think about it: without Superman's red-and-blue getup or the Hulk's green florescent skin, would you have given them a second glance?

... FOR "WALT DISNEY'S ANIMATED FIFTY (PART 50 - 'TANGLED' EDITION)"

Our continuing foray into Disney's fifty official Animated Classics. As always, don't hesitate to share your thoughts/memories/complaints in the comments section below. Links to previous entries are also included below.

Title: Tangled (2010; based on the fairy tale Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm)

The Plot: A princess whose hair possesses magical healing powers is imprisoned in a forest tower; on the eve of her 18th birthday, she escapes and experiences life for the first time, with the help of a wayward thief.

The Songs: "Incantation Song," "When Will My Life Begin," "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got A Dream," "I See The Light," "Something That I Want" (performed by Grace Potter)

... FOR "WALT DISNEY'S ANIMATED FIFTY (PART 46 - 'CHICKEN LITTLE' EDITION)"

Our continuing foray into Disney's fifty official Animated Classics. As always, don't hesitate to share your thoughts/memories/complaints in the comments section below. Links to previous entries are also included below.

Title: Chicken Little (2005; based on the centuries-old folktale)

The Plot: A determined yet diminutive rooster becomes a laughing stock when he accuses the sky of falling, but is later vindicated when an army of UFOs invades his town.

The Songs: "One Little Slip" (performed by Barenaked Ladies), "All I Know" (performed by Five For Fighting), "Shake A Tail Feather" (performed by The Cheetah Girls); all other songs, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (performed by Diana Ross) and "Stir It Up" (performed by Joss Stone and Patti LaBelle) were not written specifically for the film

... FOR "CINEMA STAPLES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE RECYCLED CAMERA SHOT"

Making movies is hard. In fact, with so many factors at play - script, acting, editing, costume and set design, cinematography, not to mention escalating budgets and ever-tightening production schedules - it's a wonder studios manage to churn out coherent films at all. It takes an enormous amount of talent and patience and all-around singularity of vision to pull off what most directors do; that much is to be admired. Like the rest of us, though - those burdened by countless responsibilities throughout the course of our days - they are only human, and prone to make mistakes. Continuity errors, say - the placement of objects or actors mismatched from one camera shot to the next. Or repeated auditory motifs, which not only hearken back to Hollywood's long and illustrious past but also take us out of the movie itself - so that, when we hear them, we are self-consciously aware that what is unfolding before us is, in fact, only a movie.

The process of editing a film might also pinpoint mistakes not evident during actual production. A missing close-up or establishing shot, for instance, which would otherwise clarify narrative action. A director is then faced with a number of choices: one, he can rustle up the necessary approvals and crew to travel back and get that shot; two, he can skip the shot entirely, and risk confusing his audience; or three, he can find a suitable replacement shot, preferably of something already filmed. Most directors, because of time and money constraints, will often re-use or alter specific shots to suit their particular needs. Let's call this the mystery of the recycled camera angle - a repeated shot, used twice within the same film, to cover up a piece of missing footage.

... FOR "CARTOON/CELEBRITY DOPPELGÄNGERS"

Been on an animation kick as of late, what with ABC Family and The Disney Channel showing Peter Pan, Tarzan and Lilo & Stitch at all hours of the day, plus the kids' incessant playing of Wreck-It Ralph on DVD. It always impresses me how the best cartoon features still have the power to entrance us, even after all these years, with animation every bit as supple as their storytelling.

Even so, we skipped seeing Ralph in theaters - sometimes, it's hard to tell what will and what won't be worth the $40 family trip to the movies - but I imagine it plays just as well at home as it did on the big screen. Disney's 52nd Animated Classic basically does for video games what Toy Story did for toys, with clever cameos and in-jokes for old-school and hardcore gamers alike, and a sugar-sweet story at its center. What I like most about it, though, are the vocal performances - namely from its two main stars, whom you wouldn't normally associate with kid-friendly fare.

... FOR "TWENTY YEARS LATER: 'JURASSIC PARK' (AN APPRECIATION - OF SORTS)"

Jurassic Park gets a fancy new upgrade on Blu-ray this month (in 3D!) after raking in an additional $42 million in U.S. theaters (including one week in IMAX) since April 5th. I haven't been too enthusiastic about these post-converted 3D re- releases so far (read here for evidence on that), but I have to admit seeing Steven Spielberg's 1993 dinosaur epic again on the big screen might have its perks. (That sublime raptors-in-the-kitchen climax, in full-on jump-at-your-face three-dimensional glory? Yes, please!) I've resisted the urge to buy a ticket, though, since I happened to catch the movie twice on TV during the last week (once on DVD, and the other during its regular rotation on Starz), and I realized that my appreciation for it hasn't dwindled a bit since my initial viewing 20 years ago.

Even on the small screen, to witness Jurassic Park again is to be reminded of two things: one, that it helped change the face of CG special effects work as we know it, and two, it's a prime example of Spielberg's unparalleled genius as a virtuoso action director. No one can deny that the dinosaurs are the stars of the show - a glorious mix of computer-generated images, animatronics, and sound design. But without Spielberg's sly signature wit Jurassic Park might have turned out to be just another mindless monster movie.

... FOR "CG ATROCITIES" (CONTINUED)

An addendum to last week's post, on the horrors of excessive CGI in modern blockbuster cinema.

One of the things you'll notice when watching George Lucas's recent Star Wars prequels is that the guy is clearly infatuated with all the newfangled technology at his disposal. This is certainly one of the reasons why so many people tend to reject The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith on an intellectual level. It's the opposite of what made the original trilogy so special in the first place, when Lucas was basically forced to invent the FX that would kowtow to the stories he wanted to tell.
 
Especially depressing during Clones and Sith is George's insistence on using digital stuntmen to punctuate his action sequences. Long before the days of Luke Skywalker, apparently, the Jedi had the power to transform into hokey cartoon versions of themselves while doing somersaults through the air. Pretty cool, right? For someone as old- fashioned as myself, however, this is the equivalent of those Adventures Of Superman serials of the 40s, when actor Kirk Alyn would literally morph into a hand-drawn Man of Steel when flying. Which is to say, if you can't make it look right, why bother trying at all?

... FOR "CG ATROCITIES (AND THOSE WHO COMMIT THEM)"

Confession: I don't care much for CGI. At least not in the way most filmmakers tend to use it these days, which is too much and too often. Like any cinema tool – music, art direction, cinematography, editing, costume design, even A-list actors – special effects should always be used as a means to support a story, not as the focus of it. And it's a shame how so many people have apparently lost sight of that.

Granted, it's a tricky mix to get just right. While some directors seem to get it (Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, even pre-Avatar James Cameron spring to mind), others have simply lost the ability to rely on anything else (cough-George Lucas-cough). We've come a long way since the days of Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, when CGI still had the power to shock and surprise us - to make the fantastical seem fathomable. Now that anything and everything can be accomplished via CGI, from exploding planets to spaceships to kitchen utensils to tabletops, my question is: Should it?

... FOR "'WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE' AND THE RISKY BUSINESS OF FILM ADAPTATIONS"

Adapting books into film can be a tricky business. Especially when that book is a much-loved children's classic. Especially when that children's classic is less than 50 (written) pages long.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Cat In The Hat, The Polar Express - all books we've loved since childhood, turned into Hollywood features of wildly varying quality. A big reason these adaptations fail artistically is because of the padding: Since movies these days run at least seventy to eighty minutes (any shorter and they'd qualify as a "short"), filmmakers are forced to figure out how to bloat these books to feature length. And in doing so, they usually stray from the tone of the original story - what made the book such an enduring classic to begin with.