Hello, wonderlandians. I’m so excited for this post. You have seen me talk about this company in the past. Today we are talking about Passionflix.
If you don’t know what they are in a nutshell Passionflix is a company that turns romance books into video adaptations. I have reviewed one or two other adaptations that they have done.
I have done a review on Driven. Driven was a very awesome adaptation.
I’m very excited to write this post.
If you would like to watch my review from Nov. of 2012 to see what baby Ashten thought of the book then I would go give it a watch.
This video does contain spoilers!
This is going to be a long post so please bare with me. This is one of my favorite books and I knew that I was going to be critical of this movie because I am such a huge fan of the books.
Okay so I just finished watching the the first part to Gabriel’s Inferno. I have been waiting 8 years to see any kind of adaptation of this book. I was so happy when Passionflix optioned to turn all three books into a movie. One thing that I love about Passionflix is that they are dedicated to bringing you a true adaptation.
The movie was pure magic. I love how much detail that was put into every shot. In an interview with Tosca Musk with dcfilmgirl. Tosca said that she wanted the actors to give her everything they had. It didn’t matter how much time that it took. She could always take away time but not add more.
I love this. It really goes to show how much time and energy that was put into this project.
The cast was fantastic. The chemistry you could cute it with a knife.
Lets talk the main players. There are five in total for part one.
Giulio Berruti plays Gabriel Emerson. He is an Italian actor and was the fan favorite to take on playing Gabriel. In many interview that I have seen you can tell that he takes his job seriously. When it came to the prep work for the character he really put in the work and showed up with detailed notes. There really could not have been a better person to take on this role. His chemistry with Melanie Zanetti who plays Julia Mitchell. These two are fire on screen. When you are watching these two act you are swept up into the movie. It’s like you are actually there.
James Andrew Fraser plays Paul Norris or Angel f*cker as he known by Gabriel. Paul is Julia’s first and really only friend in Canada. When they first announced the cast I was interested to see how he would bring the character life. I was not disappointed.
Margaux Brooke plays Christa Peterson or Gallium as known by Julia. Christa is the bitch of the movie. I was interested to see who would get this part. While I don’t like the character much. I thought Margaux did a wonderful. I love actually watching the characters I love to hate on screen. While in the books I could have done without her. In the movie I loved watching her. There is a scene in the movie between Christa and Julia that I was nervous about because it is one of my favorite scenes in the book and she was perfect in that scene.
Julia Barrett-Mitchell plays Rachel Clarke. I love this character in the books and again was going to be critical with whoever played Rachel. Other that Giulio and Melanie she was my favorite character. She was fantastic. Rachel is great in the books but Julia really brought something out in her that you don’t find in the books and you know that makes her one talented person.
This movie was wonderful to watch and I can see myself watching this over and over again. There was only one part of the whole movie I took issue with. When you get the half and hour mark in the movie there is a where I felt the music choice really didn’t fit the moment. The music was lyrical instead instrumental. Having lyrical music when the actors are talking to each while not a bad thing I just feel that it didn’t fit the scene right.
Other than that the movie was beautifully shot. I can’t wait for part two to come out which should come out this summer. This movie does end on a cliffhanger.
Hello, wonderlandians. How are you? I have been so absent this month. I am getting ready for next month because I am back in school. So I am trying to get books reviewed for you so I can have review out to you while I get situated in my new routine. I also have some topics that I want to talk about next month. Now I want to talk about the book to movie now TV showDrivenby K. Bromberg. You guys can click the blue link where the wordDrivenis highlighted. There you can read my review and thoughts on the book.
On to the review…
I am very thankful to Passionflix because without them I would have not known about this wonderful book series. If you have read my review on the first book you will know that I was hooked on this series from the first book. I also mentioned that when I was reading I got some vibes from the Fifty Shades of Grey book. These books as well the Fifty Shades of Grey movie have nothing in common with the Driven TV show. The only similarities I can see are these. Colton believes he has a 747 truck full of baggage. While Mr. Grey says that he is fifty shades of fucked up. Both men think that they can only have one type of relationship. Colton likes his arrangements just like Christian. It just takes that one woman to break down those walls. To me though this is where the similarities stop at least for the book.
Now when it comes the actual contents of the TV show I get a whole different vibe. Yes, they are still but the vibe is different. This really is such a roller coaster of emotions.
Passionflix (which I will be doing a whole separate post about in the very near future) is a new plate form much like Netflix but it is for romance novels to be turned into movies. I have to say out of all the movies they have done I have only read two of the books. The adaptions were very spot on.
Everything with the Driven TV show has been spot on in every episode. Olivia and Derrick play their parts really well. Everything you read in the book they translate it to the screen. One thing that I am always worried about when someone tries to take a book like Driven which is so to me emotionally driven. Olivia and Derrick on screen have so much chemistry. Every happy moment and every gut wrenching moment you feel it ten fold just like you do in the book.
This is a series and a service I would recommend over and over again. Passionflixs is amazing and what they’re doing with book to movie adaptation or even booked a TV show adaptation is amazing because it’s taking books that are well loved by fans and turning them into a different medium.
Hello, wonderlandians. Today I have a movie review for you of After. After if you don’t know is a book that was written by Anna Todd and was recently adapted into a feature-length film that premiered last Friday, April 12th. Now I was fortunate enough to see the movie a day before it came out because my theater does that and I know a lot of other people saw it on April 11th as well. Why did I wait until April 15th to write this review I really needed to gather my thoughts and opinions about the adaptation. So I’m going to be breaking this review down into a couple of parts I’m going to be reviewing the movie by itself and then I will be comparing it as a book to movie adaptation.
Now I need for everybody to understand that I am not bashing the movie I’m not bashing the actors who put all of their hard work and effort into this fell. I am going to be critiquing the movie and I’m going to be pointing out things that I didn’t particularly like about it but I will mostly be doing that in the book to movie adaptations portion of this review.
Movie Review
About two months ago I listened and reviewed the after audiobook. I was really excited for this movie to come out that as soon as I could pre-order my ticket I did. I went into this movie knowing that they were going to be making it PG-13. So with that in mind, I knew that they were going to be many changes made from the book to the movie at application portion of it. I will be getting into all of that in my review of the book to movie adaptation portion. So as a film as a standalone I really enjoyed my time watching the film. It was a very cute film. The acting for me was beyond the point I thought all of the actors and actresses playing the parts had really great chemistry. All of the locations were absolutely beautiful. The cinematography was on point. Every shot was beautifully filmed. My hats go off to the cinematographers because as a photographer myself I enjoyed every aspect of that. For the story as a whole if I had not read the books and I went to go see this movie I honestly feel like I would have been very confused. I have seen a lot of people on Twitter who haven’t read the books saying that they were very confused about what was going on. I feel how the editing was it was very choppy and didn’t feel like a whole cohesive story.
I definitely have a feeling that it is going to be greenlet for a second movie. I have to say that if this does happen I will be very intrigued to see how they are going to bring the second book to life because there was so much changed. Josephine Langford is a new actress to me. I have never seen her act in anything before and I thought she pulled the leading female character off very well. For somebody who is a newbie actress who is thrust into a very popularized book-to-movie adaptation that has a very strong fan base, it can be a little scary. At least this is quite a lot of young women say. I think she has done a fantastic job. Hero plays the main male character and he played Voldemort in Harry Potter while young Voldemort anyway. So book-to-movie adaptations shouldn’t be anything new to him. Harry Potter has a very loyal fan paste and I must say they might be a little crazier than After fandom.
As a whole After set out to do what it wanted to do. I have a feeling we will be seeing Josephine and Hero gracing the big screen once again in the next After movie.
I have to end this off by say that I actually LIKED the movie. I really enjoyed my time watching it.
Comparing the Movie to the Book
This is actually the part of the review I’ve been dreading. Now not all book to movie adaptations are great. Unfortunately, this one falls in that category. If you want to go read my review of the book after by Anna Todd here is where you can go read that. this movie was a very watered-down completely change the version of the book. The first mistake I feel that they made was making this a PG-13 movie. If you read the books you will understand that the books are not at all rated PG-13. They are very much rated R in the sense of movie ratings. After is not a book that should be read by Young teenage people. Those are just the facts I am seeing many reviews from people in their late teens probably early twenties now who said that they read the book as early as 12 years old. I know for a fact that I would never let my 12-year-old son or daughter pick up this book. One because there are heavily graphic sexual scenes. Yes I know that they can find that on television but as a parent I really would think that there would be more policing on what your children are reading. That’s my personal opinion. so the fact that they really watered down the sexual tension between Tessa and Hardin kind of irritated me because their relationship at the core is very lustful. Harden is this very possessive person and in the movie, we don’t get that at all. maybe a little bit but not to the extent that we get it in the book. Hardin, in fact, is actually a lot sweeter they really did soften him for the movie. This is one point that got a lot of the fans kind of disappointed in the movie. Hardin is meant to be a very cruel individual to everybody around him. This has a lot to do with his upbringing from his dad being an alcoholic and his mother being raped.
Tessa for me was very much how she was in the books. So I really don’t have any qualms about her. What I do have a big issue with is the pacing of the movie was way too fast. There were a lot of scenes that were filler and were sped up too quickly. There were scenes in the movie that really shouldn’t have gotten as long as a timeframe as they did. A lot of crucial parts that make a lot of sense to the story or not in the film or were rush over. I personally feel like this did a disservice to the storytelling of the movie as a whole. some factors that were changed were how Tessa meets Hardin dad. In the book they have a dinner. In the movie she meets him at the wedding. This to me was a little bit problematic because there was a whole build-up to the wedding that we get in the books that we do not see in the movie. Again to meet at the little bit of sloppy storytelling. Another big part of the book is the fact that Harden gets an apartment for him and Tessa. He’s paying for it. In the movie, they are at a friend of his dad’s apartment where they can say for a year. In the book he got Tessa to put her name on the lease. This kind of locks her into a sticky financial situation because she can’t break that lease at as long as she is I’m at least he has some kind of connection to her.
One thing that I really like is they changed Tristan’s character to female which really expanded the diversity that we didn’t really see in the books. With this change, I was actually very proud that they made this.
The one change I really can’t Overlook is how they changed the bet. Â in the book The that was for Hardin to basically trick Tessa into losing her virginity. This for me was such a crucial part of who Hardin was and by the end of the book and even into the next book him trying to break away from who he was. This was a very disgusting thing that happened in the book but it was pivotal to the storyline. In the movie, all he had to do was make her fall in love with him. This in my opinion is very much over played in Hollywood and I was actually really excited to see the that played out on screen. It would have brought something new and exciting. In an interview that Anna did, she said that she wanted to change the bat because in her opinion it wouldn’t translate while on film. I completely disagree with that, in fact, it would have made it way more interesting. She also cringes when she reads how she made the BET. Honestly, authors should stand by her writing and I feel like she made the changes she did because she was trying to fix the things that in her mind she had messed up. It’s there it’s in writing please stand by what you write.
It may seem like I’m coming really hard for the book to movie adaptation portion. That’s probably because I am. This honestly probably should have been picked up by passionflix. If you guys don’t know what passionflix is it is kind of like Netflix but for romance novels. I feel they do an amazing job when it comes to book movie adaptations. Everyone that I’ve seen I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. They stick really close to the books swell as much as they can. Pretty much from the books that I’ve read and the movies that I’ve seen they don’t miss much. There are a lot of fans who are disappointed by the book to movie adaptation. As I’ve said as a movie it’s not bad. As an adaptation, this book is not adapted it’s Loosely based off of the book.
This just in there is going to be a second movie.
I feel like at this point I’m just ranting and I’m really sorry about that. Let me know if you are going to be seeing the movie. Let me know if you read the book and what you think of it.
Thank you all for joining me here in our little part of Wonderland. Please do not forget to feed the unicorns on your way out.
