Announcing a New Series: Overshadowed!!

It's a sad truth about humanity that each of us who can claim membership to that reasonably noble species occasionally spends too much of our time angrily disagreeing about things like politics and board game rules. Being among the finer examples of the race we know as "human", I can often be found, at my paper-strewn desk, or in front of giant blackboard on which I have been feverishly scribbling, trying to find new ways to connect people to each other so that we can forge strong social bonds and march forward, together, into a new world free of strife and anger and violence. And -- good news! -- I have found another patch of common ground on which to toil, because I think there's one thing we can all agree on: sometimes, movies are based on books.

With that fact in mind, I have decided to carefully construct a new series of thought-pieces (or "blog posts") that will revolve around cases in which the book upon which a particular film has been based has been sadly ground into the dirt along the March of Time, while the film goes on to everlasting fame and glory. Or, if you will, the book has been "overshadowed" by the film.

So, in the coming weeks and months, I will be reading some of these books, watching or re-watching the films, and then pouring my heart, soul, and other things too, probably, into writing about my experience. The idea of comparing books to their film adaptations is obviously in no way a new one (Jonathan and Marilyn, to name but two, have already been doing this), but I think my focus is narrow enough to be considered kind of original, and plus you have the whole "building social bonds" and "global bliss" thing that I'm also trying to cram in there.

If you are one of the three people who might have read my previous post (before Marilyn stole the Internet), you may recall that I mentioned something about my Devoted Legion following along with this project -- in other words, reading along with me in order to better take part in the discussion. You should all, indeed, feel free to do so, but this isn't actually a book or movie club, so don't feel obligated. I guess what I'm saying is, if you hate peace, then don't bother. If, on the other hand, your heart beats human blood and your soul has not baked to a cinder, here is a short list of the first few books/films I plan on tackling:

Monkey Planet (AKA Planet of the Apes) by Pierre Boulle















The Searchers by Alan Le May




















The Hustler by Walter Tevis



















And I'm open to suggestions. I have others planned, like Cool Hand Luke and The Verdict, but I'd want to spread out the Paul Newman stuff as much as I can, so anything else you might like me to read/watch, please drop a comment in my Comment Box, won't you? And let's stick to obscure, nearly forgotten books. I think it's safe to say that, for instance, Gone With the Wind is better known as a film than as a book at this point, but only because people don't read anymore. As far as books go, that one is still pretty famous.

Okay, yay, a project, and so forth! The first post, which will be about Planet of the Apes, will go up within the next week or two. After that, who knows? I'll get to it when I get to it, but I'll announce it as early as I can, for those who want a head's up.

Good day to you.