Coming out of January already having read two of the books on my list, I was feeling pretty damn cocky. Enough that I added a second challenge, which was to also watch film adaptations of all of the books, trailing behind my reading list as fast as my Netflix queue could keep up.

I based the choice of adaptation on whether they were reportedly:

1. Very good
2. Very bad
3. Starring the cast of The Lord of the Rings

Great Expectations (1998) qualified strongly as #2. It was utterly incoherent. How bad could an Ethan Hawke movie be? I had wondered. Now I know.

Jane Eyre (1997) wasn’t so great either, which was similarly disappointing because I like Samantha Morton. She isn’t bald or mute in Jane Eyre but she is pretty spacey and weird, much like her Princess Leia hairdo. The adaptation was worth watching if only because it threw into relief the aspects of the book that were interesting to a modern reader. In the novel she has a frank wit that makes men notice her. She’s comfortable in her unattractiveness and gets creeped out when she’s objectified as a beauty. She rejects being the mistress of a man she loves but can’t marry, but then she suggests being the unmarried (platonic) companion of another man who would marry her but doesn’t love her. When she finally does marry the man she loves, it’s after he’s become blind and disfigured and she’s independently wealthy. Most of those interesting rough spots are missing from the movie. And the girl who plays the little French chick totally sucks, holy crap.

So far, The Portrait of a Lady is pretty dull. The movie isn’t available on Netflix. It features Aragorn.

One block into the ride I leaned forward and said, “Your meter’s off.”

“Oh, thank you! I’m so tired.”