The other night I went to Book Club, affectionately known as Wine Club by all of our husbands.
I will admit that I do not always read the book. And we don’t always talk about literary stuff. Sometimes we talk about sex, kids, husbands, jobs, sex, husbands… Our group is made up of busy and ambitious women, but we definitely know our limits. For example, we figured out early on that it was pretty much impossible to get a book read in December, much less gather everyone together for a “discussion.”
So we started a fun holiday tradition of December Movie Club.
Every December we try to get together to see a movie based on a book. This year we decided on Anna Karenina, based on the Tolstoy novel that I never managed to read during my college lit class.
The movie featured Keira Knightley, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and (to my surprise) Jude Law as the hapless husband. While I really liked the film, I’m SO glad I went with girlfriends. We all agreed that our significant others would have given it a thumbs down… too much music, too many elaborate sets and costumes. I enjoyed all that, though, and it was fun to immerse myself in a heart-wrenching love story for a few hours.
Watching the Golden Globe nominations this week, I realized this has been a big year for popular books being made into films. Did you see The Hunger Games in the spring? How about Life of Pi this fall? And coming up, I’m looking forward to seeing Les Miserables, as well as The Hobbit.
The one upcoming film that I’m not so sure about is Jack Reacher, based on the fabulous suspense series by one of my favorite authors, Lee Child. I love these books and after reading every single one, the character of Jack Reacher looms large in my mind. Maybe that’s why I’m having such a difficult time getting excited to see Reacher portrayed by the diminutive Tom Cruise. Reacher’s remarkable height is such a part of his character, I just can’t imagine how Cruise is going to pull it off. But I like the books so much, I’ll probably give it a chance.
What movies are you looking forward to seeing this holiday season?