Here you’ll find some of our staff’s favorite movies, television shows, recipes, and music that are based on books and plays.
Movies
Gone Girl: This crime thriller by Gillian Flynn was made into a movie in 2014. This story of a woman who goes missing will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. And if you love Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, then you’ll love the move as well!
The Crucible: Arthur Miller brings audiences back to 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts in the middle of the Salem Witch Trials in this compelling play. In 1996, director Nicholas Hytner brought this harrowing historical drama to the big screen in his film starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
“A Clockwork Orange,” the 1971 film, was inspired by the novel of the same name written by Anthony Burgess. The film is set in a dystopic Britain and explores the “ultra-violence” of a juvenile delinquent.
Baz Luhrmann’s take on “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald came out in 2013 and starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby. The film won Academy Awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design.
Studio Ghibli’s 2004 film “Howl’s Moving Castle” is an adaptation of a novel by the same name written by prolific British author Diana Wynne Jones. It features a young girl named Sophie who is cursed into the body of an old woman.
The 1996 film “Matilda,” starring Mara Wilson as a telekinetic child prodigy, is based off of Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel of the same name. Directed by Danny DeVito, the film features Matilda’s struggles with her brutish family and tyrannic school principal, Miss Trunchbull.
For reviews of other great movies, check out our friends at The Big Screen.
TV Shows
The 2014 Starz show “Outlander” was based off of the Diana Gabaldon books by the same name.
The BBC show “Sherlock” was heavily inspired by the character Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created in the late 1800s.
Game of Thrones: This HBO fantasy series kept audiences glued to their screens for the entire eight-year run, but did you know it was based off of a still-unfinished book series by George R.R. Martin?
The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood’s 1985 alternate-reality novel comes to life in this Hulu series by the same name, which depicts life in the dystopic totalitarian theocracy of Gilead — a country which was once the United States of America.
For reviews of other great television shows, visit our friends at The Daily Binge.
Recipes
Here’s a recipe for lembas bread, a wafer-like food used to keep a traveler’s energy up in JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series. Lembas bread is a highly nutritious food described by Tolkien as providing enough energy for “a full day’s march.”
“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,” written by Fannie Flagg, helped popularize the Southern snack, according to Southern Living. Find the recipe here.
Inspired by Beth Henley’s play “Crimes of the Heart,” Cristina Marie-Wright aka “Sexy Vegan Mama” created this vegan version of the play’s Miss’ippi Pecan Pie.
Butterbeer, a favorite of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and his friends, is brought to real life in this recipe for muggles to make it at home. Get the recipe here.
For reviews of some of the best places to eat, visit our friends at Flavor Town.
Music
“I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles contains lyrics about a famous poet: “Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.” The lyrics also refer to the walrus, a character from Lewis Carroll’s “Through The Looking-Glass.”
“Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by The Police was inspired by “Lolita”: “It’s no use, he sees her // He starts to shake and cough // Just like the old man in // That book by Nabokov”
This musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda has become a world-wide sensation since its inception in 2015, and its soundtrack was the highest-selling broadway cast album of that year. Miranda took inspiration for this musical from historian Ron Chernow’s book of the same name.
Like “Hamilton,” “Les Misérables” was adapted as a sung-through musical from a novel. The English version of the musical is the second-longest running musical ever!
For reviews of some of the best concerts around, visit our friends at Tempo.
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