We Went To The Movies Last Night

We went to the movies last night, ONE FOR THE MONEY, but no one who reads this Blog will be surprised by that. Helene and I went with her friend Maggie. So I don't keep folks waiting, the movie was great!

Helene and I have read all of Janet Evanovich's books and have been looking forward to this film for years. The ladies books are so funny; we have BOTH read everything she has written, even the romances. This Movie was the first Evanovich offering Maggie has ever been exposed to. A good time was had by all of us.

I normally hate standing in lines, but was delighted to see there was a line for ONE FOR THE MONEY. There were no lines for any other films.

The great majority of the folks in line with us were women. Of the men I was in the minority, having read the books, but all of us were interested based on the trailers we had been seeing on TV.

I will not include spoilers here. For those of you that have read ONE FOR THE MONEY there is plenty about this movie to like. I am on record as having enjoyed it compeletly.

For folks looking for a reason not to like the movie, you can probably find something. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The biggest reason is the time they have to tell the story. This is true with any book. In this case the audio book is eight hours and thirty two minutes long. For a movie to include everything it would have to be about the same. A eight and a half hour movie is going to die on the vine.

The target length for both film makers and theater operators is ninety minutes. ONE FOR THE MONEY is one hundred and six minutes, which will allow for five or six showings a day.

This means the characters can not be developed as fully as they can in the book where a chapter can be devoted to introducing someone new. Sadly, a lot of favorite scenes will be shortened, combined or lost compeletly. Does the movie keep the feel, pacing and flavor of ONE FOR THE MONEY? Oh Yeah!!

There are a couple of delightful moments that aren't in the book. One I will discuss is shown in a trailer.

Stephanie is looking out the window when a car explodes. Both she and Joe hit the deck and she say's "They blew up our car!"

"Who's car?" Joe demands!

"Your car," Stephanie answers. "Do you want it back?"

Old time fans know that's not the way it happened in the book. But it's a great movie line. As for how it did happen in the book, READ IT! I'm not spoiling it either.

There are folks posting negative reviews. There were folks that didn't like Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Think what you would have missed out on if you had taken those fools seriously!

Last, I have been hearing that ONE FOR THE MONEY isn't the top box office winner so far. To that I say, hide and watch. Plum fans are not near done promoting this film. We want to see more of the books made into movies.