Call me a dork, geek or whatever you wish, but I like to read.

Yes, I am one of those people who actually picks up a book for fun. Anne Rice, Stephen King, and J.R.R. Tolkien all have esteemed places around my apartment. So whenever a movie based on a book is coming out in theatres, I happily count down the days until it’s released. (Eragon, you’re next.) And while I admit that most movie adaptations usually make me proud, there have been quite a number of times that I’ve had to resist the urge to stand up in the middle of the movie theatre and chunk a shoe at the screen. Or at least demand my money back.

For instance, let’s take a look at Anne Rice. When Interview with a Vampire came out, I was pretty excited. Granted, I was a little ticked at Antonio Banderas being picked to play Armand, who was 17 at the time and had blond hair, I was pretty happy with the overall adaptation. And so when Queen of the Damned was released, I was there on opening night.

I nearly cried when it was over. While it was a good movie in itself, the book had been mangled. For some odd reason, people had decided to skip over The Vampire Lestat, which is the second book in her Vampire Chronicles, and make Queen of the Damned. So, of course, they decided that they would smash two books into one movie. For instance, Marius did not make Lestat. Magnus did. Granted, he’s only in the book for two seconds, but he was still the maker of Lestat. And David was supposed to be old! He doesn’t turn young again until he trades bodies with a body snatcher.

What about movies like V for Vendetta or Constatine? From what I’ve heard, John Constantine was a blond Brit, not Keanu Reeves. And there were some part of V that I was upset with after having read the graphic novel first. I’m not going to even mention League of Extrordinary Gentlemen. While the graphic novel is good, and the movie was good, there was not too much in common between the two, except the characters. And even then there was some issues. Where the hell did Tom Sawyer come from??

Of course, I can understand how they take some artistic cuts for some films. If they didn’t, we’d have to spend two or three days at the movie theatre just to watch one Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movie. And those, thank God, stuck fairly close to the books. So did Chronicles of Narnia, and we hope the rest of those films continue the tradition.

But simply screwing stuff up because you can? Way to go, film directors. You’ve managed to turn people off from reading now.

However, I would like to send Ron Howard a big thank you. The DaVinci Code was wonderful. And we can all thank the heavens that Uwe Boll hasn’t managed to get his grubby little hands on book movies yet. If that’s the case, then we can forget ever seeing a good book movie ever again.