And some nights you just get the feeling that god hates you, and thinks you're a bad person

So headlined to distinguish this from my periodic "Some evenings you just feel more isolated from your culture than others" posts. In those I talk about movies that I find myself with surprisingly little desire to see, despite the fact that they're well-reviewed, have a story or a kind of story that has been of interest to me in other formats, or both.

Every three or four years, however, a movie comes along to which my reaction goes well beyond surprisingly little desire to see it. One that fills me with hatred and loathing every time a commercial for it comes across my TV screen.

Last time, it was The Cat in the Hat. It took me a while but I finally worked out just what bothered me so much about that one, besides the fact that by all accounts it was a wretched film. Even if it had been genius, I would have argued that the film should never have been made.

Why? Because The Cat in the Hat, the book, was created for the sole and noble purpose of teaching children to read, something at which it succeded beyond anyone's wildest imagination. How dare a movie steal children's experience of that just to make money?

What's bothering me this time is another film made from one of the undisputed classics of children's literature, Bridge to Terabithia. I assume most of you reading this have read it. This movie has been giving me sinking feelings ever since I first saw a commercial for it.

That the book made an impact on me should be obvious. What is Bridge to Terabithia about? It's about a boy who becomes friends with a tomboyish girl. I mean, hello. It is also about friendship, imagination and loss. It is not about big Muppety creatures coming down from the sky, which is what the first commercials made it look like the movie was about.

And I knew something with terrible certainty, as one who has known them intimately in his minds' eye (a place they never quite left): Jess and Leslie were never quite as clean and fresh-faced and Nickelodeon-ready as the two, no doubt very talented, children who are supposed to represent them.

Increased exposure to the commercials led me to believe one of two things was possible. Either the filmmakers had departed signifigantly from the book, eliminating the tragic loss in the last third which is its most moving component.

If that were the case, they should be tied to anthills for desceration. Or, the other possibility was that the film was actually quite faithful to the book, but some ad man or woman decided to sell it as a special f/x extravaganza.

If that were the case, they should be brought up on charges for false advertising. And I'd imagine a few parents will be indignant if they bring their children to it expecting another romp through computer graphics and end up taking them home crying after the real story reveals itself.

The reviews suggest to me that the second is true. RT says:

Bridge to Terabithia is a faithful adaptation of a beloved children's novel and a powerful portrayal of love, loss, and imagination through children's eyes.

So, great then, right? The thing is, I don't care. I don't care how faithful or powerful the adaptation is, if anyone had asked me I would have said that making a film out of Bridge to Terabithia was a terrible idea. Why?

Because the book, even moreso than all books, is about imagination. It's about the relationship that you form with these people in your minds' eye and how you see the things they do and what happens to them. Movies, even the best of them, are about giving you things to see. Not what you see.

Even if the film must be made, I would have said: Stop on a dime the first time somebody came up with the idea that we must enter the fantasy world the two kids create. No. The story is about what it is and what it means to them, and you can show that with well-wrought performances.

This plants the seed for what the audiences see in their imaginations without taking away their experience. By asking a special effects house to come up with their interpretation of what Terabithia looks like? They are taking from every person who sees the movie, but especially every child, the chance to create their own.

Even an SFX house as talented as Weta Digital, who did the Lord of the Rings movies. BTW, I do feel differently about this than the LotR films, and I don't think it's because Terabithia is in my matrix in a way that the Tolkien books never were.

I think it's because, the Rings trilogy is imaginative. Terabithia is, and I'll try not to make this point again, about imagination. The only reason I can think of to make a movie from it (besides money) is because some people still think that is the pinnacle of artistic achievement.

Some books make dandy movies (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, for example, would work suprisingly well in an adaptation). But not all books are somehow inadequate if not source material to sell Coke & popcorn (and neither would Girlfriend's Boyfriend be).

And I would imagine some might argue that a succesful film adaptation sends the curious back to read books they'd somehow missed. But I remember that what bothered me about The Cat in the Hat was not just its mere existence, it was the endless product tie-ins and “synergy” around it. Including and most especially the new books that adapted the movie, with the insidious potential to surplant the real book, by Dr. Seuss.

And I note something with fatalistic angst. Currently on the number four spot on the New York Times Best-Seller list for children's books is yet another familiar, popular title. One that was also recently released as a well-reviewed film, Charlotte's Web.

The book on the Best-Seller list is not the book by E.B. White, it's an "adaptation" of the movie by somebody named Kate Egan.

Some movies made from books are good. Some movies made from books are great. Some movies made from books are textbook examples of how to adapt a movie and get virtually every conceivable thing wrong (do not even get me started about Endless Love).

But what they all have in common is this. They all give unknown numbers of people an excuse to say:

"No...but I saw the movie."