Now a major motion picture

So the Oscars are on tonight. I haven't watched it in years, but I love the fashions and wrongly predicting the winners. As I was looking at the paper this morning with the Oscar ballot, I noticed a book on my shelf, The Reader, now a motion picture that has at least two nominations (Best Picture and Kate Winslet, Best Actress) this year. And it reminded me of my "thing" with books and movies.

First of all, the book is always better than the movie. Actually, I have one exception. I liked Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in the movie, The Object of My Affection, more than I liked the book. But I digress.

Here's my thing. Because I feel the book is better, I won't watch a movie if I want to read the book. And since I haven't had much free time to read lately, I've collected quite a few books and haven't seen quite a few movies. Here's a list of a few:

• Cold Mountain
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Chocolat
• The Perfect Storm
• Mystic River
• The DaVinci Code
• No Country for Old Men

Then there are a few movies that I don't own the books, but I won't watch the movies until I've read them including The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And there is a movie that I've seen because I couldn't wait, but the book is on the shelf ... The Devil Wears Prada.

And there are books that I've enjoyed that have been made or are being made into movies that I'd like to see ... The Secret Life of Bees, Little Children and coming out this year, Push (I think the movie is called Precious) and The Lovely Bones. I'm happy about these, even though I'd like to re-read Push and The Lovely Bones before the movie. Oh well, the cycle never ends.