Book-->Film, Oliver Twist

Hooray! Oliver Twist is a good movie.

Stephanie Zacharek at Salon addresses the book to film issue in the first paragraph of her rave review writing, "Sometimes you look at a movie adaptation of a classic book and it's as if you're reading it with the filmmaker, turning the pages together. Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" takes the useless question of whether reading is "better" than moviegoing and renders it academic: This is that rare movie version of a great novel in which watching is reading. " A.O. Scott agrees in the New York Times, writing, "with tact and enthusiasm, Mr. Polanski grabs hold of a great book and rediscovers its true and enduring vitality."

In many ways, Dickens was the first great writer of Young Adult fiction (YA) and, indeed, I think, the inspiration for many authors of what is now considered YA fantasy (Tolkien, J.K. Rowling included). Now, if I only lived in New York or LA...