Bruno & Boots Movie

[osprey_archer]

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS. I have just discovered that there are not one - not two - but THREE movies based on Gordon Korman's Bruno & Boots books! Which are about Bruno and Boots, two good-hearted, prank-pulling, (eminently slashable) boys at the Canadian boarding school MacDonald Hall, who are forever getting up to SHENANIGANS and occasionally endangering the school and also sometimes saving the school and dashing across the street to hang out with their female counterparts Cathy and Diana at Miss Scrimmage's Finishing School for Young Ladies.

There is a scene where Miss Scrimmage accidentally shoots her sign (were Bruno, Boots, Cathy, and Diana responsible? Of course they were responsible) and it afterward reads "Miss Scrimmage's Fishing School for Young Ladies."

As far as I know this scene has not been adopted for stage and screen, buuuut I only watched one of the three movies so far, SO THERE IS STILL HOPE. Although possibly not that much, as Miss Scrimmage in the movies is a crunchie granola type who probably doesn't shoot signs.

Now, personally I would have preferred it if the movies had more or less transmuted the books directly from page to screen because I am a purist like that and also because it might have restrained the filmmakers from being quite so anvilicious about how Change Is an Inevitable Part of Growing Up and Also a Good Thing Except When It Isn't.

But anviliciousness aside it's a quite enjoyable adaptation. In particular, they have a good handle on characters, particularly Bruno & Boots relationship (Bruno making madcap plans and Boots, dismayed, totally failing to restrain him in any way), Cathy and Bruno's Who Is the Best Prankmaster competitiveness, and headmaster Mr. Sturgeon's fundamental decency as a human being.

Comments

[sovay]

I have just discovered that there are not one - not two - but THREE movies based on Gordon Korman's Bruno & Boots books!

I'd only (and quite recently) heard about one! Are they all by the same people?

In particular, they have a good handle on characters, particularly Bruno & Boots relationship (Bruno making madcap plans and Boots, dismayed, totally failing to restrain him in any way), Cathy and Bruno's Who Is the Best Prankmaster competitiveness, and headmaster Mr. Sturgeon's fundamental decency as a human being.

Okay, I will have to check these out. Thank you for the PSA!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, they're all by the same Canadian company - I forget which one. They've got the madcap heart-warming ludicrousness of the books down.

[evelyn_b]

I'm glad to hear it! I never really got into Bruno and Boots, but I've liked Gordon Korman since he gave a talk at my middle school and made fun of award-winning books about dead dogs. Now I can appreciate Dead Dog Lit a little better, but at the time, I had a grudge.

[osprey_archer]

He wrote a whole book about the Dead Dog phenomenon! I never read that one - he's written so many books, it's impossible to keep up - but I've read a lot of the others. There was a Great Gatsby retelling set in a high school (which actually works pretty well for a Gatsby retelling), and one about a homeschooled kid from a cult who ends up winning over his entire new school with the sheer force of his naivety, and - my favorite - the Son of the Mob books, which are about a guy who is, well, the son of a Mafia boss.

I had not realized I had quite this many feelings about Gordon Korman.

[evelyn_b]

I don't think I've read any of those! though I was reading huge quantities of GK back in the day. I think my favorite was the one where a couple of high school guys invent a poet for a school assignment.

[osprey_archer]

Ooooh, I don't think I read that one! Inventing a poet for a school assignment is 100% peak Korman, though. Somehow we seem to have read a totally different set of Korman books; what are the odds?

It occurs to me that as I am going to Canada, Land of Korman, I ought to see if I can hunt up some of his books while I'm there. Add to my MacDonald Hall collection, maybe snag a few others while I'm there...

You know, I sorted out my books just last January, and ALREADY the collection is on the verge of overflowing the shelves again. I may have a book problem.