One For The Money

I cannot remember how many years ago a Secret Santa gave me the first three books of this series for a gift.  That person is long gone from our department.  I cannot even remember her name.  Easily, one of the best gifts I have ever received from a non-family member.  She opened my world to so much laughter.  These were the first books that made me laugh out loud.  Seriously, laugh out loud even if I was reading in public.  These for the first books that made me feel the need to read passages out loud to my Hubby to see if he would think it was as funny as I did.  Of course, he did not.  As the series progressed, so did the characters.  Grandma's character became larger than life.  I will say that the last few books have not been as funny as the first ten.  I will even say the first 15 were amazing.  The last few books I have wanted her to end the series.  I think it has gone as far as it can.
With all this in mind, I went to the movie last night to see, One For The Money.  When I read the books, Stephanie was always Sandra Bullock.  Grandma Moser was the little old lady from The Golden girls. Those characters were set in stone in my mind.  Debbie Reynolds played Grandma.  She did a good job.  There was just not enough of her in the movie. There were six of us at the movie.  I think only a few of us had read any of the books.  We laughed hard.  A few times I wanted to clap and holler.  I never feel like that in a movie.
I have a new Book/Movie philosophy.  I have mentioned it before.  I know the movie is not the book.  I can separate the two.  The book is like a back drop to the movie.  Gives me more understanding of what I am going to watch.  Having read all but one of the series, I can say, the movie was much more hilarious because I have read the books.  Just knowing who Lula was made me laugh out loud.  Knowing what she was capable of made me laugh.  I was surprised that Katherine Heigel played a good Stephanie.  Unfortunately, she underplayed her.  Stephanie is more dramatic, larger than life than she was shown in the movie. 
I like the actor that played Ranger.  The Ranger character could not be done justice in a movie.  There was more background to him.  He was more mysterious.  In the movie Joe Morelli was HOT.  Major, HOT.  I seriously did not know stomach's could look like that.  (My apologies to my Matthew.)  When I read the books, Joe was not that hot.  Joe had been a high school jock that had let himself go, just a little bit.  It has been so long since I read the series I do not know if he was originally described that way or I just imagined him that way. 
The joy of reading a story is we get to use our imaginations.  We can take the stories to other levels.  I do not think I would have thought this movie was as funny if I had not read the books.  It would have been a nice movie to rent.  After seeing the movie I think they made a big mistake making the book into a movie.  The should have made it a TV series.  Would have been easier to ease the characters into the story line.  The first three books characters were introduced and grew more interesting in every book.  That cannot be done in a movie.
If you loved the books, go see the movie.  You will laugh.  If you have not read the books, wait and rent the movie.  You will feel like you wasted your money.