Good news for all Wes Anderson fans — the US director is back with the film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar which hit Netflix, an online film provider, on Sept 27. It is a film adaptation of UK novelist Roald Dahl’s novel under the same name.

The film stars UK actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Adaptations are currently popular in the movie industry. 【小题1】 But what about book adaptations of films? Book adaptations of films aren’t that common, but it’s a medium that certainly takes skills to master.

The most well-known version of a film being adapted to books is via the novelization. Movie novelizations went through a boom period before the Internet era. Fans wanted to know more about the fictional worlds and experience the story again in a new way. 【小题2】 Thus, the novelization was a great solution.

Meanwhile, the screen to page process has also opened up the possibility of sequels (续篇). Perhaps there simply wasn’t financial investment to create a follow-up to a film. Maybe a sequel idea simply felt more appropriate for a novel. 【小题3】 In recent years, for example, the film Heat, released in 1995 has received its own novel. ET: The Book of the Green Planet continued the extra-terrestrial’s journey after the completion of the film’s narrative.

But what are the benefits of reading a novel instead of waiting for the big screen version? Well, a novel can take its reader deeper into the mind of the characters that the film had to represent in a more visual way. 【小题4】 Although a film might characterize a fantastic scene or a specific costume choice, it doesn’t always tell why those things are important. Novelizations and sequels can take that extra step and shine a light on some of those movie-making choices.

Book adaptations of films obviously won’t ever replace cinema, and there’s no need to choose one or the other. 【小题5】

Peking Opera is being introduced to primary and middle school students in an effort to promote the traditional art to the younger generation.

The country's first set of textbooks about Peking Opera was compiled and published by the Beijing Association of Promoting Quintessence of Chinese Culture and People's Education Press in 2015.

The textbooks for optional courses have been put on trial use in middle schools in Fengtai district and will be used in middle schools across the city. The textbooks for primary schools will also be rolled_out.

Since 2008, Beijing has promoted a program to provide opera training at dozens of primary schools. Schools apply for funds from the city's education department to hire professional actors and actresses to work with students as young as 6 or 7.

Peking Opera arose during the rule of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1644 － 1911). It   flourished for decades in China and as its fame spread, it   drew audiences in other countries, including the United States and Japan.

Yet over the years, its popularity diminished. While a significant number of people listened to radio productions of Peking Opera before the 1980s, generations born after that pursued pop culture over the traditional arts.

Steven Spielberg never fails to blow us away with his imagination.

The US director’s latest film Ready Player One, which was released in Chinese mainland cinemas on March 30, is a story set in the year 2045, when people escape their hopeless everyday lives by putting on a VR mask and entering a virtual (虚拟的) world named Oasis. This fantasy land is filled with characters and settings right out of classic films and videogames like The Shining and Overwatch. It’s a feast both for the eyes and mind. And at the age of 71, Spielberg is still “at the top of his game”, wrote reporter Rafer Guzman on Newsday.

Indeed, Spielberg has always been a gamer himself or rather a game changer. When his thriller Jaws came out in 1975, it struck a chord (引起共鸣) with audiences all over the world and kept people from going swimming for fear. The film was also the first example of what we now know as summer blockbusters.

“Jaws invented that form of pleasurable entertainment, wrote Stephen Marche on Esquire. It also turned sharks, in the popular imagination, from fish into monsters.”

And again, in his 1982 film E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial Spielberg challenged people’s beliefs that aliens are something to be feared by telling a story about a loving friendship between a space creature and a little boy. “Spielberg redefined popular sci-fi”, wrote Marc Lee on The Telegraph. “Extra-terrestrials no longer had to be a threat to humanity: the universe, he was saying, is also full of awe and wonder.”

Now comes Ready Player One. When Wade Watts, the film’s teenage protagonist (主角), finally prevents Oasis from falling into the wrong hands, he’s given ownership of the virtual world by its late designer James Halliday. But Watts makes a decision that he hopes will make people want to appreciate their real lives, instead of spending all their free time escaping reality in Oasis, which is a real-life message that Spielberg is trying to deliver to the audience.