Movies that are as good or better than the book

[JD Chase]

Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

[Stephen DeMay]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:
> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Probably Blade Runner....Not because of the differences in story line which is probably inferior to that f the book , but due to Dick's unfriendly style. Tried to read Do Androids....... long before the film but could not get through it. Years later with the film as a reference I did finish it. The Day of The Jackal ( have not read ) is I believe considered to be better as a film.

[Bill Anderson]

JAWS for sure. The book is a stinker. So is the book from which the
movie JULIE AND JULIA takes its title and premise, though I understand
the screenplay draws a major amount of source material from a second,
much better book, MY LIFE IN FRANCE by Julie Child with help from her
nephew, Alex Prud'homme. Now that book was well worth my time, as was
the biography of Julie Child, DEARIE, by Bob Spitz.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

[moviePig]

I found the books of 'Jaws', 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'The Godfather',
and 'The Exorcist' all to be of the can't-put-it-down variety --
notwithstanding their respective must-see movies. Sure, some wise
adjustments of each made its 2-hours a better movie, but each original
engine survived its translation very much intact. (Re 'Jaws' in
particular, I remember its opening scene more vividly in print...)

--

- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com

[Bill Anderson]

On 12/10/2015 12:01 PM, moviePig wrote:

>
> I found the books of 'Jaws', 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'The Godfather',
> and 'The Exorcist' all to be of the can't-put-it-down variety --
> notwithstanding their respective must-see movies. Sure, some wise
> adjustments of each made its 2-hours a better movie, but each original
> engine survived its translation very much intact. (Re 'Jaws' in
> particular, I remember its opening scene more vividly in print...)
>

All I really remember about JAWS the book was the movie's Richard
Dreyfuss character having a torrid affair with the wife of the movie's
Roy Scheider character. And wasn't the Mafia involved too? Good grief.
The screenplay had to ditch a lot of crap to become a blockbuster.

[poisoned rose]

Bill Anderson <billand...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> All I really remember about JAWS the book was the movie's Richard
> Dreyfuss character having a torrid affair with the wife of the movie's
> Roy Scheider character.

Right, and Dreyfuss's character is killed by the shark.

[Halmyre]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 5:00:44 AM UTC, JD Chase wrote:
> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Three Days of the Condor
The Bourne Identity

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:

> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Under the "as good" section I'd throw in The Maltese Falcon.

[JD Chase]

Enjoyed the novel "Bunny Lake is missing", but thought the movie was better...

[art...@yahoo.com]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:

> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

I'm guessing "Vertigo" because nobody ever talks about the book. "Rear Window" is based on a short story, I think. I'll bet it qualifies as well.
"The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Killing" maybe...

[wlah...@gmail.com]

No way is "Vertigo" better than D'entre les morts. The book doesn't -- for one thing -- have that compromised ending. Nobody ever talks about the book because few have read it.

[Michael OConnor]

Which movies do you think are better than the book?

I thought the film version of The Hunt for Red October was better than Tom Clancy's book. I thought it worked better using a reactor leak to get the crew off the sub, and also the second Soviet sub who was pursuing Red October IIRC was not in the book and that made for a suspensful climax.

Contact the film was better than Carl Sagan's book, as the book was muddled by having five people travel in the machine, and the movie streamlined it by having just having one person make the trip.

[hislop]

I read the book back then, I remember a bit with the Roy Scheider
character having a really long piss. seriously.

[Neill Massello]

JD Chase <jdcha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Presumed Innocent (1990).

I think Margaret Mitchell's novel is better than the movie; but I read
it beforehand, and that often makes the difference.

[tomcervo]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:

> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Most of Kubrick's adaptations are at least as good as the book; some, like "Barry Lyndon", "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket" are better.

[moviePig]

As a veteran horror-fan, I reiterate my failure to find the greatness of
'The Shining', book or movie...

[Sol L. Siegel]

JD Chase <jdcha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Which movies do you think are better than the book?

"Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand By Me", both adapted from Stephen King
novellas.

- Sol L. Siegel, Philadelphia, PA USA

[JD Chase]

Stephen King and Pauline Kael disagreed with you about "The Shining", they both disliked the movie... They did both enjoy the movie "Carrie" though...

[luisb...@aol.com]

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:

> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?

Midaq Alley

[tomcervo]

> Stephen King and Pauline Kael disagreed with you about "The Shining", they both disliked the movie... They did both enjoy the movie "Carrie" though...

King got to get his vision on the screen with the TV movie, and it was like milk curdling. Kael didn't like anything Kubrick did after Strangelove, and by 1980 she was at the point where SCTV could parody her by having her admit that she couldn't tell a good movie from a bad one anymore.

[Jim Mohundro]

This is a golden oldie that few but me will possibly remember: The film of Peyton Place was tightly edited, boasted some performances among them Hope Lange's and Lloyd Nolan, and was altogether better than its potboiler novel source which, it must be admitted, was pretty raunchy for its time and for a woman writer then.

[luisb...@aol.com]

On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 2:19:17 AM UTC-5, tomcervo wrote:
> > Stephen King and Pauline Kael disagreed with you about "The Shining", they both disliked the movie... They did both enjoy the movie "Carrie" though...
>
> King got to get his vision on the screen with the TV movie, and it was like milk curdling. Kael didn't like anything Kubrick did after Strangelove, and by 1980 she was at the point where SCTV could parody her by having her admit that she couldn't tell a good movie from a bad one anymore.

Just the other day I read her review of A Clockwork Orange. Well before the eighties. This is a film I've always loved. She completely eviscerated it. And I'll be goddamned if every argument she makes isn't on point.

[tomcervo]

On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 8:26:59 AM UTC-5, luisb...@aol.com wrote:

> Just the other day I read her review of A Clockwork Orange. Well before the eighties. This is a film I've always loved. She completely eviscerated it. And I'll be goddamned if every argument she makes isn't on point.

She definitely had a point, but it wasn't THE point. Kubrick was all about power and had a visceral fear of it; his children tell how he was afraid every time he went through a customs check at airports.
Kael was all about the sex, and MacDowell clearly stirred something. As Scott Eyman noted, there was always a difference between the movie on the screen and the movie in her head.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

And that makes her different, how?

[JD Chase]

That's a good point, everyone is different, everyone has their own subjective experience...to some extent when we approach a movie or any work of art, for that matter, we are bringing ourselves to the movie as much as the movie is brought to us, what we think about a movie, how we engage with a movie depends on our Personality, our tastes. Our options, our history, our frame of reference etc...

[tomcervo]

> And that makes her different, how?

As a critic you deal with what's up there, not with what could be. Look up her reviews of "The Killer Elite" or "Casualties of War". Are those the movies that played while you watched?

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 8:41:26 PM UTC-5, tomcervo wrote:

> > And that makes her different, how?

> As a critic you deal with what's up there, not with what could be. Look up her reviews of "The Killer Elite" or "Casualties of War". Are those the movies that played while you watched?

I find that often with critics and one could easily accuse Andrew Sarris of the same thing and I only need to point to John Huston or William Wellman to make my case. Could make a case for Ebert as well. Frankly, I find much of your responses as questionable. So what? You have Kael down as some kind of criminal and that is typical of the old boy regime. She had an independent voice and let's face it, you hate that,

[tomcervo]

No,just unreliable and given to irrational loves and hates. She's a terrific writer, her judgement less so. And lazy--"Raising Kane" would have been a grand college newspaper article or blog post, but it would gotten her probation in any decent grad school program.

[Ralph]

On Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 10:48:15 PM UTC-6, wlah...@gmail.com wrote:
> I find that often with critics and one could easily accuse Andrew Sarris of the same thing and I only need to point to John Huston or William Wellman to make my case. Could make a case for Ebert as well. Frankly, I find much of your responses as questionable. So what? You have Kael down as some kind of criminal and that is typical of the old boy regime. She had an independent voice and let's face it, you hate that.

Unfair to say Tom hates Kael because she was an "independent voice" when conniving maverick would be a more loaded description. Like most of us, he has probably enjoyed her as a spectacular entertainer providing superstar excitement that remains unparalleled in the art of opinion. But he's right to reference Scott's bull's eye perception that often the movies she sees differ from the movies in her head. "Casualties of War" is a perfect example. While not by legal definition a criminal, Kael was a repeated ethics violator -- not just in the uncredited lift of someone else's material for her "Raising Kane" essay, but taking undisclosed payments for script and editing advice and then writing raves about what she was involved with. She claimed to never have an appetite for gossip, yet she was persistently "in the know" for years about what Beatty, as just one example, was up to through scripter Robert Towne (who benefited by her rave for "Tequila Sunrise" and then dumped her once she retired and was no longer of use to him). She had an ever-flowing pipeline from New Yorker staffers who kept her apprised of Penelope Gilliatt's descent into alcoholism. That was both a lucky and ethically despicable break: when Kael's contract ran out in Hollywood, she had nowhere to go and wanted to return to The New Yorker. Shawn didn't want her back -- he deemed her "corrupt." For years Kael wanted Shawn to give her the movie critic chair exclusively, badmouthing Penelope as out of touch and unable to connect to readers. He refused, and when Kael set sail for GaGaLand, he thought he was done with her. As Penelope's boozing increased and was accused of lifting another writer's published words for her article about Graham Greene, Kael used her editor Bill Whitworth to go in for the kill. He did, with a series of pleadings that amounted to this: "You want an unreliable boozer or a celebrated bitch?" Shawn capitulated, only to get stabbed in the back when Kael refused to sign a New Yorker staff letter protesting his dismissal when the magazine was sold.

It's no accident that Kael didn't have a whole lot to say about her personal experiences in Hollywood with Warren and Toback, and while I can't speak for others, it's my belief that almost nothing she ever openly said about that period or was reported to have said by her to close friends who later repeated it for the press has much if any core honesty to it. Except for this: when she returned to The New Yorker, she told the Village Voice's Arthur Bell why she lost it out there: "I didn't realize how long it takes to make movies." Those were the most recoiling ten words she could never retrieve. It has to mean something that Gilliatt's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is the best of its kind, that Lumet's working career lasted 55 years and that Kael was bounced from Beatty's production company in less than a month on the job and then tossed to savage beast Don Simpson who gleefully sentenced her to some ragging. Peter Biskind might be right after all -- she done got set up. Only those like Brian Kellow who have a penchant for kissing dead ass would ever suggest she fully recovered.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 10:59:29 AM UTC-5, Ralph wrote:

As Penelope's boozing increased and was accused of lifting another writer's published words for her article about Graham Greene, Kael used her editor Bill Whitworth to go in for the kill. He did, with a series of pleadings that amounted to this: "You want an unreliable boozer or a celebrated bitch?" Shawn capitulated, only to get stabbed in the back when Kael refused to sign a New Yorker staff letter protesting his dismissal when the magazine was sold.
>

There's a good critic, bad critic in that example? What I find enlightening is how you -- and cervo -- play the innocents. Everybody in the movie business and its environs is corrupt. It's all a matter of degrees and you use these examples as if Kael was the only one to break the "rules." There's a special nerve she's hit -- maybe being brazen about it -- that sets the badmouthing about her apart. You all act like what she -- and the others -- participate in is important.

[JD Chase]

Whether or nor Kael was corrupt or not, and if she was, to what degree, is entirely a separate issue from how she was as a writer and movie critic... Obviously many brilliant, enormously talented and effective in their work people can be far less than perfect in their private and/or professional lives...

[tomcervo]

I have no illusions about the movie world. I know there are no rules. Kael is hardly unique; look up Robin Wood's detailed exegesis of "Red Line 7000" and compare it to Hawks' own summary: "It's a piece of shit." They--and others--both go off on a rhetorical binge of bafflegab that makes their work unreliable, which was my original complaint. They tell you nothing about the movie other than their opinion of it, and why that should be yours.
I can read Roger Ebert and see if I might find a movie worth seeing, even if he didn't. It may be part of the job, but he lays out the basic outline of the picture and the elements in it which for good or bad effected his opinion, and I can tell if they'll have any effect on mine.
But these days I find myself checking reviews mainly to see the running time.

[wlah...@gmail.com]

On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 5:58:54 PM UTC-5, tomcervo wrote:

> I have no illusions about the movie world. I know there are no rules. Kael is hardly unique; look up Robin Wood's detailed exegesis of "Red Line 7000" and compare it to Hawks' own summary: "It's a piece of shit." They--and others--both go off on a rhetorical binge of bafflegab that makes their work unreliable, which was my original complaint. They tell you nothing about the movie other than their opinion of it, and why that should be yours.
> I can read Roger Ebert and see if I might find a movie worth seeing, even if he didn't. It may be part of the job, but he lays out the basic outline of the picture and the elements in it which for good or bad effected his opinion, and I can tell if they'll have any effect on mine.
> But these days I find myself checking reviews mainly to see the running time.

Let's all do the shimmy shallee. We're talking about people who gave Pia Zadora a Golden Globe. All you're doing is saying that your opinion counts and applied across critics, that's worthless. I'd rather read Kael than read Ebert. That's my opinion, so there. Just be glad that David O is gone.

[tomcervo]

"Chimes at Midnight"
Harold Bloom describes Falstaff as the equal of any of the greats--Hamlet, Lear--but to see him you have to watch two chronicle plays that are partly him and partly the stuff parodied by "Beyond the Fringe":

Get thee to Gloucester, Essex. Do thee to Wessex, Exeter.
Fair Albany to Somerset must eke his route.
And Scroop, do you to Westmoreland, where shall bold York
Enrouted now for Lancaster, with forces of our Uncle Rutland,
Enjoin his standard with sweet Norfolk's host.
Fair Sussex, get thee to Warwicksbourne,
And there, with frowning purpose, tell our plan
To Bedford's tilted ear, that he shall press
With most insensate speed
And join his warlike effort to bold Dorset's side.
I most royally shall now to bed,
To sleep off all the nonsense I've just said.

Welles saved just enough of that to give context to the primal struggle between Falstaff and Henry for the soul of Hal, the scenes of the plays with the real heft. Nobody very far outside of the academy would regard it as blasphemy, and I doubt many inside would.

[JD Chase]

Speaking of Kael and corruption, In one of the interviews with Pauline Kael from the 80's(the interview is available on YouTube),Kael talks about how difficult it is to be a truly independent, honest reviewer, she said that often movie critics are encouraged for various reasons by the newspaper or magazine they write for to give the movie a positive review, so many times the critics is not really sharing his/her true opinion... that was surprising to hear... It'd hard to not be cynical about everything, everything seems to be rigged and about what goes on behind the scenes, to some degree...

[moviePig]

On 12/15/2015 4:45 PM, JD Chase wrote:
> Speaking of Kael and corruption, In one of the interviews with Pauline Kael from the 80's(the interview is available on YouTube),Kael talks about how difficult it is to be a truly independent, honest reviewer, she said that often movie critics are encouraged for various reasons by the newspaper or magazine they write for to give the movie a positive review, so many times the critics is not really sharing his/her true opinion... that was surprising to hear... It'd hard to not be cynical about everything, everything seems to be rigged and about what goes on behind the scenes, to some degree...

The days may be gone when a single critic could make or break a film.
And, in some respects anyway, good riddance.

[tomcervo]

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 4:45:14 PM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:
> Speaking of Kael and corruption, In one of the interviews with Pauline Kael from the 80's(the interview is available on YouTube),Kael talks about how difficult it is to be a truly independent, honest reviewer, she said that often movie critics are encouraged for various reasons by the newspaper or magazine they write for to give the movie a positive review, so many times the critics is not really sharing his/her true opinion... that was surprising to hear... It'd hard to not be cynical about everything, everything seems to be rigged and about what goes on behind the scenes, to some degree...

Reportedly Shawn asked her not to be so hard on Terrence Malick, something of a protege/favorite of his. She said "tough shit"--she said.

[David Johnston]

"Equally bad" still qualifies.

[Stephen DeMay]

The most desiccated critic I've seen was Molly Haskell on Ebert's show. Lord have mercy

[Bill Steele]

On 12/10/15 11:15 AM, Stephen DeMay wrote:
> On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 12:00:44 AM UTC-5, JD Chase wrote:
>> Movies are rarely as good as the book from which the movie was adapted, but there are exceptions, Imo... "To Kill a mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Gone with the wind", "The devil wears Prada" and "The bridges of Madison County" are all examples of movies that are better than the book... Which movies do you think are better than the book?
>

> Probably Blade Runner....Not because of the differences in story line which is probably inferior to that f the book , but due to Dick's unfriendly style. Tried to read Do Androids....... long before the film but could not get through it. Years later with the film as a reference I did finish it. The Day of The Jackal ( have not read ) is I believe considered to be better as a film.
>

Sometimes the movie is deliberately different from the book. So much so
that maybe the credits should say "suggested by..."

Puts me in mind of "Rebel Without a Cause." Then original was an account
of the psychoanalysis of a psychopath. The movie brought the patient to
life and told a story about him.

Wizard of Oz, anyone?

[OldBob]

A young girl is transported from Kansas to a strange land, where she
kills the first person she encounters.
She then recruits three strangers to help her kill again.

[notbob]

On 2016-01-21, OldBob <bobbo2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Wizard of Oz, anyone?

Howzabout every book Stephen King ever wrote?

nb

[notbob]

On 2016-01-21, SLGreg <SLG...@madeitup.com> wrote:

> Makes a good as/better movie? Not IMHO.

Some decent movies have been made of Stephen's trash. Cat's Eye, The
Shinning, Dolores Claiborne, etc. I didn't say they were great
movies, but they hadda be better than the books, which, despite being
a rabid reader, I ignore with a will.

nb

[OldBob]

On 1/21/2016 1:39 PM, SLGreg wrote:

> I liked early King and preferred 'The Shining' in its written form.
> Kubrick missed a lot of nuance, IMO.
>

I like the early King novels and short stories but once he began
churning 'em out like sausages, I gave up.
I've heard rumors that he no longer does the actual writing, instead
preferring to provide detailed plot outlines to his cadre of ghostwriters.

[Bill Steele]

Are you saying the movies are always better than the books?

King's greatest strength is in the characters, and in most of the
adaptations I've seen the characters come through well realized. That
may be thanks to the actors more than the screenwriters. But the plots
usually suffer. That's the nature of the beast: I can't think of a movie
where the whole story of the book came through. Usually there just isn't
time ... so a few exceptions with miniseries.

[luisb...@aol.com]

I haven't read Dead Zone. Did it come through?

Misery was surprisingly faithful with the important caveat that the "Misery" chapters were gone. I have no doubt that had those chapters been filmed by that crew it would have been an absolutely awesome picture. But then again, it is supposed to be a book in the book, so how to dramatize it would be most tricky. Nice thought experiment in any case.

Of the other films I've seen, Thinner is interesting because its garishness matches the book's even though I somehow imagine that that was unintentional.

I haven't seen Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil but would like to.

I guess Stand By Me is the most faithful in content and tone.

[OldBob]

On 1/21/2016 2:33 PM, SLGreg wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 14:14:11 -0500, OldBob <bobbo2...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I like the early King novels and short stories but once he began
>> churning 'em out like sausages, I gave up.
>

> As did I. I think "It" was the last I read. 1,000 pages to find out it
> was a SPIDER at the end of the 200 page tunnel?! Really?!

>
>> I've heard rumors that he no longer does the actual writing, instead
>> preferring to provide detailed plot outlines to his cadre of ghostwriters.
>

> I'd believe it.
> --
> - greg
>

King's scribblings became increasingly prolix, tedious and boring.
He's now just phoning it in and collecting a paycheck and it shows.
The same thing happened to another author in that genre, Brian Lumley.
He wrote spooky stories in the H.P. Lovecraft vein at first and they
were pretty good. Now his stuff is unreadable but, since he's now an
established author, it somehow still sells.

[art...@yahoo.com]

I thought The Shawshank Redemption was pretty faithful as well.

[Invid Fan]

In article <n7ragu$j9j$1...@dont-email.me>, OldBob

I can think of no reason he would do that. He said before he was going
to retire. He could easily do that, as he doesn't need the money. Now,
going by what he wrote about in Bag of Bones, some or all of the new
stuff might be lesser books written years ago he kept in his safe,
releasing them now while he's alive.

--
Chris Mack "If we show any weakness, the monsters will get cocky!"
'Invid Fan' - 'Yokai Monsters Along With Ghosts'

[Michael OConnor]

The main problem with most Stephen King novels (I think I stopped reading after the giant spider in IT) was I finally realized he came up with great ideas and great characters, and the first 3/4's was fine, but he couldn't finish the story. The result was usually a poor conclusion, like we saw in IT. The one book where he did provide an great finish was The Dead Zone. Even with The Stand, it was going along just fine until the hand of God showed up in Las Vegas or whatever supernatural event happened that caused the nuke to take out Vegas.

[JD Chase]

Speaking of "The Dead Zone", the character Greg Stillson reminds me a great deal of Trump! As does Lonesome Rhodes from "A face in the crowd"...

[Michael OConnor]

> Speaking of "The Dead Zone", the character Greg Stillson reminds me a great deal of Trump! As does Lonesome Rhodes from "A face in the crowd"...

With a little Howard Beale thrown in.

[Neill Massello]

Michael OConnor <mpoco...@aol.com> wrote:

> With a little Howard Beale thrown in.

Nope. He might be attracting some "angry" people, but there is almost no
anger in the affect of Trump himself. If you want the "mad as hell"
schtick, give a listen to Mark Levin.