Comments on Mo' Better than the Book

Lonesome Dove.

Far from the Madding Crowd/The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Horatio Hornblower series.

Witches of Eastwick
American Psycho
Wonder Boys

The Bible

I had a middle-aged male english teacher who insisted on reading the first page of The Color Purple, which, if you've never read it, consists of a rather graphic description of rape/incest by the victim. I don't know what was more disturbing: the passage itself, the fact that my teacher chose to read it to the whole class for no apparent reason, or how bored he sounded when he read it.

Kubrick's The Shining is miles ahead of Stephen King's book. The book is an unreadable piece of shit, while the movie has some moments of real magic (until Nicholson chews up the scenery).

"crash" is hands down the worst book i ever read to completion. page after page after page of cars crashing and guys creaming their pants. crononberg would have to try really, really hard to make a movie worse than that book.

@4
English teacher not english teacher.
(Guess he wasn't much of one.)

@5
Props for italics.
(Italics? hmm think not.)

David Fincher’s movie, Fight Club, is significantly better than Chuck Palahniuk’s book.

50/50. The beginning of the book is better than the beginning of the movie, the ending of the book is better than the ending of the movie. The middle is canceled out in regards to which is better and/or more effective. Nevertheless I agree with you.

Good call on Lonesome Dove. And The Shining. I might add A Clockwork Orange and Gone With the Wind to the list as well.

I agree about all of them except "The Color Purple", I think Speilberg went overly sentimental with the film (although I still love it).

Add to that list "The Graduate" and "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane". Both medicore books at best that made great films.

High Fidelity the movie is way better than the book.

Charles--Oh, nevermind.  Dan, you want people to read Slog at work, right?  So that you won't lose the ad revenue from the workday readership?

I'd like to not get fired.  So that we can both have what we want, can you please lay off putting conspicuously NSfW images on the front page?

Now did Mudede say anything interesting?  I scrolled down in rather a hurry...

some parameters are needed. the book can't be bad or pulp. it has to be a good book. a film that is better than a bad book or pulp (The Godfather, for example) is not as impressive than a film that is better than a good book (The Third Man, for example).

Fast Times At Ridgemont High:

Book = Awesome.

Movie = Awesome + Pheobe Cates' boobs.

Ugh! are you kidding?!?!?! The Color Purple was an AMAZING book and a horrendous movie.

"some parameters are needed. the book can't be bad or pulp. it has to be a good book."

Well, there goes your Fight Club example then. There's a good chapter in there (that was published independently as a short story), but unfortunately you've got to read all of the others before and after it.

Sorry Poe, but I have to disagree with you about Fight Club.

Between Marla Singer saving our hero with the help of his support group friends, or romantically watching credit card buildings fall, I pick the latter.

And the hero ending up in a mental ward?* Eh... I could take it or leave it.

*SPOILER ALERT

Vasya at #11,

You're insane.

I'll say this. Considering the hash that COULD have been made of the filmed version of such a "time/place" book that changed both the time and the place...Cusack & friends actually didn't do that bad.

But Hornby's book is still better.

Now then...had you said "About a Boy"...well..

Well, no, actually, despite how Hugh Grant did a credible job with it...you can't take the Nirvana out of that book and have it make sense.

Diggstown is one of the most underrated movies of all time, but the book, The Diggstown Ringers is pitiful. A friend bought me a relatively expensive copy, since it's out of print, otherwise I'd never have finished it.

The Crash example doesn't work since the movie Crash is not a remake of J.G. Ballard's novel.

Ted Demme's movie Silence of the Lambs is better than Thomas Harris' book. I liked the book okay, but the movie was far more intense. On the other hand, Harris' Red Dragon is one of my favorite books, and I thought the movie (the Ralph Fiennes version) was kind of boring. Michael Mann's Manhunter (based on Red Dragon) is a better movie, but leaves out too much.

Oh, and Hannibal sucks ass in both versions.

I loved John Irving's The Cider House Rules. I couldn't sit through his movie adaptation.

Although I wouldn't call the book a piece of shit, I think the movie version of The Shining is a much better piece of art.

No Country for Old Men was the first time I felt like I was actually watching the book. The movie was a near perfect translation of the book. That is, if you don't mind the deleted scenes and slightly altered story line.

@21,

Jonathan Demme.

@20,

According to IMDB, it is.

Vonnegut famously considered the movie version of Slaughterhouse Five better than the book.

HST joked that the book Fear and Loathing was a failed example. He seriously enjoyed the movie.

Does that count?

#20: The David Cronenberg version of "Crash" is in fact a version of JG Ballard's novel.

Battlefield Earth the movie is better than Battlefield Earth the book because you can laugh at the idea of Travolta taking the religion so seriously that he'd make such a silly flick.

@23: no movie adaptation of an Irving novel, not even Garp, has been better than the book. (Not that the books are perfect; they're very good and better than the movies.)

I haven't read Russell Banks's The Sweet Hereafter, but it's hard to imagine it being better than the movie, which was wonderful.

Forrest Gump was a pretty good movie (and yes, I'll wear all your Tom Hanks barbs, hipsters). The book was one of the worst pieces of Crap I've ever read.

How about crappy movies that are incremental improvements on the even crappier book?

Devil Wears Prada, DaVinci code. I wish I had all of those hours back.

Household Saints book=great
Houshould Saints movie=awesome

Phoebe Cates's boobs are better than any book.

Bonfire of the Vanities. Great book, terrible movie.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned The Godfather films. Not great books.

Movies Better than the book :
A Clockwork Orange
2001 (OK the screenplay came first and was written by the same author)
Blade Runner (But Dick still rules)

Or rather, not a great book.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was a terrible book. Almost any of the many movie versions are better, including Coppola's.

Uh, can we put a qualifier on Fight Club that even though the movies is much better, they both still suck?

jeremy, no.

I though Shawshank Redemption was a better movie than book. Although I did like that the book discussed why Red was in jail. Surprisingly a Stephen King short story, not too many people realize that.

the films of "jaws" & "the godfather" are better than their books. same for "the excorcist"

while the movie crash was heterosexually more titillating, the book crash was intellectually more fun. plus the movie had a very different plot in many ways.

Re: The Color Purple

I love both the film and the book so it's hard to say one was better than the other. The movie adaptation was good but the book was so much better in the grand scheme of things. It would have been nice to see Celie and Mister become friends in the movie.

Am I alone in thinking "To Kill a Mockingbird" was better than Harper Lee's elementary novel?