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Movie better than the book?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by lantaur, Sep 20, 2008.

  1. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    i know what state you're from, but you still can consider yourself hugged for No. 2. :D
     
  2. dargan

    dargan Active Member

    I'll take that deal any day. ;)
     
  3. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    "Cinderella Man". Like Schapp's book, love the movie, especially the scenes when Braddock gets to fight, and knock out Corn Griffin.
     
  4. Overrated

    Overrated Guest

    Forrest Gump is the only movie I've watched that was better than the book.
     
  5. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Kurt Vonnegut said that only two authors were ever really well-served by a movie version of something they wrote: Him (Slaughterhouse-Five) and Margaret Mitchell.

    *****

    What's interesting about two of the responses here – Godfather and the LTR trilogy – is how closely the movies track with the story laid down (of course, in much richer detail) in the book(s). A lot of underbrush has to be cleared out to get such nuanced stories on the screen, of course.

    *****

    My rather obscure contribution to the discussion: I think Rollerball (James Caan version) is at least as good, if not a smidgen better, than the story (Rollerball Murder) that it came from.
     
  6. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    Sorry, as much as I am not a huge LOTR fan, the movies didn't even come close to the genius of the trilogy. Great movies, but better than the books? Esthetically impossible, in my opinion

    Coppola took a piece of schlock fiction and created a film class. Benchley wrote "Jaws" with a screenplay in mind. It's a crappy novel

    Any movie based on the unreadable Tom Clancy would have to be better or people would leave after the first five minutes.

    There are some movies based on literary novels that do justice to the books; McCarthy's novel "No Country for Old Men" and the short story"Brokeback Mountain" immediately come to mind.

    The best movie ever made from an Elmore Leonard novel was "Get Shorty". Still doesn't come close to the book.
     
  7. RossLT

    RossLT Guest

    Get Shorty was the best movie from an Elmore Leonard book? Did you see Out of Sight or Jackie Brown, in my opinion both were better.
     
  8. Magic In The Night

    Magic In The Night Active Member

    Really? No Country? I finally watched that movie on cable the other night and found it severely lacking. I didn't get a lot of it at all. The next day I spoke to someone at the office who had read the book and filled me in on a bunch of stuff. She said I would have liked the movie much better if I had the backstory from the book.
     
  9. a_rosenthal

    a_rosenthal Guest

    Fight Club.
     
  10. RossLT

    RossLT Guest

    I have never seen it mainly because I tend not to see films that everyone says are so great. Oh and I hate Rudy also, let the slamming begin.
     
  11. Agree, though the book has the better ending.
     
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