Movies better than the book

I've haven't seen or read "All the President's Men." Should I start a thread?

 

I'm still deciding which version of Wonder Boys I prefer.

Another tough one: Fast Times At Ridgemont High? I love both.

 

I love High Fidelity, both the book and the movie. It's hard to read that now and not think about Jack Black as Barry or Todd Luiso as Dick. I didn't really care for the woman who played Laura, but Tim Robbins part is perfect. Even Lisa Bonet works.

Feel the same way about The Princess Bride. Awesome book, but the movie just works on so many levels because of so many great actors.

The Virgin Suicides also comes damn close. Sophia knew what she was doing with that one.

Election is also really damn close. I'd probably lean toward the movie actually, just because Reese is so good as Tracey Flick. But an excellent book.

 

I'll pick Wonder Boys. LOVED the book, but the movie aleminited some of the dead weight and useless stuff with Grady's ex-wife. Plus, no Katie Holmes looking hot in the book.

Also Goodfellas was better than the book.

I'm on the fence about High Fidelity. And I totally agree about The Godfather.

 

Apocalypse Now

 

The Elmore Leonard books that have become movies fit this category for me, the greatest example being that "Jackie Brown" made for a superior movie to "Rum Punch" as a book, IMO. The book was good, but the movie was great.

 

I'll second that.

 

American Psycho.

The movie was a wry satire of the excess of the 1980s, played to perfection by Christian Bale, who to this day somehow remains without an Oscar nomination. The book felt gratuitous in many respects, but I suppose Bret Easton Ellis was, too, trying to show the excess of the 1980s via a very vain serial killer.

Director Mary Harron just pulled the feat off a little more deftly and left much more to the imagination. And, again, Bale was downright tremendous. One of the pre-meltdown scenes when he calls his lawyer and admits to the killings ... outstanding.

 

The brilliance of the movie lies in its ability to make a book I probably couldn't read because of its graphic nature (from what I've heard and a brief excerpt I read) into a movie that is more comical than stomach-turning -- albeit a particularly dark brand of comedy.

 

Although made for TV, WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE were incredible for taking two (equally incredible) books and making them visible. You saw the atrocity and near realism in the mind's eye as you read, but it came alive on the screen. Also, the use of Gen. Von Roon as a viable character, rather than the incidental character he was in the book, was brilliant and made the transition of scenes from the American side to the Reich understandable and believable. His character maintained the continuity on the screen. This, as I understand, was the only concession author Herman Wouk allowed in the screenplay, and it was the right thing to do.

 

A read the book for the 1st time last month. I've watched the Godfather I & II, at tleast 100 times. The book was no where near the movies. How it became a best seller is beyond me.

Maybe it broke the mold when it was published, but it wasn't well written. Imagine how great the book would have been had Cormac McCarthy written it.

Has anyone actually written the Shawshank Redemption short story Stephen King wrote?

 

"Jaws 3-D" was a bad movie, but still better than the book.