September 28th, 2010 / 5:20 pm
Snippets

Deliverance the movie is equal to Deliverance the book. An odd fortuity indeed. Other movies actually equal to, or–gasp–superior, to the book?

92 Comments

  1. Mike Meginnis

      I was afraid to say it but you said it!

      :)

  2. Roxane

      I absolutely agree that the LOTR movies are better.

  3. Sean

      Wild Things was a Paxil Pink Eggers Shit, but thanks for dropping by.

  4. Justin

      fight club

  5. Jason

      No Country For Old Men.

  6. deadgod

      Yojimbo is a great movie, and somewhat changes its ‘source’ (by being wry and ultimately supportive of the village and sad about the Nameless Killer), but Red Harvest is unbeatable relentlessly-bleak pulp fiction, a peer of The Killer Inside Me.

  7. Nick Antosca

      The Godfather, Jaws, Apocalypse Now, Assassination of Jesse James, There Will Be Blood, Trainspotting, Fight Club, The Shining, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Children of Men, Out of Sight…

  8. Martin Macaulay

      Morvern Callar

  9. David Hayden

      Greatest ratio of cackness to greatness – novel to movie – could be The Magnificent Ambersons.

  10. Nick Antosca

      The Thin Red Line, The Birds, The Big Sleep, The Exorcist, Stir of Echoes, 2001, The Manchurian Candidate… isn’t the Graduate based on a novel? I better stop.

  11. karl

      trainspotting and godfather are ties. the shining is a great example. really, you think apocalypse now is better than heart of darkness? I would add andromeda strain and brian’s song (better than the chapter of I am Third it is adapted from)

  12. Nick Antosca

      I’d say Apocalypse Now is at least on the same level as Heart of Darkness, arguably “better,” with an acknowledgment of how subjective such an assertion is…

  13. Ryan Call

      one flew over the cuckoos nest

  14. Chester

      The Godfather (no doubt)
      The Tin Drum (close, if not equal)

  15. Sean

      Thin Red Line was as good as the book? Damn. Guess I need to watch it.

  16. Al

      The Chocolate War

  17. Kyle MInor

      Wonder Boys, Adaptation, Inventing the Abbotts, Blow-Up, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Midnight Cowboy.

      All time champion of movie’s-better-than-the-book: Sideways.

  18. Mykle

      Kickass!

  19. Nick Antosca

      I liked it way better. It’s completely different, though.

  20. jereme

      there is no equal ratio. you can’t esteem chicken shit as chicken salad.

      are you talking about “entertainment value” or something?

      has any book been created out of a movie?

  21. ryder

      Last Temptation of Christ. I have yet to see Never Let Me Go but the book’s a-ight…

  22. cameron

      Jerome: novelizations.

      Bruno Schultz’s Street of Crocodiles is fucking beautiful, but so is the short film the Brothers Quay adapted from it. Holy Mountain, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Shining are probably better movies.

  23. Guest

      garden state

  24. Guest

      i was going to say fight club

      seems like the movie is more fight club-y than the book

  25. Thomas

      meh

  26. Sean

      Wonder Boys? I now see the logical weakness of my question. Equal to the book. Wonder Boys was forgettable to me, though I do remember Tobey playing Tobey, as usual, heavy dopey/dope eyelids, mumbly voice, whatever. Is acting when you play yourself everyday in every role after waking n baking?

  27. Sean

      Yeh, jereme, I should have asked: movie that did not fuck up the book.

      my bad

  28. Tony O'Neill

      i enjoyed the novelization of the 1988 remake of the blob starring donovan leach almost better than the movie itself.

      i also nominate ‘drugstore cowboy’ by james fogle in a slightly different category: really good novel which has been adapted to the movies, but nobody seems to have read it or is even aware it exists.

      further (sad) james fogle news

      http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/05/james_fogle_73-year-old_author.php

      free james fogle!

      also in this vein – wild at heart by barry gifford. in fact, i urge everyone who enjoyed the lynch movie to go out and read ‘the complete sailor and lula novels’ on 7 stories press which collects all the ‘wild at heart’ books together – it (to me) represents some of the best modern american writing out there, and why gifford isnt one of the most widely read novelist in america… well, i dunno.

  29. jereme

      okay this i can understand.

      i would say Fellowship of the Ring but the other two movies in the trilogy def fucked the book.

      I know Fellowship wasn’t absolutely true to the book, in terms of story, but the overall feeling was there.

  30. Guest

      bro

      have you seen fight club

      have you seen brad pitt’s abs

  31. Daniel Bailey

      jurassic park, the 13th warrior

  32. Mike Meginnis

      I would argue that the Lord of the Rings movies are way better than the books in many ways, but that would make me look uncool, right? Not a huge fan of either anymore, but there are places where Peter Jackson and Co. excavated some really impressive emotional material from a book that seems, as I grow older, increasingly autistic.

  33. Matt K

      Lord of the Rings trilogy (better movies than books)

  34. jereme

      are you fucking serious with the better part?

  35. Sean

      Fucking Daniel Bailey. I said books.

  36. jereme

      word to fogle.

  37. Pilgrim

      Where The Wild Things Are… I’ll get my coat.

  38. I. Fontana

      I preferred the novel by a wide margin.

  39. Tony O'Neill

      theres no way that trainspotting the movie and trainspotting the book are ties!

      i mean i liked the movie, but it was pretty shallow compared to the book. i always enjoy watching people shoot up on film, but in this case the book was a much more satisfying experience.. good soundtrack though

      (totally exited about the upcoming prequel, ‘skagboys’…)

  40. jereme

      kiss me deadly

  41. Tony O'Neill

      yeah thats some fucked up shit right there. i mean at his age, coupled with the fact that he FUCKING WROTE DRUGSTORE COWBOY, the only humane thing to do would be for the judge to say “james, go home. and here’s a lifetime prescription for heroin. now stop robbing drugstores and write a sequel, will ya?”

  42. Guest

      battlefield earth

  43. Mike Meginnis

      I was afraid to say it but you said it!

      :)

  44. Jarrid Deaton

      Psycho. High Fidelity.

  45. Matthew Simmons

      I think the Left Behind movies are much better than the books.

      Rosemary’s Baby.

  46. Joseph Riippi

      I second Wonder Boys. Was my knee-jerk reaction to this question.

  47. Joseph Riippi

      Misery.

  48. Roxane

      I absolutely agree that the LOTR movies are better.

  49. Sean

      Wild Things was a Paxil Pink Eggers Shit, but thanks for dropping by.

  50. Daniel Bailey

      tom and huck

  51. michael inscoe

      seems like ‘the virgin suicides’ was a good companion or something. ‘fight club’ seemed equal to me, i think. i tried to read ‘wonder boys,’ but never got past the first page. i watched the whole movie

  52. jereme

      in what capacity?

  53. ravi

      Barry Lyndon.

  54. jamison

      The movie Rules of Attraction does the same thing as the book, but in a different way.

  55. kate

      movern callar

  56. Jonny Ross

      Pitt’s line “Self-improvement is masturbation” followed by a cut to a shot of his glistening, shredded abs always threw me. The whole movie is full of such contradictions such that it’s hard to take anything other than “Beating the shit out of somebody and getting the shit beat out of you in return is, like, a total release, and stuff” from it.

  57. Amber

      Definitely agree with Roxane, Matt, and Mike. I reread the books after the movies came out and that was painful. Tolkein couldn’t write action, couldn’t do suspense, dialogue–he created a good overarching mythology and story, but man, the Battle of Helm’s Deep was like a page long in the book. And all the damn singing and reciting made me want to tear my face off.

  58. Jonny Ross

      Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in LV pretty much nailed the book, so much so that the two, the book and the film, become virtually indistinguishable (whatever that means).

      With American Psycho they managed to film an unfilmeable book by streamlining events (i.e., cutting out references to rats and urinal cakes) while staying true to the tone and playing up the humor. (The chainsaw was a good invention by the film.) The complete opposite can be said about Less Than Zero the film.

      Also, honorable mention goes to Requiem for a Dream. The film held to Selby’s bleak vision right to the end.

  59. Amber

      Dracula. (1931 version) Bram Stoker was an utter hack. Gone with the Wind. The Shining.

  60. David Duhr

      I second Wonder Boys. Chabon’s a sick writer, but this movie entertains me again and again.

  61. Mcmfs

      I differ, sir. The movie had interesting depictions of the characters, but totally diminished the nature of the struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, and the system she represents.

  62. alan

      good one

  63. Ryan Call

      certainly fair enough, mcmfs. i admit i havent read the book and watched the movie in a long long time. i just recall really liking both. simple criteria, i guess.

  64. Ryan Call

      what about kubricks full metal jacket and herrs dispatches? do those resemble each other enough or no?

  65. deadgod

      Yojimbo is a great movie, and somewhat changes its ‘source’ (by being wry and ultimately supportive of the village and sad about the Nameless Killer), but Red Harvest is unbeatable relentlessly-bleak pulp fiction, a peer of The Killer Inside Me.

  66. Levi Asher

      The Godfather, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Wizard of Oz …

  67. Guest

      yeah

      fight club seems kinda shitty, but the shittiness seems to reinforce what makes it “good,” or something

      it seems like it being shitty makes it a “better” movie, or something

  68. Mybutt

      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

  69. Tim

      Haven’t touched the book but I couldn’t hang through more than 15 minutes of the film.

  70. Nick Antosca

      Oh yeah, good call on Requiem.

  71. SP

      Vertigo
      Being There

  72. lorian

      has anyone said no country for old men? i second the thin red line, the exorcist, and requiem for a dream. pasolini’s salo might be better than the marquis’ 120 days of sodom but i haven’t finished the book. the piano teacher. damn.

  73. dm

      Love In The Time Of Cholera.

      Javier Bardem is a superb Ariza.

  74. Tony O'Neill

      Being There is a great one. I finally got around to reading the book recently, always thought the movie was great, and was really impressed by the original novel. Kinda glad they didnt include the sex scene in the movie though, dont know if I’m ready to see old Peter Sellers having sex with a guy on camera.

  75. rk

      orson welles’ The Trial is a very strong movie. i think it’s close to kafka.

  76. Tony O'Neill

      Being There is a great one. I finally got around to reading the book recently, always thought the movie was great, and was really impressed by the original novel. Kinda glad they didnt include the sex scene in the movie though, dont know if I’m ready to see old Peter Sellers having sex with a guy on camera.

  77. jesusangelgarcia

      You missed the point, Jonny. Fight Club is about self-destruction, self-inflicted, beating up yourself.

  78. GiovanniGF

      I can’t believe that despite several Kubrick mentions, no one’s mentioned Clockwork Orange. At least as good as the book.

      Also, Ken Russell’s The Devils, based on Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun (which was recently praised in this very site: http://htmlgiant.com/i-like-__-a-lot/a-book-i-loved-the-devils-of-loudun). I found the book a bit of a trudge, not so the movie.

  79. djmogo

      Adaptation was at least the equal of The Orchid Thief.

  80. Mark C

      i always liked the american psycho movie more. that might be because i watched it so many times as an adolescent, whereas i didn’t read the book until i was much older (and a little less shallow).

  81. Mark C

      ditto– although i loved the scene where she’s cutting up his body while “I’m Sticking With You” plays on the soundtrack.

  82. Tim Horvath

      Why? Why not the film as equal in caliber to the book–or, as you said, gasp, better?

      “Did not fuck up”–does not set the bar very high. Your original instinct was spot-on.

      I think “The Ice Storm” is this. “The Sweet Hereafter.” “Memento” (not a book but a story).

      Why chicken shit versus chicken salad? Why not kabobs, or korma, or free-range roasted? Not to say which is which in the analogy, just…each must succeed on own terms.

  83. m

      i disagree – i think the contradictions really emphasize the pt of view–the main character is the narrator and thus the contradictions reflect his admiration/repulsion. which is awesome.

  84. Pemulis

      Tin Drum….

      But only ’cause the movies THAT AWESOME.

  85. Matt

      The Shining.

  86. Matt

      Starship Troopers

  87. Guest

      nice

  88. Matt

      You, sir, are very funny.

  89. dm

      INTO THE WILD

  90. Marc

      MASH. Noteworthy in that the book, movie and TV show were all amazing, though the show was radically different from the others.

  91. Justin

      I would say the movie was even better than the book, but it was one of those things where I saw the movie first. Reading through the book, I was really surprised by how much better the dialogue was (in the movie) and how the book included certain scenes that probably would have frustrated me (for instance, key moments in the later coin toss scene).

  92. Justin

      I think there will be blood, 2001, and apocalypse now are all pretty loose adaptations–not sure I’d include the latter in something like this…