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Posted: Apr 24 2010 11:00 pm

What's your favorite movie based on a book?

Mine: Watchmen. Even though it was cheasy it was still pretty fucking awesome. I'm not going to say lord of the rings because it's so fucking obvious. So I will pick the next best. Fight club was also good.

Posted: Apr 24 2010 11:02 pm

The Graduate.

Posted: Apr 24 2010 11:04 pm

You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine. (No seriously, when starting a thread like this, its a good idea to state your own opinion before asking for others. Just sayin.')

I would have to say the LOtR trilogy for me, I guess. Its not a perfect adaptation, but I don't think I've ever seen a movie capture the spirit of a book so well.

Blade Runner would be another one...fantastic book, and incredible movie.

A personal favorite that's not a great piece of cinema (or literature) by any stretch, but that still has a place very close to my heart, is the '70s version of Logan's Run. As cheesy as it it, I really do love it.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 12:47 am

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Posted: Apr 25 2010 01:19 am

This is easy...The Notebook.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 04:01 am

Thank You For Smoking, and Up In The Air are both great adaptations by Jason Reitman. They both remove stuff from the books and add stuff that really works with the movies.

The Lord of The Rings trilogy. Sure a lot was left out but that is to be expected here. Each movie would be around six hours each if they included everything.

Also as SoldierHawk said Logan's Run. I watched this in a middle school class where we were studying population and population control. Ever since I've loved the movie and it was one of the first DVDs I bought when I got my first DVD player.

Jurassic Park is also pretty good even though the book is way better. I actually saw the movie first and then read the book. I ended up liking the book a lot more with it being more gruesome and darker than the movie. Still the movie was pretty damn good in its own right.

Title: Titlating Joined: Dec 17 2007 Posts: 5042

This is a tough question, some movies are good while straying away from the text while other movies might not be as good but adhere pretty close to the text. I think it's a tie between holes and high fidelity.

Title: Sonic Boom! Joined: Apr 21 2010 Posts: 30

Stephen King's It.

Love the book, and the movie does it justice.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

High Fidelity, for sure.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 11:01 am

Optimist With Doubts wrote:

This is a tough question, some movies are good while straying away from the text while other movies might not be as good but adhere pretty close to the text. I think it's a tie between holes and high fidelity.

Very well put. Thank You For Smoking and Up In The Are are two of my most favorite movies and they both stray quite a bit or add stuff not in the original novel. The whole
"backpack" thing in Up In The Air was added by the writer/director and it adds to the film in a huge way to the character of Ryan Bingham.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 12:56 pm

I concur on High Fidelity, which is one of my Top 5 movies of all times. Get it? It really is even though there are rather big differences between the book and movie.

And I agree with the original poster. I loved Watchmen. It's been my favorite graphic novel since I was a kid, and I had been looking forward to a movie version for about 15 years. It was great to see so many exact visuals from the comic on the screen. Even with the big change to the ending, I loved it. Then again, I always thought Alan Moore's ending was weak sauce (I like the book more for the journey then the end) and I now prefer the movie's ending after fully absorbing it. They both have mega holes in them, but what the hell.

With LOTR, I have to admit there are huge sections that are brutal for me to read. Tolkien used LOTR partly as a study of language, and his tediousness gets boring to me after a while. I'm not saying I dislike the books, they have some great moments, but overall they're tough. The movies, on the other hand, I really enjoy. That's one of the rare times I prefer the movies to the book. Blasphemy, I know.

Joined: Mar 18 2010 Location: Tuonela Posts: 299

The Shining. About thousand times better than the book. King didn't even like the movie.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 01:43 pm

fight club

no love for wizard of oz? although its not a favorite movie of mine, its still a great movie based off a book.

fear & loathing in las vegas

malcolm x, although i appreciated the autobiography better in book format.

kick ass, even though it just recently came out

Posted: Apr 25 2010 03:17 pm

I'm a language junkie I guess, which must be why LOtR didn't feel nearly as...tough, for me as it did for others? Even when it was boring, I was still never really bored, if that makes sense. (One thing I could never do it read it while I was tired; that's a book you gotta be fully awake to appreciate.)

I never thought of Wizard of Oz. That would be a good choice, except that the tone and feel of the book and movie are so radically different, its more like the movie was "inspired by" than a real adaptation.

Still, both are awesome and classic in their own right.

Title: Titlating Joined: Dec 17 2007 Posts: 5042

I was demolished when I wrote that last night, so I am pretty proud of that.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

Bar none, Forrest Gump

I hate the book so much, but the movie is really good.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 08:21 pm

Guile wrote:

Stephen King's It.

Love the book, and the movie does it justice.

God damn I cannot watch that movie. It's not that scary but I thought it was when I was five. So I vowed never to go back to it.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 08:39 pm

Oooh, super-props for it. Aside from the ending, the movie is awesome. Its not nearly as epic as the book, but I really don't think it could hope to be. "IT" the book was something very, very special, and the movie did the best it could at capturing that.

FUN FACT: Tim Curry was obsessively worried about 'not being scary enough.' (Although in fairness, it must be hard to feel scary in a giant clown costume.) Kind of ironic given all the nightmares that performance has engendered, no?

Now if only they had found some way to keep him in for the climax of the movie, and not replaced him with a retarded claymation spider...

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

The book "It" is just weird, granted I liked it, there's so many articulate plot points that it would be impossible to accurately portray it on screen.

That shower scene in the movie though, creeped me out for some time.

If they were to ever remake this movie, it would need to be done in 2 parts honestly.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 10:22 pm

^ It would truly need to be done as a miniseries. And of course the whole "kids having sex with each other" things would never, EVER fly in any sort of movie.

My biggest problem with a remake is that I don't think anyone could ever capture Pennywise the way Tim Curry did. You could do a million different things with the movie that would work, but you would never be able to top Tim.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

That's what they said for Jack Nicholsen as the Joker, but Ledger was able to accomplish it.

Granted, I don't really want them remaking It, but I think they could do it with or without Curry, but I agree he was awesome.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 10:53 pm

Loved the book 'It', never saw the movie. I heard it was cheesey and shitty. Is that wrong and should I seek this out for a viewing? Or should I just pass?

Maybe I'll just read the damn book again.

Joined: Oct 01 2009 Posts: 5316

It's pretty fucked up for a 1990 TV mini series, with child murder and all that. I say it's pretty good for what it's worth, it scared the shit out of me when it first came out. I was always troubled by the notion that the fat kid actor ended up starring in McDonalds' commercials so I would constantly be reminded of that movie every time I saw him on there.

Posted: Apr 25 2010 11:37 pm

Nah, I say that but of course its possible to make anything work as long as...it works, you know? (However, never forget Hawk's Curry axiom: "Tim Curry is fucking awesome, and always elevates everything he has ever even glanced in the direction of. Anyone who disagrees will be Crabbed Oh wow! You're Morgan Freeman!

")

Klimb, absolutely re-read it. You won't regret it.

Posted: Apr 26 2010 09:04 am

SoldierHawk wrote:

^ It would truly need to be done as a miniseries. And of course the whole "kids having sex with each other" things would never, EVER fly in any sort of movie.

My biggest problem with a remake is that I don't think anyone could ever capture Pennywise the way Tim Curry did. You could do a million different things with the movie that would work, but you would never be able to top Tim.

[quote="Wikipedia"]On 12 March 2009, Warner Bros. announced that the production of a new adaptation of Stephen King's novel had started. Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison are set to produce.

Adding another film, which I don't think anyone would have thought of (or possibly cared for) is Howl's Moving Castle by Hiyao Miyazaki (based on the book by Diana Wynne Jones).