The movie was better

You know how every time there's a new movie out and you really like it, some hipster wannabe has be all "The book was so much better." Usually they roll their eyes a little and maybe even snort a bit at the fact that you liked the common, mainstream, film adaptation of their beloved novel.

**By the way, if you happen to not have clicked through all the Disney hipsters... go check them out**

And most of the time, I have to agree. A seven hundred page novel just cannot be done justice by a two and a half hour film. Every once in awhile, though, a book is adapted into a film and becomes so much more than it ever could have been on its own. Small, poorly written, confusing books get cleaned up and updated and ready for public viewing.

So, here's my list of the Top Five Movies That Were Better Than The Books They Were Based On. 

1. Legends of the Fall based on Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison.
I love this movie. I *may* have watched this back-to-back on Bravo. Ahem.  It's beautiful, heart-wrenching, tragic and amazing. Beautifully shot, amazing performances from some of the greatest actors of their generations, possibly of all time. Seriously? Julia Ormond, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn. Amazing.

 
The book is rambling, but still somehow ridiculously short. The author will begin telling you about what Tristan is doing and by the end of the paragraph, he's talking about salmon and seems to have forgotten his train of thought entirely. Poor grammar, run on sentences, flat characters, just terrible. Such a shame.


2. The Bourne Identity based on The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlam
The Bourne movies are some of my favorites. They reinvented the spy genre and made James Bond look like a distracted has-been, dependent on his gadgets. 007 needs Batman-style gadgetry to hurt somebody, Jason Bourne needs his two hands and a ballpoint pen. Action packed, awesome car chases, political intrigue, cover ups and conspiracies. Amazing.

The book... well, I think the book just fell victim to the passage of time. It feels dated, and not in a timeless, period-piece sort of way. Outdated technology, the burgeoning global economy, a post-feminism character that only a man could dream up, all add up to make the whole thing feel stale.


3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas based on How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
A children's book, that takes about ten minutes to read out loud cannot possibly provide enough storyline to create an entire two hour movie. While the book is, quite frankly, perfect, the movie does an excellent job expanding on the existing story to create something more. For the first time, we see a backstory on the Grinch. There's character development, there's an antagonist set up against our anti-hero and there are all these other rich characters that learn along with our cranky old Grinch.

And, really, Jim Carrey was born for this role.

4. The Prestige based on The Prestige by Christopher Priest
This was one of those rare times where I really thought the book was going to be equally as good as the movie. I liked the movie a lot, and as I read the book, I enjoyed it, too. There were differences, of course, but the differences seemed to be those that made sense when shifting mediums: storylines were condensed (it's easier to juggle complex storylines in a book, you can take more time balancing and explaining things), characters were emphasized or de-emphasized based on how easy they were to portray and convey to a film audience. I was going to like both the book and the movie equally.

And then the last chapter happened in the book, and I was totally, completely freaked out and couldn't sleep for days. No way. Nuh-unh.

::heebedubleebeduh::

Sorry. That was the "heebie-jeebies" dance. Nah, the book was too creepy. And plus, there was no Hugh Jackman to stare at. That fact alone ought to have warned me that the book was not worth the time investment.

5. The Wizard of Oz based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
This movie is brilliant. The music, Judy Garland before the crazies hit, ahead-of-their time costumes, makeup and effects, the most brilliant use of color at the time (have you watched this in Blu Ray? Amazing) all add up to make one amazing movie. This is one of those iconic classics that you can love all the way from your childhood up through your golden years and it is still as beautiful and fun as it was the first time you saw it.

Too bad the book totally blows. I know the book was written as a children's book, and as such it's written in a simple language. OK, I get that. I don't fault the simplicity and straightforward narrative, that's all well and good. My problem is that the story just gets too out of hand. For every major event that made it to the film, there's three in the book (or so it seems). With a book as short as this, those events and adventures are obviously truncated and, as such, feel entirely rushed and almost confusing.

I know that there are other Oz books, and I have been told that the others are better and you really ought to read them all to get the whole picture that the film was really based around. I don't know if this is true or not. I was so traumatized by the awfulness of this book, that I cannot bring myself to further tarnish my vision of this movie with any more of the books.

There you have it, the Top Five Movies That Were Better Than The Books They Were Based On. Pretty catchy title for a list, if you ask me.

This post was written in response to the Weekly Geeks prompt: Books and Movies.

Dr. Seuss

I cannot believe I almost missed Dr. Seuss' birthday. What kind of movie/book blogger would I be without paying tribute to the man who brought us How the Grinch Stole Christmas which in turn brought us the wonderful How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey and that girl who grew up to be a Gossip Girl skank.

And Horton Hears a Who, which brought us the super funny Horton Hears a Who, starring Jim Carrey, Carol Burnett and Steve Carrell.

Or The Cat in the Hat, which brought us the semi-amusing The Cat in the Hat, starring an overrated Mike Meyers, an underrated Alec Baldwin, a kid related to Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning.

And, lastly, with a film adaptation set for a spring release next year, The Lorax. Starring Danny Devito, Zac Efron, Betty White and Ed Helms, it sounds pretty dang good.

And the Oscar went to...

This weekend we have the pleasure of seeing all of Hollywood gathering in all their glory, ostensibly to pay homage to the best and brightest among them of the previous year.

Every year, as you probably know, one movie gets crowned king- The Best Picture. Sometimes, that movie is based on a book. Actually, more often than not it is. I was planning to write a feature about every movie that was based on a book and won the Best Picture statue, but then realized that would take 56 years to do. Instead, I'm going to give you some factoids.

82 films have won the Best Picture award since the ceremony started in 1929. 42 of those films were based on novels or biographies. More were based on plays (including Shakespeare), but that's not what this blog is about.

First time a movie based on a book won Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
Based on: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

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First time a movie based on a book swept the "big five" nominations: Cimarron, 1931
Based on: Cimarron by Edna Ferber

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Longest movie based on a book to win Best Picture: Gone with the Wind, 1940 with a theatrical run time of 238 minutes, though the actual film is only 224 minutes (minus the intermission, entr'acte and exit music). The film was based on Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

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Honorable mention: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, 2004, while only boasting a theatrical run time of 201 minutes, the extended DVD version contains an extra 50 minutes, making it the picture with the longest run time to win a Best Picture award (the theatrical release is the version used for Academy consideration, so the official record goes to Gone With the Wind).

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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King holds the winningest record at the Academy Awards, for any film, not just those based on novels: it was nominated for eleven awards, and won all eleven. Only seven others films have won everything they were nominated for when they were nominated for more than two awards (you have to admit, two for two is not nearly so impressive as eleven for eleven.) Return of the King also ties for the most awards, period, with Ben-Hur and Titanic. Though, neither of those were based on a book, so we're not going to talk about them here.

One more note for The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which, of course, is based on The Lord of the Rings books by JRR Tolkein): the three films combined had 30 nominations, with 17 wins. 

Three movies have swept the "big five" wins (not just nominations, but actual wins). Two of those movies were based on novels: The Silence of the Lambs, 1991, based on The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

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and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975, based on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. 

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The most recent film based on a novel to win Best Picture is Slumdog Millionaire, 2009, which was based on Q&A by Vikas Swarup. The novel was later re-released with the film title and a tie-in cover.

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This year, ten films are nominated for Best Picture. Two of them are based on a novel: True Grit based on True Grit by Charles Portis.

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and Winter's Bone based on Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell.

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