Worst Film adaptation of a Book? Best?

Worst: Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (Runner-Up on tv: The Stand. Not nearly as hard-core as it should have been.)

Best: Tie -- Fight Club/Crash

Bram Stoker's "Dracula" with Keanu "Dude" Reeves. Best, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".

I like Where the Buffalo Roam much better.

"Where the Buffalo Roam" was an ok adaptation. I like Bill Murray a lot (for example, I think he was the only redeeming thing about Lost in Translation, well him and the soundtrack, especially the Squarepusher song), but I didn't feel he was anywhere near manic enough.

"Fear and Loathing" on the other hand, had a wonderful Johhny Depp, who was getting lines fed to him through an earpiece by Hunter S. Thompson himself. "Fear and Loathing" did a much better job at catching the paranoia and creepiness of being all fucked up on drugs in a bizzarre setting like Vegas.

n/t

Worst: Hannibal

Don't see many like that one.

:wtf:



Best: A Time to Kill

The Stand is one of the best TV mini-series ever made!

Really?

He seemed to be cast about as well as, oh, if someone cast * to be leader of the free world. LOL.

I also thought it was not nearly as gritty as it should have been, given the book's heavy subject matter.

There are lots of em in the movie. Rob Lowe as Nick Adross was great!

The Stand was a terrible adaptation. The only roles I liked were Gary Sinese and the guy from Coach (Luther :)) wan't HORRID, but he wasn't GREAT.

M-O-O-N, that spells useless post.

Worst: Brian de Palma's 'Bonfire of the Vanities'.

.

I liked the Shining.

How the heck did that one turn out so bad -- John Hurt, Richard fucking Burton, and George Orwell -- and yet it was a pathetic dog (apologies to that noble animal, the canine).

that you mean good books.

I was tempted to say Lord of the Rings, either the animated or the live one, but although I was disappointed in LOTR, worst is too strong.

And I liked Kubrick's "Shining" a lot. It was the only King film that was decent, I thought. Except "Stand By Me," but that was based on a short story, not a book. Maybe the best film based on a short story.

Worst: I was going to say 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil' but the book wasn't that good....imho.

David Lean's Dr Zhivago.

I get goosebumps just typing that....

I finally got around to reading the book, and was astonished that I thought it was no greater than the film, or to be frank, not as magnificent, in my humble opinion. (I have read only the English translation, not the original Russki)

There was a "Masterpiece Theatre" remake some months ago, which one would think would be great, but it was a puny farce compared to Lean's magnificent achievement.

Other examples of great adaptations -- such as Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, and even the recent LOTR, and of course Lean's Lawrence of Arabia is another masterpiece.

I guess I am in too good of a mood tonight (it is my birthday and I am drunk on wine) to think of bad films. I'm sure I'll think of some in the morning.

Worst - The first Punisher movie, but I'm sure I'll think of something much much worse

Both of them. But then, anyone who tries to do that book deserves their head handed to them on a platter.

i thought it was terrific! did you know they tried to gull cary grant into playing humbert humbert? i wonder why he had to decline . . . :shrug:

AND PETER SELLERS????

are you crazy, man?????

It will forever be impossible to capture the spirit of that book on film. There is too much Humbertian introspection that is lost.

Communion by Whitley Strieber. Tried to make it into something it wasn't. I don't know quite what.

Best -- Field of Dreams.

If you are a fan of the book from before the film was made, there's a character who dies who F&&&&&&&&&ING shouldn't. You all know who I mean.

The Stand? I think it was ruined for me in several sequences (The Tunnel Scene) and mis-casting. If we can do LotR's in three films, I want to see a two movie Stand.

The start of the Stand mini was PERFECT, though. The editors knew exactly when to turn on the BOC.

The first few minutes were so chilling that I thought I was in for a real treat with The Stand.

Then I got Corin Nemec as Harold, and Satan had a mullet. :wtf:

of the "The Stand" The highway, crows, and BOC combination is haunting and memorable (burned into my brain)

Before seeing the movie Dune I read the (first) book and thought to myself "What would I do?" First: Cut out half the characters, to give the rest room to breath, and the audience a chance to get to know them.

Second, give it scope. Film Pauls homeworld in the vertical, to accentuate all the rainfall, cliffs dropping into the sea, thunderous clouds above crashing waves, etc... The Harkonen scenes should be combinations of Roman decadence meeting post industrial wasteland. And Arakkis should have the wide open panorama of "Lawrence of Arabia."

Finally, get actors who can act, for gods sake.

Then, when seeing the movie, I see characters parading past almost as though they were living embodiments of closing credits. Desert scenery that could ahve been shot in a litter box. A cartoon villian. And performances that could are out-emoded by characters from South Park on a weekly basis.

So I had great trepidations when I went to see the movie made of another favorite authors work. And they were as perfect as I could every hope someone elses vision of the LOTR could be.

THANK YOU, Paul Jackson. Ya done good.

"The Hunt for Red October."

FANTASTIC job of adapting a book to the screen. Got just about every important element, and even got across some of Clancy's hardware detail orientedness.

I'm "this" close to replacing LOTR with "October." Hmmm...

Best: The Godfather (a silk purse out of a sow's ear)

It strayed too much from the book. It's not the worst, though. :shrug:

Queen of the Damned was the second worst movie I've ever seen. Although Alaiyah's manner of walking was very comical.

They totally destroyed the novel! It was a good movie, but they saw fit to change the plot by 50%. IMO that's a LOUSY adaptation.

the bad acting and bad Boston accents made it more painful.

with Marlon Brando. IMO possibly the worst movie ever.

The Best: What's Eating Gilbert Grape. One of the few adaptations that really works, but doesn't slavishly follow the book. Great book too BTW.

worst - The Handmaidens Tale -- thought the book was really important and the movie did not bring the intensity it should have

a comedy?

This is light S&M porn by Anne Rice folks...

The movie wasn't terrible, it was actually quite cute and if I hadn't read the book I would have been satisfied.

On the other hand..... the movie was such a shallow and insipid relfection of the book from which it's losely based, I couldn't stand to watch it.

I love Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey IS NOT QUOYLE. The single worst job of casting I've ever seen. Quoyle was supposed to be almost physically repulsive. Jason Alexander-ish. The whole point of the book was the watching someone with so few redeeming characteristics become a complete person.

The best... The Godfather. Don't need to say much here.

Worst - Lord of the Rings. Bad book but even worse film

Best - Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets (sad I know but I did enjoy both)

Worst? Virtually anything else. Adaptions tend to not work, because film and print are completely different media. What works in one usually won't work in the other.

What made Fight Club stand out was the way Fincher (sp?) directed it, and the screenplay. They varied enough from the book to make it worth being a film.

For example: In the book, Tyler and the narrator meet on a nude beach. Eh. It worked, but only because of some philosophy that was thrown in, very wordy. In the film, they meet on an airplane. And that opens up all kinds of neat lines and scenes, and helps the film flow much better and faster, as a film should.

Also, a very fun game can be had with the Fight Club DVD, spotting all the Tyler appearances before we actually meet him. Can't do that with a book.

Did you know that 2001 was based on a short story? After the movie came out, so many people were so confused about it, Clarke wrote the novel to help explain it.

Spiker and Sponge were right on, but the movie tanked after the first 15 minutes. Where were the Cloud People? What's with that giant, metal shark?!? Pirate skeletons?

Best: The Green Mile.

It was stsill a really fun movie, but it TOTALLY ignored and destroyed the entire point that Heinlein made with the book in favor of campy silliness.

I was totally, utterly devestated by the movie in that regard. But I still like to watch it because even though it destroyed the book, it:s a fun movie.

Best: "Carrie"

great scifi movie, terrible adaptation of Welles book.

Best: The Long Hot Summer based on Faulkner stories The Hamlet and Barn Burner

Two of my very favorite books of all time, and they destroyed them both.

Memory of Eva Ryker-- the main character is old enough to be the narrator's mother, and the movie had them falling in love. Plus, they moved the shipwreck from the Titanic to some ship that supposedly got torpedoed during WW2. Sheer stupidity all around. One of Natalie Wood's movie missteps.

The Boyfriend School became "Don't Tell Her It's Me" with Steve Guttenberg (need I say more?). For some incredibly stupid reason, they moved the locale from Austin to Charleston, SC (WTF?). And I hate Jami Gertz. The only thing that saved it was Shelley Long, because she captured Lizzie.

Travesties.

Actually, I liked Kubrick's Shining the best of all of them, because it varied so much from the book. But the closer one stays to the book, the worse it gets. (e.g.: The Stand, The (more recent TV version of the) Shining)

Oddly enough, I love the books.

Best? I'll go along with Laz's nomination of Fight Club, though I haven't read the book myself.

Worst: Minority Report (ugh...)

Not exactly worst and best, but films that (1) ruin a great novel and (2) elevate a poor novel while aiming for the same thing essentially: satire of contemporary war and politics.

Breakfast of Champions

I thought it was a pretty good treatment of the book.

I think King tried his hand at directing this one.

King definitely deserves special mention here.

Every "faithful" film adaptation of King's supernatural novels & stories has been a disaster. Celluloid just can't compete with the imagery your mind conjures up while reading a King novel.

Kubrick's Shining was good, but disappointing to fans of the novel.

The adaptations of his psychological & character-based novels & stories have been very good (I include Carrie in this category, because it's largely about her relationship to her mother & classmates).

Tell me Raymond, have you ever killed anyone?
No, ma'am.
Not even in combat?
In combat? Yes, ma'am, I think so.
Of course you have, Raymond. Raymond has been a crack shot since childhood - A marvelous outlet for his aggressions.