Best Book Turned Into A Movie??


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User78055 is offline User78055 Post #1  April 5,2008, 3:27pm
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I absolutely love reading and am a voracious reader. As a result of that, I'm always looking for new books to read, new authors, new genres. I looked up a list of books made into movies and that made me think of the ones I think translated well, or were well done. Here's a few of the movies I think did the book justice:

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The Bourne movies, by Robery Ludlum

Lord of the Rings books, by Tolkein

Emma and Pride and Prejudict, by Jane Austen

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton

Harry Potter books, by J.K. Rowling

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

What are your choices?
 
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siren is offline siren Post #2  April 6,2008, 1:55pm
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User78055, wrote :

I absolutely love reading and am a voracious reader. As a result of that, I'm always looking for new books to read, new authors, new genres. I looked up a list of books made into movies and that made me think of the ones I think translated well, or were well done. Here's a few of the movies I think did the book justice:

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The Bourne movies, by Robery Ludlum

Lord of the Rings books, by Tolkein

Emma and Pride and Prejudict, by Jane Austen

Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton

Harry Potter books, by J.K. Rowling

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

What are your choices?
Hi, there are SO many versions of Emma and Pride and Prejudice, my fave Emma was the one with Kate Beckensdale and Samantha Morton, my fave P&P was the 6 hr BBC version with Colin Firth as Darcy. Read the Kite Runner, pretty raw, love to see the movie. I loved the recent adaptation of Tennesee Williams novella The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone with Helen Miren, but the original with Warren Beatty and Vivien Leigh is also very good. The back story is that Vivien's longterm marriage to a famous director had just broken up and she died abt 3 yrs after making the film at the age of abt 54 of TB. My favorite recent movie/book addaption is No Country for Old Men by Carson McCarthy, very powerful and of course there is the 80s BBC The Singing Detective about 6 hrs which was horribly distorted as an american remake staring Rbt Downey Jr. sounds like we are both movie/ lit buffs. Best wishes, Siren
 
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User78055 is offline User78055 Post #3  April 7,2008, 9:09am
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I loved Gwyneth's Emma, but it's probably not as close to the book. I'd love to see Ender's Game as a movie. That would be great.
 
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Tinderbox is offline Tinderbox Post #4  April 10,2008, 11:21pm
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Several come to mind:

My own favorite Jane Austen would be the 1995 version of Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds.

Watership Down (1978) about rabbits fleeing a prophetic doom torebuild a new home and society.With gorgeous watercolor animation and voices by John Hurt and Roy Kinnear. This one's pretty serious and not really kid's stuff.

David Lean's perfect 1946adaptationof Great Expectations starring John Mills and Alec Guiness. Novels and filmmaking don't get any better than this.

Merchant/Ivory's great film trilogy of the novelsof E.M. Forster: A Room With a View (1985), Maurice (1987), and their masterpiece, Howards End (1992).

Cross Creek (1983) starring Mary Steenburgen, based on the memoirs of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling.

Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983) based on Tom Wolfe's novel about test pilots, and the birth of NASA and the astronaut program.

If plays count, then I'd add Franco Zefferilli'sdefinitive film version of Romeo and Juliet (1968) with the luminous Olivia Hussey who in that movie is one of the most beautiful women ever put on film (though only a teenager at the time). And Roman Polanski's dark and bloody version of Macbeth (1971), made not long after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson family. And Akira Kurosawa's majestic Ran (1985), set in feudal Japan and based on King Lear. And how about Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), starring Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin, based on David Mamet's play of the same name about sleazy and desperatesalesmen.
 
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Emme is offline Emme Post #5  April 15,2008, 4:14pm

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I'm not wild about Gwyneth's Emma portrayal, but Jeremy Northam and Mr. Knightley? Made my M&Ms melt in my hand!!!! Smoking hot. I'm also a huge Toni Collette fan and loved her portrayal of Harriet Smith. And Alan Cummings is the quintessential Mr. Elton to me, the same way that the only Mr. Darcy for me is Colin Firth. Of course, Colin Firth is hot in just about everything.

As for books made into movies, I was thrilled with The Princess Bride. The Harry Potter films are almost exactly as I imagined them in my head as I was reading them. I loved The Kite Runner so much I refused to see the movie for fear it would spoil it. I am that way about many movies. The books become so precious I can't bear the thought of their being spoiled by some hollywood hotshot. Putting Tom Cruise in a movie based on a book I liked would immediately ruin the book for me forever.

I thought Gone with the Wind was a great movie, but the plot is quite different from the book so I'm not sure if it's a great adaptation or not. But highly entertaining and iconic acting.

I'm sure I'll think of others after I post this.
 
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User78055 is offline User78055 Post #6  April 21,2008, 7:05pm
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Nothing disappoints me more than reading a great book and then seeing it massacred on screen. Hurts my feelings and all.

I noticed that the Ethan Hawke/Gwyneth Paltrow version of Great Expectations didn't do so well. I was trying to figure out who "Fin" was in the beginning before I realized they'd changed his name from Pip to Fin.
 
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ThePriestess is offline ThePriestess Post #7  April 24,2008, 3:10am
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Tinderbox,81429 wrote :
Watership Down (1978) about rabbits fleeing a prophetic doom to rebuild a new home and society. With gorgeous watercolor animation and voices by John Hurt and Roy Kinnear. This one's pretty serious and not really kid's stuff.
If by "not really kids stuff" you mean, it'll give them nightmares for the remainder of their life ... then yeah, it's not really kids stuff =) Awesome, awesome, awesome film from what I refer to as the golden age of animation (The Hobbit and The Secret of Nimh also fall into this category). Possibly one of the most emotional animated features ever created.

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

I think this list could also do with the addition of A Walk To Remember ... while the film was adjusted for a different generation, the underlying theme and execution remained true to the original work by Nicholas Sparks. The selection of Mandy Moore for the role of Jamie was perfect.
 
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User78055 is offline User78055 Post #8  April 24,2008, 5:49pm
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Yes, how true! Add The Notebook to that as well. Perfect casting, and I cried when i saw the movie.
 
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pelican_traveler is offline pelican_traveler Post #9  April 24,2008, 9:59pm
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I would also have to agree with the Nicholas Sparks choices, A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. (At which point, I am very excited about the two new movies coming out, Nights in Rodanthe and Dear John.)

I would also add to this list the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke. Yes, the screen writers took a lot of freedom for the films, and condensed the series down to 6 from 8, but I personally love both the book series and the film series, each for their own qualities. (The Hallmark Channel is having their movie marathon of the seriestomorrow!!)
 
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ThePriestess is offline ThePriestess Post #10  April 24,2008, 11:48pm
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pelican_traveler,89349 wrote :

... I am very excited about the two new movies coming out, Nights in Rodanthe ...
Hey, no fair! I had just (literally, was like the last hour or so) found out about Nights in Rodanthe and was headed here to mention it :P

I also forgot to mention there is a film called Becoming Jane ... starring Anne Hathaway ... that details events in Jane Austen's life (I've no idea how fictional) that inspired her future works. Could be ok.
 
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