Friday Coffee Chat (17)–Better Than The Book

The Movie/TV Show is Better Than the Book!

Last week on Friday Coffee Chat we talked about whether or not we imagine everything we read right down to length of someone’s hair. I found out that I’m somewhat of an oddity because I am one of those people that imagines everything, but there are a few people that read the same way I do! It makes me feel like less of a freak! Jennifer at Girls Gone Reading talked about whether or not we require great lines in books to really love them. Make sure you check out Girls Gone Reading’s post this week on Friday Coffee Chat after you comment here.

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This morning, one of my friends posted an article from the Huffington Post on my Facebook page talking about movies that are better than their paper counterparts. Is this possible? Blasphemy you say? Surely there must be a movie or TV show that you saw that a) was better than the book, b) made you feel it was unnecessary to read the book, or c) was just as good as the book. I definitely have a few shows and movies that are amazing.

I’m just going to admit it right off the bat. I loved Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson. I could watch it OVER and OVER again. Could I read the book over and over?…hmmmm…No. I read it, and maybe someday I’ll read it again, but for now, I’m good snuggling up on the couch with my dogs and watching the movie. I think most Jane Austen fans would think that was blasphemous because the movie does combine some characters and inevitably left things out. Emma Thompson was also older than Eleanor Dashwood was supposed to be. I don’t care. I love her. She’s my favorite actress and I could watch that movie forever!

Field of Dreams is another movie that I don’t know if it’s better than the book, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, but it comes pretty close. I mean, that scene with Annie when she is protesting at the school board meeting to ban books is perfect. “You want to step outside you Nazi cow?!!!” Now tell me there is a better line than that?! Atonement is another movie that I thought was just as good as the book. The film was beautiful and stayed very faithful to the story. Even the casting was perfect for the film.

In television, Band of Brothers is probably one of my all-time favorites. I actually do like it better than the book because I think it captured the essence of brotherhood better. The book was fantastic as well, but the mini-series I watch several times a year. I watch it so often that I know some of the lines in each of the episodes and I even know most of the more minor characters (who aren’t really ‘characters’ since they were real people).

The other show that I haven’t read the book for, but it’s on my short list of non-fiction that I MUST read is The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon and Edward Burns which HBO’s The Wire is loosely based on. The Wire is simply the best television series I have ever seen in my life. The book itself actually had a mini-series that was produced before The Wire, and I need to see that as well. It’s an amazing show.

…And my last TV show, is True Blood. The show is SO much better than the books (of which I have only read four). The books are ok, but the show is just amazingly written. The characters are better, the situations are better…but Bill is still as boring as ever and Sookie is still just as life-sucking as ever. It’s the supporting cast and writing in that show that makes it worth watching and the dialogue is so good! I love it.

So the questions for this week are:

• What movies or TV shows do you think are BETTER than the book and tell us all why you think that.
• Are there any movies or TV shows you think are comparable to the book and you enjoy them equally?
• What TV shows or movies have you seen that make you want to read the book?