Got book after seeing movie: The River (the movie by Jean Renoir is far more impressive than the novel by Rumer Godden) A Clockwork Orange - both the movie and the book rule. How often do you get a one-two winner like this? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - my only reaction to the movie is, frankly, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Like Water For Chocolate - both the movie and the book are excellent. I’m currently reading Laura Esquivel’s latest book Malinche and I like it even better. Planet of the Apes
2001: A Space Odyssey - I don’t usually go for novelizations, but this one is (mostly) by Arthur C. Clarke, although Clarke didn’t want his screenplay novelized, so a bit dodgy all the same. Bound for Glory The Tin Drum - the movie is politically aware but shows only a small fraction of what-all’s in the book House of the Spirits
Read book before seeing movie: The Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Handmaid’s Tale – book is better than movie The Mists of Avalon – the book is incomparably better than the miniseries The Godfather
Last of the Mohicans
Frankenstein
Dune
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Siddhartha – the book by Hermann Hesse is excellent, the movie by Conrad Rooks is a failure, but a fascinating one.
I wondered about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? after seeing Blade Runner, but I didn’t buy it until I recently saw A Scanner Darkly and decided if that many movies have been based off one man’s work, I ought to at least check it out. Fully expected to love the book, but oddly enough, I didn’t. Liked the style, but the story I thought was dismal and boring. For once I prefer the movie to the book.
I bought A Clockwork Orange after seeing the movie, though, and that book was wickedly good. Can’t say either is better, though; they’re both delightful in their different ways.
Actually, after watching Johnny Mnemonic, I’ve made multiple tries to read “Necromancer”. So far, haven’t made a lot of headway. Not that it’s bad or anything, it just hasn’t grabbed my attention yet like I prefer stories to.
Also, after watching “Soldier”, which takes place in the same universe as Blade Runner, I might have to go watch the older movie and check out the book.
I read a lot, particularly SF, so a lot of the stories that are being mined now are things I’d read years ago.
The Beach: I wanted to read it because almost unanimously people said that it was better than the movie. They were right. The first half of the movie was good, I liked the backstreets adventures in Bangkok, but then it started to suck.
The English Patient: The movie was okay. I thought it suffered for the huge amount of hype I heard before finally seeing it on video. The book had some nicely lyrical sections.
Legends of the Fall: The movie was actually better. The focus of the story was too remote to really get engaged in the characters.
The Princess Bride: Both the movie and the book rock. I particularly liked the descriptions of the interludes that were “edited out” by Goldin as I’ve had to slog through real literature that actually has stuff like 5-6 paragraphs of description of the lace on Madame’s dress.
Ones I haven’t done yet are A Clockwork Orange and Fight Club. I read parts of them but for whatever reason wasn’t in the mood to continue. I have to get ahold of my copies of those when I’m in the States next time.
In The Name of the Father, a film starring Daniel Day-Lewis, was based on Gerry Conlon’s autobiography, Proved Innocent. I saw the movie accidentally; IIRC, my mom and I had gone to see something else, but we had screwed up the times. Neither of us had seen any trailers, but the poster in the theater looked interesting.
Anyway, it was a great movie. I went out and bought the book a few weeks later, which had been renamed to match the title of the movie, and had Daniel Day-Lewis’ face plastered on the cover (kind of bizarre for the cover of another man’s autobiographical work). The book was also excellent. I highly recommend either one.
I picked up Road to Perdition after seeing the movie, on the insistance of my boyfriend that it was really a good graphic novel. I was a little skeptical about there being such a thing, after too many hours of selling obnoxious manga to obnoxious 12 year olds, but I really enjoyed. I can’t say the same thing for V fro Vendetta, though. The movie was much better, although I respect it as being groundbreaking, if not all that good.
I picked up The Princess Bride after seeing the movie a hundred times, but couldn’t ever seem to get into it, as I practically know the movie by heart.
I really enjoyed A Time to Kill the movie so I bought the book. I like it a lot, even if it was even darker than the movie.
I’m sure there are others, but I can’t think of them right now.
Looking over my bookshelves, here’s a list of the books that I’m sure I saw the movie before I read the book. For most, I thought the book was better than the movie but for a few* I liked the movie better. There’s probably a bunch of other books that I read after seeing the movie, but I can’t remember them because I only borrowed them from the library or I no longer have the book.
The Green Mile
Sideways
The Beach*
V for Vendetta*
Jurassic Park
Chocolat*
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Princess Bride
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Hunt for Red October*
Pride and Prejudice
