Reading Is Bad For You

OK, not really.

However, this blog post will be focused on my own checkered and brief history with the generally bad idea of reading the book before seeing the movie. We all know how that typically turns out. Not well.

The truth is, I believe that because I’m such a movie lover, I tend to read books visually. I’m already casting whatever actors I think fit the characters in my head. So when the book is made into a movie, unless it adheres to own visual imaginings while I was reading the book, I’ll probably be disappointed.

Entertainment Weekly recently released this list: 26 Disappointing Movie Adaptations

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20483133_20577348,00.html

I don’t think I’ve read one of the books listed here with the exception of the Dr. Seuss entries. As for the films, I am actually a big fan of Clint Eastwood’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. If I’d read the book? Who knows?

It’s amazing to think of the list of famous movie series and great films that are based on books:

The Godfather. Psycho. The Harry Potter series. James Bond. Jaws. Jurassic Park. The Shawshank Redemption. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Twilight series. The Lord of the Rings series. The Wizard of Oz. The Hunger Games. The Exorcist. Carrie. The Shining. Gone with the Wind. A Clockwork Orange. Blade Runner. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Hunt for Red October. Die Hard. The Jason Bourne series. The Silence of the Lambs. No Country for Old Men. Planet of the Apes. Forrest Gump. Carlito’s Way. GoodFellas. All the President’s Men. Get Shorty. American Psycho. Fight Club. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. First Blood. Mystic River. Interview with the Vampire. 

Pretty good list, eh?

Often, when authors hit their peak, we see the floodgates open with adaptations of their work. Two examples:

from 1982-1987 – there were ELEVEN films based on Stephen King works: Creepshow, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Christine, Children of the Corn, Firestarter, Cat’s Eye, Silver Bullet, Maximum Overdrive, Stand by Me, The Running Man.

from 1993-1998 – seven John Grisham adaptations (pretty much covering his entire works  up to that point): The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Gingerbread Man.

The Firm and Michael Crichton’s novel Rising Sun were both made into films in the summer of 1993. I happened to read both of them. While I thought The Firm was a decent movie and still do, I was somewhat disappointed due to some of its deviations from the novel. I recall being profoundly more disappointed in Rising Sun, which starred Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes as police officers who latest investigation leads them to underground Asian crime syndicates. It was not until years later that I began to appreciate the movie more. Why? Simple – I was comparing it to the book.

From that point on, I’ve been very reluctant to read a book that I know will be made into a movie. As I explained in my very first blog post (way back in the early to mid-part of October 2012), I like to walk into a movie fresh nowadays. The most recent example for me of having read the book is Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, which Martin Scorsese adapted and Leonardo DiCaprio starred in.

Strangely enough, when I read the book, I knew DiCaprio was playing the lead so I pictured him the whole time. I also tried to imagine what a brilliant filmmaker like Scorsese would do with the material I was reading.

And, for the most part, I was not disappointed in the movie at all. In fact, I think Shutter Island is a lot of fun because it’s Scorsese doing a Hitchcock movie (similar to what he did in 1991’s Cape Fear).

In closing, I guess I’m too much of a movie lover to allow the book to water down my viewing experience. I read quite a big of non-fiction still (lots of political stuff), but try to steer clear of popular books that will inevitably get the big-screen treatment.

For anyone reading this, I’m curious: ever read a book, saw the movie, and felt the film was better? What’s the most disappointing novel-to-screen adaptation you’ve seen? What’s the best? Ever thought the casting of a role was completely the opposite of your book reading experience? Ever saw a movie and then decided to read the book it’s based on? Fire away.