IS THE MOVIE BETTER THAN THE BOOK?

At lunch recently with a group of friends, our friend David said that he never knew of any movie as good as the book on which it was based.  I said, "The Bridges Of Madison County is a great movie and the book is very poor."  He replied that To Kill A Mockingbird was ALMOST as good as the book.  Several other books versus movies were discussed, including Gone With The Wind and The Shawshank Redemption.   I think the best example must be The Godfather.

The topic turned to favorite actors and when someone mentioned Kevin Costner, I told about my ongoing debate with my brother about Kevin Costner's acting ability.  Read my article from 2010 titled

                                                     HEART OF STONE



My brother and I have an ongoing "Kevin Costner Debate". I always rent his movies, but I invariably say, "I don't care for Kevin Costner; I think he's a very wooden actor." I usually quote Dorothy Parker's review of Katharine Hepburn "She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." to describe Costner's acting ability, and then Les will counter with, "But you liked Dances With Wolves, didn't you?" to which I mumble, "Well, yeah." Then he'll say, "You liked Bull Durham--right?" To which I answer, "I saw that because of Susan Sarandon." Next he will bring up The Big Chill and No Way Out, both of which I enjoyed.

I rented Field Of Dreams because of the "Salingeresque" character played by James Earl Jones. Les watched it first and then Mother, Gerald and I watched it together. In the scene where Kevin Costner realizes that Ray Liotta is his father, Gerald and I both had tears in our eyes. Mother looked at us and said, "I can't believe the two of you BAWLING at a movie!" Gerald said, "Gladys, you must not have had any father issues!" She just tsk-tsked and shook her head.

After we finished the movie, Les came downstairs for our usual movie discussion and he asked Mother how she had enjoyed it and she said, "It was OK but the two of them were bawling like babies!" Les said, "Mom, you'd have to have a heart of stone NOT to cry at Field Of Dreams!"