>>>>The UPS guy was just by to deliver a copy of "Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney, which I ordered on a whim this week to reread. ($2.68 used from Amazon -- can't beat it with a stick). The cover photo is of Michael J. Fox in the movie version, which was in my opinion dreck. It got me thinking it might be a fun, non-combative thread to list books that were better than the movies made from them, and the other way around.
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>>>>Two starters --
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>>>>"Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney -- book better
>>>>"The Godfather" by Mario Puzo -- movie better
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>>>I mentioned it to Dragan further down, but for me 2 movies that rivalled the books even though they were changed some due to being in a different medium were "One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest" and "Catch 22".
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>>"Cuckoo's Nest" is one of my very favorite movies. It has about a hundred classic scenes and was one of only three movies to sweep the five major Academy Awards. ("It Happened One Night" and "The Silence of the Lambs" are the others).
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>Cuckoo's nest had great acting. Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched was impossibly good. I could feel the vitriol flowing through my veins.

She was sensational. I don't think it led to much of a career for her, even though she has stayed active, but she really nailed that part. I loved the scene where Jack Nicholson was refusing to take his pill and she said well, there are other ways we could administer it.

My favorite scene was when McMurtry hijacks a boat and they sail out to sea. (The best therapy they have had in a long time). At some point they are interrogated and McMurtry says they are a group of professors. "Dr. Harding .... Dr. Martini ...." The inmates all give proper professional looks.

The best line was spoken by Chief: "Juicy Fruit." Milos Forman said the trickiest thing about the whole movie was finding a 7 foot tall Indian who could act. He had another great scene in the basketball game against the guards. And of course the famous scene near the end.

Eh, bummer. Will Sampson (Chief) died in 1987 at age 43.