I just got through reading Fay Weldon’s 1983 feminist “classic”, The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil, and it got me to thinking about revenge pictures. But then I started thinking about how the Meryl Streep/Roseanne Barr movie had little to do with it, and while basically forgettable, was almost certainly a better time than the nihilistic power-fantasy of the book. Like, I don’t remember the movie much, and if I were casting it from the descriptions in the book I’d be casting Jessica Lange or Jane Seymour across from Geena Davis (in 1988), or Kristin Bell and Gwendoline Christie today, but I do remember being pleasantly surprised by Streep’s comedy chops (normally I can’t stand her) and Barr’s sympathetic portrayal.

The book is not funny; it’s not fun. The number one word used to describe it is “wicked” and I tend to agree that that fits, if we emphasize more the medieval qualities of the word and less the modern campiness. In short, the book wasn’t better.

Which is a topic someone had brought up on Twitter recently: The book is always better, right? No, not even close. Insofar as you’re comparing apples and oranges, you can certainly measure the impact of a movie versus a book, and perhaps more importantly your own experience of the two. One need not look farther than Alfred Hitchcock to see an entire catalog of movies that were better than the books.

For example, just prior to She Devil I had read Psycho, which is fine, solid book that the movie hews surprisingly close to—and which is a footnote in horror history compared to the movie. I mean, I could read it again easily—it’s a brisk 150 pages—but I almost can’t believe I won’t see the movie several more times in my life. Alongside The Exorcist, it typically ranks as the greatest horror movie of all time. It isn’t something I necessarily agree with, personally, but if we’re measuring impact, Psycho is the grandfather of every slasher movie for the past 60 years. And speaking of The Exorcist, is the book better? Maybe. But it also has nowhere near the impact of the movie, which is the grandfather of every possession move of the past 45 years.

Sometimes a movie follows the book very closely and comes out better, for whatever reason. I enjoyed Silence of the Lambs as a book, but was surprised at how little it added to the movie. I had heard that it goes more into the motivations and psychology of the two serial killers, but when reading it, I didn’t really get the sense I knew them any better. (By contrast, the book Psycho plays a lot more with Norman Bates’ psychology as part of justifying its unforunately-forever-spoiled-shock-ending.) Lambs is one of the great movies, but is Thomas Harris’ book going to join the canon of great books? Some classic noir exmaples: Double Indemnity practically reads like a screenplay for the Billy Wilder movie but I’d rather watch the movie. Laura minus a few twitchy details is fine but nowhere near the classic the film is.

Sometimes a movie follows the book and improves on it by leaving out things that wouldn’t work in filming, but also are awful. The Godfather famously contains chapters devoted to one of the girl’s search for a penis that can fill her cavernous vagina. Jaws wisely leaves out the soap opera sexual dalliances and focuses on The Shark. Never Cry Wolf makes its main character likable—a tactic used by Jurassic Park, I’m told, and by many movie producers smart enough to realize hating someone for two hours doesn’t usually make for big box office.

Sometimes a book switches up quite a few things but manages to convey both the essence of the novel and qualities of the director to make something epic. Wizard of Oz has many of the qualities of the first book, in terms of tone and setting, though it diverges in a lot of major ways. (The Oz series is also wildly inconsistent from book to book.) Hayao Miyazaki manages to really capture the flavor of Howl’s Moving Castle while ultimately giving us something pure Miyazaki. I have to re-watch Hitchcock’s The Vanishing Lady—the movie that brought him to the attention of Hollywood—to decide if it falls into that category, because the novel is one of the greatest thrillers I have ever read. The many, many versions of the novel Dracula tend to fall into this category, which could be a topic unto itself. Ready Player One is probably best left unmentioned.

And then sometimes a movie is so superficially connected to the book, it’s just a different thing. A classic example of this would be Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining which borrows everything from the Stephen King book except plot, atmosphere and characterizations. It’s also up there alongside of Psycho and The Exorcist on greatest-of-all-time lists. It is said that Philip Dick wept when he saw Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner because it was so exactly what he envisioned, but the script wasn’t even originally based on the novel, it shares none of the plot points, and the central thesis of the book, if actually applied to the movie, renders the movie a muddle. Still, it’s one of the greatest and most influential sci-fi films of the ’80s—though possibly just due to set design.

The Howling is a fairly typical ’70s horror paperback turned into a fun and campy practical effects spectacle, and there are many, many cases of so-so books being turned into so-so movies where the only connection between the two is mediocrity. What is perhaps most interesting is that following the book faithfully or abandoning it completely has no apparent bearing on the final quality, except to disappointed fans of the book.

What films do you love that exceed the book in some ways?

As we’ve been shut out of the theater since King Kong, and as the strategy seems to be to lock everything up tight until it’s completely destroyed, I’ve been taking to showing the family some of the movies I have seen (sometimes but not always with The Boy)—almost as sanity checks. Were these the good, sometimes great, films that I thought they were, or was my enjoyment unreasonably enhanced by being allowed to go outside? I mean, we saw Reptilicus live with a bunch of other MST3K fans (and the cast!), I came away with the impression it was one of the best episodes of any season of MST3K. I still think it’s strong, but I’m not sure about “best ever”. And of course SFX are better in theater, there are fewer distractions—the popcorn’s better at home, but I don’t think that impacts the viewing experience that much.

Too, these films are becoming increasingly more available to streaming services, filling some of the gap the shuttered “Drama Fever” streaming service once occupied, so it’s not such a big deal to find most of them these days, with some exceptions. This adventure actually started with Little Forest, because I had found it on YouTube. I don’t recommend watching it on YouTube (and it’s now on Amazon Prime), however, because it’s very low-res, probably to thwart the copyright gods, and it’s definitely meant to be beautiful to watch (beyond just starring Tae-Ri Kim, that is). One of the things we like to do around Casa ‘Gique is watch movies about food or featuring food prominently—while eating said food. (See also Deli Man and Jiro Dreams of Sushi.)

Little Forest is about a young woman, post-college, coming home from the city because it’s unfulfilling (lacking nourishment) and coming to grips with the mother that abandoned her immediately upon her graduation from high school. As she recalls the dishes her mother made, she comes to know her better through the lens of an adult, rather than a child. Just describing it, I feel like this should be a boring movie or one that’s potentially ponderous or melodramatic or overwrought. But it’s actually very charming and sweet and it went over well.

I followed up with Along With Gods (both The Two Worlds and The Last 49 Days), which I’ve seen 2 and three times respectively. This one I was concerned about because it’s special effects heavy. But I have maintained for quite some time, SFX are better when they’re done for aesthetic reasons, rather than trying for “realism” or to “fool the eye”—especially over time, because the eye learns and fast. The thing about these two movies is that they have a strong emotional content, and a strong ethical component. The characters take huge risks and stand up to a bureaucratic afterlife (get it wrong and go to hell!) all to do the right thing by their families. The “sequel” (which was filmed at the same time and is really just part of one sprawling story) may actually be better than the original, which relies just a bit too much on action. (We’re supposed to get #3 and #4 in the series next year.)

Next I went with Be With You (Prime). This one is about a man with a debilitating health problem and his son, whose wife has died and who comes back a year later for the rainy season—except that she doesn’t remember either of them. This movie is one that you get to what seems like the end and think, “Well, that’s solid. Good, not great.” And then there’s a 20 minute “stinger” that forces you to re-evaluate the whole thing. It has probably the strongest “pro-life” message I’ve seen in a movie, without ever going near the topic of abortion at all.

Up till now, I’d been showing things that were pretty easy to get, but the best new comedy I’d seen in years was Detective Chinatown 2, and I was curious as to how it would hold up on a second view. But here’s the rub: This is not a movie you can stream. Or buy for that matter—at least not from American sources. The comedy is ridiculously broad with “racist” and “homophobic” stereotypes—part of why I loved it—and I’m pretty comfortable thinking that this is why you can’t see it here easily. But I ordered a copy—from Malaysia! which is how I get around modern censorship—and it went over huge. Not only did I like it on a second view, everyone did, to the point where they wanted to re-watch it (because besides being goofy fast-talking fun, it has a fairly hardcore mystery plot about a serial killer). Detective Chinatown 3 has been was supposed to come out last February but some plague turned the world population into vampires and only I remain.

Shadow (Netflix) was an easy choice. It’s so amazingly beautiful, it doesn’t need much else. But there’s a good, strong plot that feels operatic or Shakespearean (King Lear, not Midsummer Night’s Dream). By far the most confusing part of this tale of courtly intrigue and martial arts are the great performances by Chao Deng, who plays two characters who are supposed to look alike, and it can drive you nuts because both are played by Deng but they look and act nothing alike. Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) has a real knack for turning martial arts soap opera into high art.

Then I took another gamble: Fengshui (Prime), which is another courtly drama taking place at the end of Joeseon era, which means they’re all wearing the same clothes and have the same facial hair. It’s like trying to figure out L.A. Confidential, or any random ’50s movie where everyone’s got the suit and the slicked-back hair. It’s also about geomancy and the integrity of a lone geomancer standing against a crooked court (naturally) but we still had the same reaction to it, which was, “You really feel like you’ve watched a movie.”

None of these movies have high IMDB ratings. They’re all 6s and low 7s at best. And yet, you really feel like you’ve watched a movie when you’ve watched these. That you’ve seen characters who have interests and struggles, that their actions have made sense—if not in terms of reaching their goals, then in terms of the traits that interfere with getting there. That the filmmakers don’t actively hate you, and everything you hold dear.

You know, all that corny biz about people helping each other, and girls wanting to get married and have families, and that having value apart from any career they might have, and standing up against “the experts”, and loving your country? All that stuff we’re only capable of doing ironically in this country? It’s absolutely sincere in these films. I called this “The New Clsasics” tongue-in-cheek, but if I understand what persists in art—what makes it classic—I may not be far off.

Check ’em out.