I am Kyle's self-indulgence

The Onion AV Club has a list of 20 Good Books Made Into Not-So-Good Movies. While it's interesting to see what they choose to include, this is a very easy target, considering that most film adaptations are crap. It's harder (and more fun) to come up with really great book-to-film adaptations.

Here are my top ten.

Before I start, though, I must confess that I have not read all of the books these films are based on. I'm really going by the quality of the film, period. Some of the movies are better than the book. Some may not actually be quite as good, although still wonderful. And some are not better or worse, but add a different dimension to the story (I think this is actually the most interesting kind of adaptation). Anyway, on to the list.

10. Trainspotting
I think that what makes this both a strong film and a good adaptation is the language. Voice-over narrations is a difficult thing to pull off, and it only works really well when the narrator has a very distinct style of speech and memorable lines. How can you not love a movie that starts like this?

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of f***ing fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f*** you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f***ing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f***ed up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life.

Sure, other aspects of the movie are important too: it has good actors, great scenes, and images that will stay with you forever, but it's the language that really makes the book and the film.

9. The Graduate
This one of the books I mentioned I haven't actually read. But that's okay, because this is about the movie. Do I even need to explain? The Graduate is part of the canon of great cinema, and for good reason. I think it was ahead of its time, employing a sweetly cynical humor that has brought success to such recent films as Little Miss Sunshine. And then there's the superb cast and perfect execution in filmmaking. It certainly doesn't need my praise, so I'll just move on.

8. Dead Man Walking
When Tim Robbins adapted Helen Prejean's nonfiction book into a movie, he took many liberties, merging two separate men's stories into one. The movie retains a feeling of authenticity, though, mostly because of its insistence on treating all people as human beings. There are no monsters in it, but there are no saints either. My favorite scenes are the ones that show the condemned man is not only guilty but even despicable, and that the victims' families are sincerely grieving and seeking closure. This is a movie about a woman who can look at these things and still have compassion for all people.

7. Fight Club
Like Trainspotting, this film's greatest strength is the narrator, who delivers similar diatribes against modern life. David Fincher also does a great job of complementing the narrative with great visual illustrations, so not only do we get

When you buy furniture, you tell yourself: that's it, that's the last sofa I'm gonna need. No matter what else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled. I had it all. I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was so close to being complete.

but we also get that great image of Ed Norton walking through an apartment that gradually transforms into a three-dimensional Ikea catalog, sending a much more powerful message about shallow materialism.

6. Ghost in the Shell
Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell comic book series is a highly imaginative story about a society in the far future in which humans routinely receive cybernetic enhancements and the main character is really a cyborg body with human brain cells. The series used this setting to pose philosophical questions about what it is to be human. Interspersed among these serious bits was a good deal of common relief and a lot of other ancillary stories. It was a little uneven, but it worked for a comic book.

When the series was adapted into an animated film a lot of the unnecessary stories were trimmed away, the humor was all but eliminated, and what was left was a much more cohesive story with a consistent tone. For these reasons I think the final product surpasses the source material.

Of course, it helps that the film is animated in beautiful detail, each scene done to perfection.

5. Requiem for a Dream
Here's another book I've admittedly not read, but the movie stands alone as a great achievement in filmmaking. I guarantee it is one of the most powerful and emotional films you will ever see, if you have the stomach for it. And that's a big IF. This is not a movie you want to see repeatedly, or even more than once, unless you enjoy watching movies about people whose lives are completely wrecked by addiction. It's enough to stop anyone from ever trying heroin. Ever.

Story aside, Requiem for a Dream is also simply a great achievement in film art. Darren Aronofsky has called his style of editing "hip-hop" cinema, referring to the rapid sampling and repetition of images. Here it works extremely well at expressing the compulsiveness of addiction and the frantic state of mind of the characters.

Requiem for a Dream may be difficult to watch, but there's no denying that every aspect of it is very well done.

4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
While I initially took issue with some of Peter Jackson's changes to the story in the first two LOTR movies, I eventually recognized that he did what he did to make them work on screen. I even learned to accept what he did to the end of The Two Towers.

While I enjoyed the first two films with slight reservation, The Return of the King was a delight from start to finish. It broke from the main story to try out some new tricks that delivered very powerfully, as with Pippin's singing while Faramir and his men charge to Osgiliath.

Most of all, I'm glad that Peter Jackson had the courage to end the film the way he did. I know some people complain about the fact that the movie has three or four endings and goes on too long after the climax, but I wouldn't have it any other way. After 10+ hours invested in the story the audience needs a little time before it says goodbye to Middle Earth forever.

3. The Godfather
I don't feel like I really need to say much here. I haven't read this book either, but I've heard it's not as good as the movie, although that's no big slight, considering The Godfather is commonly praised as the greatest movie ever made.

2. Akira
The Japanese comic book series Akira is an epic science fiction story spanning six huge volumes. The fact that Katsuhiro Otomo was able to pare the story down to a single feature-length film by itself is impressive. The fact that he did it so well that the movie Akira stands as a hallmark of Japanese anime is astounding.

I have no doubt that Akira is not only the greatest anime film ever made, but it's on my short list of the greatest films of all time, period. Beautifully animated and with a story that grows more complex with each viewing, Akira ushered in a new generation of Japanese animated films and set a high bar that has yet to be surpassed.

1. A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick showed what a film adaptation ought to be. You can pick any Kubrick film you want: it's very clear that it is not like the book, nor should it be. They are two very different media.

I saw the movie A Clockwork Orange before I ever read the book and I didn't get a bit of what was happening. I didn't understand the dialog, I didn't understand the story, I didn't understand the point of it all.

Then I read the book, and everything made sense. I understood it's about a juvenile delinquent being forced to be good against his will, which raises philosophical questions about what it really means to be a moral person. It seemed like there was a whole lot to the story than the movie presented.

But then I watched the movie again and a strange thing happened: I started noticing all these things I had read in the book. They were in the movie all along, but I didn't recognize it because the movie didn't beat me over the head with it. What the film did was present the story with its subtexts, sometimes in a minimal way, but with evocative and memorable visuals.

The book and the film tell the same story in very different ways, each doing what it does best. A book is better suited to expository dialog and philosophical discussions. A film is best at the visual part of a story. Each enhances the other, making for a more complete overall experience.

Honorable Mention: 2001: A Space Odyssey
I wasn't sure if this qualifies as an adaptation, since the writing of the film and the book was a simultaneous endeavor, but pretty much everything I wrote about A Clockwork Orange is true of this 2001 as well.

Here too I watched the movie before I read the book. In fact, I watched it several times, and while I could understand most of the story I never could figure out what was happening in the final sequence. I love it for the visuals, but I just didn't get it.

I finally decided to read Arthur C. Clarke's book and it made so much more sense, again because because of the nature of the medium. The book spends much more time explaining what the monoliths are, what the purpose of the Jupiter mission is, and what exactly happens to Dave Bowman in the end. It works for the book, but if Kubrick had tried to insert dialog to explain these things it would have gotten in the way of what the film does so well: showing the majesty, the coldness, and the infinite mystery of space.