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© 2026 Books vs. Movies
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In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
69 Episodes
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Send a text What if the real monster isn’t the creature, but the way his story was retold? We dive into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Universal classics Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein to trace how a philosophical meditation on creation and responsibility morphed into lightning, lab tables, and a grunting icon. Along the way, we unpack what gets lost and what thrives when a novel becomes a studio franchise. We start with the core inversion: Shelley’s restrained, ethically charge...
Send us a text A phone call opens with a code: “I heard you paint houses.” From that line, I followed Frank Sheeran’s long road from soldier to union fixer to alleged hitman, weighing the granular confessions of Charles Brandt’s book against the somber sweep of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. I dig into what the film streamlines, what the book preserves, and why a single friendship with Jimmy Hoffa still anchors one of America’s most argued-over mysteries. I walk through the choices that sha...
Send us a text A year of loud releases and louder opinions deserves a clear-eyed reckoning. I pull back the curtain on my most disappointing theatrical watches and ask why big IP, glossy remakes, and awards-season polish still left me so cold. From the opening wobble of a critically adored war epic to the baffling character choices that derail tension, I trace where promising ideas lose their footing. I dig into representation with care, using Teyana Taylor’s awards momentum to examine the k...
Send us a text What if one of your favorite films of the year is the one everyone else swears is terrible? My feelings drive this countdown of the 10 movies I watched in theaters that defined my 2025. I kept the scope tight: only films I watched on the big screen, tracked on my AMC app, so each pick reflects not just craft, but the vibes, the audience reactions, and the afterglow that lingered on the subway ride home. I move from the spectacle of Wicked for Good and a surprisingly propulsive...
Send us a text Ever notice how least-favorite lists light up the room? I lean into that energy and break down ten books from 2025 that didn’t land for me and why. Not to dunk for sport, but to get curious about craft, genre, and expectations. Some titles offered powerful insight with limp storytelling; others promised thrills but disappeared into pacing, lore dumps, or glossy advice that never turned into action. I start with the fascination behind “worst” lists and the validation they spark...
Send us a text A top ten list only works if it tells a story, and this one starts with quiet middle grade courage and ends with a blockbuster prequel that cracked my no-tears streak wide open. I’m counting down the books that stayed with me in 2025—titles that challenged me, healed me, and sometimes made me argue with myself in the margins. I move from the sharp empathy of Out of My Mind to the cross-country ache of The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, where grief rides shotgun on a con...
Send us a text Imagine a country so desperate for unity that it turns survival into a national spectacle. That’s the engine powering Stephen King’s The Long Walk—published as Richard Bachman—and the 2025 film adaptation that brings its brutality into the present. I unpack how a grim endurance contest for teenage boys becomes a mirror for war, propaganda, and the price of being cheered on while you fall apart. I start with the rules and the promise: keep the pace or get shot, win anything you...
Send us a text A neurosurgeon saves a dying boy and sparks a decade-long reckoning—across hospitals, border towns, and the fragile space between duty and regret. That’s the engine of Monster, Naoki Urasawa’s acclaimed thriller and its 2004 anime twin, and I'm diving straight into what makes it magnetic, maddening, and impossible to ignore. I start with the bold choice that remade Tenma’s life, and follow the ripples as Johan Liebert resurfaces, drawing cops, criminals, and bystanders into hi...
Send us a text A vanished explorer, a city swallowed by jungle, and a film that chooses myth over method—this week I dive deep into The Lost City of Z to separate the legends from the ledger. I trace Percy Fawcett’s real expeditions across two decades and examine how David Grann’s book intertwines archival research, oral histories, and modern archaeology to reveal a far more grounded, and more gripping, story than the movie lets on. I unpack the Royal Geographical Society’s role, the truth b...
Send us a text A fixer who vanishes like a rumor. A girl who counts to survive. A city that hides its crimes in plain sight. We put Jonathan Ames’ You Were Never Really Here head‑to‑head with Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation, and the fault lines between page and screen say as much about ethics as they do about plot. I walk through Joe’s paranoid craft—burner calls through a Queens bodega, silent stakeouts, the “playground” floor in a brownstone—and why the novella’s spare details hit like evidence....
Send us a text Imagine stepping onto a perfect, hidden beach and feeling your life accelerate—years slipping by in hours, bodies racing ahead of minds, and secrets surfacing as quickly as the tide. That’s the uneasy heart of Sandcastle and Old, and we dig into why the same premise lands so differently on the page and on screen. We trace how the graphic novel’s eerie hints—a watcher on the cliff, a fleeting mention of a hotel—become the film’s full-blown surveillance network and resort pipelin...
Send us a text Ever wonder if passionate love can withstand decades of separation? "The Last Letter from Your Lover" takes us on a journey through time where handwritten correspondence becomes the bridge between star-crossed lovers. In 1960s London, Jennifer Stirling wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of her life or wealthy husband. When she discovers hidden love letters signed only with the letter "B," she unravels a past filled with forbidden passion and missed opportunities. These let...
Send us a text Death has never been so captivated by a human as he is by Liesel Meminger, a young girl navigating the treacherous landscape of Nazi Germany with stolen books as her compass. When Death first encounters Liesel at her brother's gravesite, he watches her pilfer her first treasure – The Gravedigger's Handbook – marking the beginning of her journey as the Book Thief. Words become Liesel's salvation in a world determined to burn them. After arriving at the home of her foster parent...
Send us a text What happens when a deeply personal memoir about loss transforms into a Hollywood comedy-drama with Kevin Hart? "Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Love and Loss" and "Fatherhood" tell the same heartbreaking story from radically different angles, revealing how adaptation can both honor and re imagine true experiences. Matthew Logelin's raw memoir chronicles the devastating loss of his wife Liz to a pulmonary embolism just 27 hours after giving birth to their daughter. Left sudd...
Send us a text Forty-two may be the answer to life, the universe, and everything, but is the book really better than the movie when it comes to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? Join me as I navigate through Douglas Adams' beloved science fiction comedy and its 2005 film adaptation starring Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, and the voice of Alan Rickman. My relationship with this interstellar adventure has been nothing short of a cosmic journey itself. From absolutely despising it in mi...
Send us a text Delving into Edward Ashton's sci-fi novel "Mickey7" and Bong Joon-ho's film adaptation "Mickey 17," this episode presents a rare case where the movie might outshine its source material. The story follows an "expendable" human—Mickey—whose job is to die repeatedly for the colony's benefit on the ice planet Niflheim. Each death results in a new Mickey with the previous memories, until an unexpected survival creates two simultaneous Mickeys, something strictly forbidden in ...
Send us a text That age-old question haunts every book lover who's watched their favorite novel get adapted to film: "Is the book really better?" For Shirley Jackson's masterpiece "The Haunting of Hill House" and its 1999 film adaptation "The Haunting," the answer is complicated by fascinating behind-the-scenes copyright issues that forced filmmakers to create something almost entirely different from both the source novel and the beloved 1963 film adaptation. Orlando and I dive into this str...
Send us a text Lawrence Wright's "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief" pulls back the curtain on Scientology's most guarded secrets, revealing a world where science fiction becomes religious doctrine and Hollywood celebrities become powerful pawns in a global organization. The journey begins with Lafayette Ronald Hubbard—a charismatic science fiction writer whose creation of Dianetics evolved into a belief system involving alien spirits called Thetans and promises of...
Send us a text Margaret Atwood's chilling vision of a dystopian America transformed into the theocratic Republic of Gilead has captivated readers since 1985, but how does this haunting story translate from page to screen? Diving deep into both the original novel and its acclaimed Hulu adaptation, this episode explores the fascinating creative choices that shape our understanding of Offred's nightmare. From the stunning watercolor imagery of Renee Nault's graphic novel adaptation to the contr...
Send us a text In a snow-covered suburb of 1981 Sweden, a bullied boy finds an unlikely ally in the mysterious girl next door who only appears after dark. This seemingly simple premise launches us into the haunting world of "Let the Right One In," a vampire tale unlike any other. John Ajvide Lindqvist's 2004 novel and its acclaimed 2008 Swedish film adaptation both weave an unforgettable story of childhood loneliness, predation, and the desperate human need for connection. While most vampire...
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