The rivalry between books and movie adaptations is as hotly disputed and long-standing as that of the Yankees and the Red Sox. Enraged fans hoot and holler over excluded pivotal scenes and character discrepancies. So with Oscar night approaching, we've put the two head-to-head.
For each of this year's five Academy Award-nominated films that began as paperbound stories, we've found one reviewer who has only read the book, and one reviewer who has only seen the movie. We asked them about characters, plot points and dramatic moments, to see how one differs from the other - and to try and ascertain which is more worthy of your time.
First at bat, Michael Lewis' "Moneyball," made into a biographical sports drama starring Brad Pitt. In both the non-fiction, journalistic book and the blockbuster film, former Major League Baseball player Billy Bean attempts to alter the sport's recruiting process, staring with his team, the Oakland Athletics. Rather than listening to the subjective opinions of scouts, he hires a statistician to analyze stolen bases and batting averages of college recruits.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, our reviewers' answers indicate that the movie rendition of the story is more dramatic than the book. In the book, Billy Beane's goal is to "think outside the box." In the movie, he aims "to change baseball."
Check out more comparisons between the book and the film:
