Saying "the book was better than the movie" is marbles

I can't stand it when people say that. Books and movies are two entirely different things. To paraphrase, it's like comparing Johnny Mathis with Diet Pepsi.

I can say without much hesitation that I've only genuinely disliked 5 to 10 movies in my entire life. But the number of books I've genuinely disliked is at least 10 times that number. Most books are terrible. Many movies are terrible, but they're still movies, which can be entertaining even when (or because) they're bad, and at worst only take up a few hours of your time. But to waste days on a book that ultimately sucks is just devastating. Maybe this is why I stopped reading books.

That largely irrelevant discussion aside, please lay off the movie adaptations, Slate, et al. Just tell me whether the damn movie was any good on its own merits and holster your comparative literature degree for another day.