Movies About Books

First one that comes to mind is 'You've Got Mail', which involves a small bookshop, or possibly 'The Number 23', 'The Ninth Gate' or 'The Name of the Rose'? Mind's not working very well at present though so that's all I can think of.

The Neverending Story
The Princess Bride
Stranger Than Fiction
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

If you want creepy, there's The Ninth Gate by Roman Polanski, with Johnny Depp tracking down a series of prints in books supposedly co-written with Lucifer.

And have you seen the UK comedy series Black Books? The funniest comedy set in a book store you'll ever see

George Romero's The Dark Half chronicles the dark side of creating a nasty character (based on the Stephen King book)


Willie

Finding Forrestor is a good one.

Jane Austen's Book Club. Didn't see it -- heard very mixed reviews.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Evens -- one of the characters has to depend on his knowledge from reading books

Casanova -- Francesca Bruni writes a series of feminist books about Casanova without knowing what he looks like... (and you guess the rest)

I always thought Pet Semetary made an alright crossover.

Although seeing the young son die on camera was much more horrifying, which resulted in me shutting of my VCR for a few minutes.

The Wonder Boys with Michael Douglas as a pot smoking professor who can't finish his novel, Robert Downey Jr as a lecherous boozing agent and Frances McDormand as the love interest to Michael Douglas - very funny movie


Also, 'Sideways' -Miles was writing a book

DWSTXS said:

Also, 'Sideways' -Miles was writing a book

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But it's not about the books or reading books, though.

Miss Potter -- about Beatrix Potter and her books.

Lets see.

Prospero's Books a kind of bizarre and kinky take on the Tempest.
Quills might be interpreted as being about books, but maybe not.
The Name of the Rose a suspenseful story where a forbidden book plays an important part. It is an adaptation of a book, though. It was a book about a book, (kind of) which was turned into a movie about a book.

Thats all I can think of for now.

It's not a perfect example, but Sean Penn's Into the Wild has a lot about books and reading and writing. I really like how the text from the MC's diary shows up on the screen. Don't know if I've ever seen a Hollywood film use a technique like that.

That said, it is a flawed movie. Its incessant romanticization of the MC is way over the top.

Spiderwick Chronicles: It's about a secret book, isn't it?

This Jim Carrey movie, 32? 27?; anyway. Is about a man obsessed with a book that he read about how everything was connected to this number...


Expect twist at the end

Another movie about books is The Hoax, starring Richard Gere in the true story about an author who is supposedly writing an authentic authorized biography of Howard Hughes.

maxmordon said:

This Jim Carrey movie, 32? 27?; anyway. Is about a man obsessed with a book that he read about how everything was connected to this number...


Expect twist at the end

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Number 23 (not a very good movie... kind of ridiculous and the "twist" was predictable).

It's not a movie, but it's probably the funniest thing about books ever written... the Blackadder Dictionary episode:


Baldrick: Something wrong, Mr. B?

Edmund: Oh, something's always wrong, Balders. (dumps all bottles and glasses from the drinks tray he is carrying into a barrel, where they all break) The fact that I'm not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle. But, today, something's even wronger. That globulus fraud, Dr. Johnson, is coming to tea.

Baldrick: I thought he was the cleverest man in England.

Edmund: Baldrick, I'd bump into cleverer people at a lodge meeting of the Guild of Village Idiots.

Baldrick: That's not what you said when you sent him your navel.

Edmund: *Novel*, Baldrick -- not navel. I sent him my *novel*.

Baldrick: Well, novel or navel, it sounds a bit like a bag of grapefruits to me.

Edmund: The phrase, Baldrick, is "a case of sour grapes," and yes it bloody well is. I mean, he might at least have written back, but no, nothing, not even a "Dear Gertrude Perkins: Thank you for your book. Get stuffed. --Samuel Johnson."

Baldrick: Gertrude Perkins?

Edmund: Yes, I gave myself a female pseudonym. Everybody's doing it these days: Mrs. Ratcliffe, Jane Austin--

Baldrick: What, Jane Austin's a man?

Edmund: Of course -- a huge Yorkshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush.

Baldrick: Oh, quite a small one, then?

Edmund: Well, compared to Dorothy Wordsworth's, certainly. James Boswell is the only real woman writing at the moment, and that's just because she wants to get inside Johnson's britches.

Baldrick: Perhaps your book really isn't any good.

Edmund: Oh codswallop! It's taken me seven years, and it's perfect. "Edmund: A Butler's Tale." A giant roller coaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century, with some hot gypsies thrown in. My magnum opus, Baldrick. Everybody has one novel in them, and this is mine.

Baldrick: And *this* is mine (takes a small piece of paper from the front of his trousers). My magnificent octopus.

Edmund: (takes it) This is your novel, Baldrick? (unfolds it)

Baldrick: Yeah -- I can't stand long books.

Edmund: (reads) "Once upon a time, there was a lovely little sausage called `Baldrick', and it lived happily ever after."

Baldrick: It's semi-autobiographical.
Edmund: And it's completely utterly awful. Dr. Johnson will probably love it.


Willie

Oh, I love Blackadder! "My magnificent octopus" hehehehe. Baldric is awesome!

Educating Rita? It's about her discovery of Shakespeare as well as her relationship with her tutor (wonderfully played by Michael Caine).

maestrowork said:

But it's not about the books or reading books, though.

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But it's (the movie Sideways) about something far more important and infuriating - getting published, or not, in Miles' case.