“The book is better…”

The TV guide in our NY Times has little capsule reviews for featured films. They’re often humorous. I saw this one a few days ago. It’s a common sentiment but definitely not a tautology (something always true). For example, The Martian (movie) is much better than the book, because the director and principal actor make it so (see tomorrow’s mini-review). Gone Girl (movie) and Gone Girl (book) are equally bad. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (movie) was good, but the book IS better.

It’s useful to...