Trainspotting is a great book, and a pretty good film (ruined by sanitisation, though). The play is much, much better than the film - if you get a chance, go and see it.
Recently, Young Adam has proved to be a brilliant adaptation of a quite brilliant book.
But I wonder if adaptations are at their best when they stray from exact narrative replication and try instead to carry the ideas and principal elements of a book - in which case, Apocalypse Now (adaptation of Heart of Darkness) is tops.
High Fidelity: Great book, OK film. Would still have preferred the film to be set in London. Or better still Brighton. My Saturdays when I was 17 was Sydney Street, Blackman Street, Kenny Gardens, Trafalgar Street trawling the second hand record shops for rare priceless soul gems. Then off to the Goldstone for more heartache and mediocrity. You can see where my appreciation of Nick Hornby's first two books comes from.
Awful transition: The Fourth Protocol by Frederick Forsyth. Brilliant book, clumsy film.
Worst transition: The Van by Roddy Doyle. The third book in the Barrytown trilogy, following on from The Commitments and The Snapper.
The Van is an hilarious, brilliant book. The film was just shockingly awful. Tragedy.
Love my history, and war films, but I was thoroughly bored with "Black Hawk Down"
Action scenes are impressive, but after 2 hours of the same old,same old it got boring
But that's just my opinion!
PS Turkey, if you get spare time between your university studies (!) get a copy of "Godfather" from the library. You won't be able to put it down, brilliant book