Friday, May 15, 2009

Hollywood Fellates Your Favorite Authors

Oprah Winfrey called James Frey to apologize for tearing him a new hole to hide his heroin in. Even better, the apology came just in time for the paperback release of Frey's most recent novel, Bright Shiny Morning. Kismet!


The trailer for the film version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road has hit the internet. Although the trailer hints at a dumbed down/hyped-up translation, an early review swears by the film's faithfulness, calling it "a brilliantly directed adaptation of a beloved novel, a delicate and anachronistically loving look at the immodest and brutish end of us all." (Which means he likes it. A lot.)


The leads have been cast in Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Via TokyoGraph: Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note) has been chosen to play the lead as the college student Toru Watanabe, while Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) plays his emotionally troubled lover Naoko. The story’s heroine, a lively young woman named Midori, will be played by ViVi fashion model Kiko Mizuhara in her very first acting role.


From Jeff Wells' review of Bright Star: Jane Campion's Bright Star...is about the subdued and conflicted passions that governed the brief love affair between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and seamstress Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) from 1818 until Keat's death, at age 25 from tuberculosis, in 1821. It's been done quite perfectly...But it struck me nonetheless as too slow and restricted and, well, just too damnably refined. Wait, so they cut out Keats' famous car chase through the streets of San Francisco? Bummer, dude.