Filmbook: The Great Prestige Circus of Book Adaptations, Fall 2011

Now playing: "Moneyball," based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, already receiving Oscar buzz; "The Three Musketeers," adaptation approximately #2745, not receiving any Oscar buzz whatsoever.

Opens Oct. 28: "The Rum Diary" (Johnny Depp) based on the Hunter S. Thompson book about Puerto Rico. I mistweeted when I said the only NY Public Library copy available to me was in Spanish and called DIARIOS DE RON (trans. RUM DIARIES); it's actually DIAS DE RON (RUM DAYS). I probably won't see the movie till I read that but I expect Peter W. Knox will have something up as soon as it opens. Also 10/28: "Anonymous" (I saw it already and blogged about it here), "Sleeping Beauty" (an adaptation of sorts).

Opens Nov. 18: "The Descendants," Alexander Payne's long awaited return to our screens (since 2004's "Sideways" or his heartbreaking segment in 2006's "Paris, je t'aime") -- it's George Clooney! It's Hawaii! It's sur...prisingly heartfelt? Highly anticipated by me in any case. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Also week of 11/18: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1" (fourth of the planned 5 "Twilight" movies, in case you're keeping score)

Opens Nov. 24: "Hugo," based on the Caldecott Award-winning THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick. So it's a kids' movie, fine, but what if I told you that it was a kids' movie directed by Martin Scorsese starring such casual players as Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Johnny Depp (again?) and Michael "Deserves to Be Slightly More Famous" Pitt? Also, the book is spectacular (about the invention of film in turn-of-the-century Paris), but I'm trying to focus on what you want. Take your small cousins or something. It's a mitzvah. Also week of 11/24: "A Dangerous Method," based on the John Kerr nonfiction book of the same name about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, starring Viggo Mortenson and Michael Fassbender and I don't know why he keeps coming up either, it's a mystery, and "My Week With Marilyn," based on a memoir by one of Monroe's studio escorts while shooting in London (with Michelle Williams as Monroe).

Opens December 9: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," based on the John le Carre novel of the same name about Cold War espionage and the search for a plant, starring Colin "Hey do you remember when I won an Academy Award last year? That was awesome" Firth and Tom "Universal Mancrush" Hardy. Hey, did you know this book is almost impossible to find in used bookstores? Also 12/9: "We Need To Talk About Kevin," Toronto-buzzed feature based on the Lionel Shriver novel.

Opens December 16: "Carnage" (dir. R. Polanski), which is technically based on a play by Yasmina Reza but I'm propping it up because the four-handed cast is terrific and there will be fireworks. Also 12/16: "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" (a tenuous adaptation at best but will probably live up to the "silly but fun" I gave the first movie).

Opens December 23: "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," U.S. adaptation, tracked here for almost two years.If you think you're going to hate David Fincher's take with Daniel Craig as Mikael "Kalle Bastard" Blomkvist, you could always rent or buy the Swedish trilogy as insurance. Also 12/23: "The Adventures of Tintin," 'starring' Simon Pegg because this is one of those creepy real-ish animation jobs, and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," adapting the Jonathan Safran Foer novel in what will probably be an all too realistic 9/11 tearjerker. You have plenty of time to read this book, which I regard very highly, before it comes out. Not much up to Christmas but more holidays anyway.

Bloodthirsty on the block

Wherever you go this summer you will probably see or hear about someone reading THE PASSAGE, the first volume in an apocalyptic scifi trilogy by the suddenly-hot Justin Cronin. (That is, in hype, not in -- well, you make your judgment call there.) Here's your cheat sheet:

• In THE PASSAGE, a top-secret military experiment called Project NOAH trying to foster eternal life instead creates a virus that turns people into vampires. A little girl is the only one who can save them, aided by a Harvard professor. (Cronin went to Harvard, by the way.)
• If we had all been paying attention in the summer of 2007, we might have followed Cronin's $3.75M deal for the trilogy... indicating that it would either be big or fail grandly. This was just two years after the first volume of that other vampire series hit the bestseller lists, and the same summer the third in that series came out.
• After being on the 'literary' track for several years with the novels MARY AND O'NEIL and THE SUMMER GUEST, he sent THE PASSAGE out under a pseudonym, guessing that publishers would pigeonhole him without looking at his work. (Can't say he's wrong.)
• (This bullet is blank because one of my coworkers just sent me Sad Keanu and I got distracted)
• Time: "Even when as a kid, I was reading these big, fat summer books — fat as a Rueben sandwich."
• NY Times review: "This already-exhaustive book is studded with diary entries, academic papers and other ostensible evidence that its fictitious stories of destruction are true. Every now and then, as when the Gulf of Mexico is described as an oil slick, these accounts are even scarier than intended."

He's not gay, he's just sparkly

In some ways it's the logical extension of Caitlin Flanagan's vampire-as-abstinence-metaphor Atlantic article, but Stephen Marche really takes it a step further in Esquire by claiming that the popularity of TWILIGHT is based on teenage female fantasies of dating gay men -- and that that's a good thing.

Renesmee: still not a name

I laughed straight through the entries of this contest to make TWILIGHT-style book covers (hint: click "More, more, more!" under the VOTE button to show). This one by Marcy is my favorite, although this reference book won.

The contest was inspired by the new decried-by-some UK design of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, which is apparently mentioned in the TWILIGHT books. The plot summaries I read on Wikipedia didn't mention it, but it seems the books name-drop other classics as well. Crafty! That's why in my forthcoming novel (working title: VAMPIRE MICHAEL JACKSON AND PATRICK SWAYZE SOLVE THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE WITH TWITTER, AND BUT SO RON PAUL), the vampires will frequently take breaks to flip through THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE and ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.


Full credit to Metalia for the title.

Stephenie Meyer to become comic-book character

News that makes you go huh: Bluewater Comics is producing a comic biography of TWILIGHT author Stephenie Meyer, in which the 35-year-old Mormon will do battle against the forces of coffee and Harry Potter. Meyer is the only author included in the Female Force series, which gave the same treatment to Oprah, Sarah Palin and Princess Diana.

Who is this aimed at? Fans of the Twilight series would rather pretend that sparkly vampire Edward is real, and therefore could conceivably fall in love with their mortal selves. Regular comic buyers of my acquaintance, even if they're not still reeling after the Comic-Con '09 invasion, will not be compelled. And let's face it, President Obama being featured in an Amazing Spider-Man bonus story is still cooler.

If this works I will have drastically underestimated the Twilight-branded shit people will buy. (I see a fun Craigslist game!)

Not blogging every day is the new blogging every day

So I'm officially a NaBloPoMo dropout. It's okay, I'm over it. Just trying to keep body and soul together here.

I actually did a fair amount of reading but I'm still digesting it, so I will redirect you to Gawker on TWILIGHT: "J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series managed a similar level of innocence and never seemed as repressively anti-sex, but it wasn't a love story about two super-hot weird teens."