Book Report: Judging A Book By It's Cover Part 2

The other day I did a post about inappropriate book covers. Today I decided that I need to do a few of my own. So I took a couple of novels that many consider classics and livened them up with way better cover art, take a look...

I finally made those books cool.

No need to thank me.

Just send money.

Hollywood Babble On & On #860: Congratulations Harvey.

France is set to award the Legion of Honor to Harvey Weinstein in recognition of his years promoting French cinema in the USA, culminating in the recent Best Picture win of The Artist.

In honor of Harvey's business practices, the President of France will use the awards ceremony to announce that they will really give Harvey the award next year, and then three years later, after much arguing, lawsuits, and threats, they'll just toss it into a discount DVD bin at Wal-Mart.

Hollywood Babble On & On #846: Oscar's Home Needs A Name!

Kodak has gone bankrupt.

That's right, the once all powerful manufacturer of almost all things related to photography and film-making is officially tits-up.  

Going bankrupt also means that they are asking to get their name taken off the Kodak Theater the home of the annual Academy Awards, because they can no longer afford the cost of the naming rights.

That got me thinking, and I've put together a few suggestions for a new sponsor and a new name for the theater.  Here are my suggestions...

 Hmmmmm.... probably not going to happen.

This is the most fitting new name for the theater.  It fits the demographic of Academy voters and people who still think the Oscars are relevant.  Plus, the rather batty logic behind some of the nominations tends to piss a lot of people off.

This is also sort of appropriate, since my experience with tacos and Oscar acceptance speeches make my digestive system feel the same way.

Those are my suggestions, tell me yours....

BTW: I'm still collecting questions. This is the last night, click here and post now, or be unanswered!

Hollywood Babble On & On #837: Work It Didn't Work

ABC has cancelled it's freshman cross-dressing comedy Bosom Buddies Work It, after just two airings.  Who could have possibly seen that this show was going to be an unmitigated disaster?  Turns out EVERYONE.

But in the spirit of being magnanimous, I'm going to help the ABC Network, out of the goodness of my flinty little heart, with sitcom premise ideas that are better than Work It.

1. THICKE & THINN. Two single girls, one is anorexic (Sadie Thicke), and the other is obese (Beulah Thinn), work as jingle writers for a Madison Avenue ad agency, and look for love in New York City. 

2. CARSON THE ARSON PARSON. A well meaning minister name Carson dispenses advice to his flock while fighting his urge for sexual release through starting racially motivated fires.

3. ARE YOU THERE HEROIN? IT'S ME COURTNEY.  A wacky family hour comedy about the wacky drug fueled antics of young Courtney Love.

4. LUNGERS' LANE.  A heartwarming comedy about a group of optimistic tuberculosis patients quarantined in a sanatorium in the 1870s.... with sexy results.

5. FLEAS COMPANY!  Two slobby single men are having no luck with love, until they start listening to the advice from the sentient fleas that live in their furniture... with sexy results.

6. THE GOLDEN GHOULS. A group of seniors in Miami discover the fountain of youth, eating the flesh of young people... with sexy results. 

7. BOB & THE DEAD HOBO.  Bob Bederbecker is an ordinary family man, but every week a series of wacky coincidences will leave the body of a dead hobo in his bed, and he's got to get rid of it before someone finds it and accuses him of murder... with sexy results.

8. MRS. KRAVITZ & HATCHET HARRY. She's a nosy neighbor living next door to a sadistic serial killer, wackiness ensues!

9. BEST TWEAK EVER!  The lives and loves of happy go lucky methamphetamine addicts trying to keep their addictions fed... with sexy results.

10. FREAKS & FREAKS.  Two clans of circus freaks are seemingly trapped in an endless feud, until the Lobster Girl from one family finds love with the Dog-Faced Boy of another... with sexy results.

If you have any pitches for sitcoms that would have been better than Work It, leave them in the comments so I can steal them and sell them to the idiots at ABC for MILLIONS! BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!

Hollywood Babble On & On #830: 12 for 2012!

2011 is done and dusted, 2012 is upon us, so I'm going to use my psychic ability to tap into the time stream and predict THE FUTURE!

I have 12 predictions for 2012!

Let us begin...

1. Justin Bieber's career will go into decline when his body develops a resistance to the drugs his management's been giving him to stave off puberty.

2. Adam Sandler will be involved in the making of a shitty movie.

3. Hollywood studios will attempt to fight the doldrums that made 2011's box office so poor by remaking every film released in 2011, but doing it louder, and in 3D.

4. Scientists will invent time travel in 2012. Then again in 2005, 1993 & finally in 1986.

5. The comic book movie trend will reach its nadir with the release of the $350 million production of Little Lulu 3D starring Julia Roberts in the title role.

6. The world will learn the secret the success of the Kardashian clan. Stupid people who buy their shit.

7. Al Pacino will have a moment of clarity and realize that he's been hamming it up way to much for a very long time. Sadly, that moment will be brief.

8. ABBA will reunite to do an album of Lady Gaga songs called "Bjorn This Way."

9. Charlie Sheen will learn the true meaning of the word "winning" when he suddenly realizes that he really is not winning.

10. The decline of the movie star as a cultural force and box office draw will continue.

11.  Hollywood's denial of the decline of the movie star will become even more adamant, and star salaries will continue to climb.

12. The Mayan Calendar Doomsday bullshit will not end until December 31st 2012.

Hollywood Babble On & On #825: Proven Right Yet Again...

The weather outside is dreadful.  It's dark, cloudy, and the rain is coming down like God and the Angels are pissing on Earth after a pretty harsh beer bender.

However, inside my humble hovel, it's all sunshine and smiles.

Why?

Because I've been proven right again, and since I'm a Grand Master of the International Union of Smug Know It Alls I'm going to take that opportunity to gloat like a bastard.

On the 16th of May 2010, I posted a blog about film-making siblings David and Larry Lana Wachowski and their attempt to find financing for a new film about a gay love affair between an American soldier and an Iraqi civilian, that, according to some reports, leads to an attempt to assassinate George W. Bush.

I explained how the odds of anyone investing in the film expecting any kind return were super-slim because of a combination of a really small niche market for that kind of film, and filmmakers known for really big budgets and diminishing returns.

I also predicted that the whole project was a scam, a hoax, a big fat act of bamboozlement.

They'd make their pitch for their Hard-R gay-love-anti-war-anti-Bush movie, and everyone in Hollywood would have to listen to their pitch, partly out of their past record, but also out of a sense of political correctness.  The money people would listen, then offer a polite "What else have you got?" and then the Wachowskis would sigh, act like the sacrificing artist trapped in a medium run by heartless penny pinchers, and pitch the more commercial project they probably really wanted to make.  The Wachowskis get some street cred as "auteurs" and the money people are more welcoming to a project that seems positively blockbuster by comparison.

Well guess what just happened.

EVERYTHING I PREDICTED!

The Wachowskis are returning to science-fiction action filmmaking with a project called Jupiter Ascending, which, though mostly kept secret, seems positively blockbuster by comparison to their other project.

Now let's go to the Wachowskis for a comment on all this....

That's right, I am onto your little game.

Hollywood Babble On & On #813: RANDOM SNARK ATTACK!!!

Bit of a slow news day, so it's time to unleash another barrage of the vitriolic snarking that you all know and love...

1.  I was shocked and appalled to hear that TV shrieker Nancy Grace had a wardrobe malfunction during Dancing With The Stars.  Not about the nip slip, accidents happen, but that Nancy Grace is considered a "star."

2.  Andy Rooney will retire from 60 Minutes. He first made his name as a reporter when he asked: "What did you think of the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

3. Michelle Rodriguez will be joining Milla Jovovich in the 5th installment of the seemingly undead Resident Evil movie franchise.  Which struck me as odd considering she was in the first Resident Evil movie, and was killed off.  

Another thing that struck me as odd was why was I expecting a scintilla of logic in a Resident Evil movie?

4.  NBC is planning to stream episodes of  their new sitcom Whitney on the internet and will not stop until they are paid....

100 BILLION DOLLARS!

The bastards.

Speaking of poor bastards, is it just me or does the guy in the Whitney ads....

  

...look like he really wishes he had a better agent?

Not to say he looks unhappy, but the wardrobe department won't let him have any belts or shoelaces.

Anyway, let's hope there's some business like story I can rant and rage about tomorrow.

Hollywood Babble On & On #808: Random Drippings From My Brain Pain

STRAW DOGS STRAW MAN

You've probably missed the news, but Hollywood has remade Sam Peckinpah's domestic horror story Straw Dogs. If you've spent the last 40 years in a cave in Kazakhstan I'll fill you in on all the gory details.

The original Straw Dogs (1971) was adapted from the novel The Siege Of Trencher's Farm, and was about an American mathematician (Dustin Hoffman) and his young British wife (Susan George) move to a farm outside of her quaint home village in Cornwall. What starts off as snide teasing by some local yahoos quickly escalates to rape, and an orgy of violence where the normally pacifistic mathematician summons his inner barbarian and becomes a killing machine.

Now the original was shocking beyond its graphic portrayals of violence and rape. It was also shocking in setting. English villages, in the mind of American moviegoers, were places where quaint goes to die. They're where Bertie Wooster and Jeeves get tangled up in various romantic misunderstandings and the only violence that's supposed to happen in these places occur at Lord Autumnbottom's manor house and are promptly solved by either sharp-eyed little old ladies or nattily dressed Belgians on a country weekend.

The remake decided that instead of reversing expectations like Peckpinpah, they would reverse the reversed expectations. Instead of going for the shock of the unexpected, they went for the pretty exhausted cliche.

They changed the setting from where quaint goes to die, to the land where originality in screenwriting goes to die. They moved the setting from Cornwall to Mississippi, and instead of British thugs, its the classic cliched "Killer Southern Rednecks" rearing their nasty heads again, and some real Southern people and other folks aren't happy about it.

And let's not forget that they changed the lead from being a mousy mathematician, to a surprisingly handsome screenwriter from Hollywood. (Oh yeah, that's realistic.)

Now what really bugs me about these developments is that Hollywood has managed to make doing a remake even lazier than usual. It's nothing but rehashed cliches, and Hollywood self-aggrandizing itself at the expense of a good chunk of the movie going public.

What also bugs me is the simple fact that it's a gloriously missed opportunity for what could have been a side splitting comedy.

Picture it: A Hollywood screenwriter moves to a small town in Mississippi with his hot wife for some peace and quiet so he can write the sequel to Bucky Larson. The locals try to make him feel welcome, but since he's lived his whole life in Hollywood, all he knows about Southern people are the cliches Hollywood dishes out on a regular basis. He sees their every attempt to be friendly as some sort of threat and grows increasingly paranoid. It all comes a head when the locals spot a rabid badger crawling under his house. They come to warn him about the vicious rabid animal in his house, but he assumes its a home invasion, and everything explodes into an orgy of slap-stick carnage. Sort of like if Sam Peckinpah made Home Alone. After slaughtering his neighbors, he cries out "I got them all!" only to be savaged to death by the rabid badger.

Now that has hit all over it.

Or something that rhymes with hit....

DISNEY GOES AVATARD

The Walt Disney Company are planning new additions to their parks based on James Cameron's movie Avatar.

Well, I have a few suggestions for rides....

IT'S A SMALL SCRIPT AFTER ALL: The visitors board a boat and float down a man-made river lined with singing animatronic figures from the movies that Avatar's script ripped off like Dancing With Wolves, and Ferngully.

JAMES CAMERON'S HAUNTED MANSION: Here the visitors get lectured about environmental awareness and how consumerism is bad by the digitally rendered ghosts of James Cameron's integrity as they're taken through a thrilling ride up and down the halls of Cameron's massive, carbon spewing, Malibu mega-mansion complex, ending with a terrifying visit to his collection of cars, SUVs and private jets.

MAD HATTER'S 3D TEA PARTY: An animatronic James Cameron tells you that 3D is the future of movie going, because it beats telling an original or interesting story.

If any of you have ideas for more rides, leave them in the comments so I can steal them and sell them to Disney for millions.

BWAH-HAH-HAH!

Hollywood Babble On & On #789: Is It Just Me Or Is This A Trend

If you're like me, without the genius intellect & devilishly handsome good looks, and you read a lot of articles and reports, and blog postings and other crap about independent movies, you might have spotted something that keeps popping up.

I'm talking about the shot of two people sitting uncomfortably together, usually on a couch, or bench.

Allow me to illustrate with a few examples:

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Bart Got A Room

Lars & The Real Girl
(While Lars seems fine with everything, the Real Girl is definitely uncomfortable)
&

Win, Win

I've seen it in other places about other indie films, but these were the easiest ones for me to find during the fit of paranoia, whimsy, and boredom that drove me to write this.

Now I must ask: Why are these photos the way they are?

Is it because indie films don't have much money, so they did the publicity stills in the cheapest and quickest way possible?

Is it because they all had the same still photographer and he's definitely got some sort of a fetish?

Or is it all supposed to be symbolic, a visual Da Vinci Code for indie films?

Think about it. We have actors as the center of attention, no distracting locations, special effects, or stunts, showing the world that they're "indie" by looking very non-glamorous, in what can only be a story about awkward people in the sort of awkward situation that you can only find in an independent movie.

Do you see it too? It just screams "indie film."

I'm not paranoid, I'm just paying attention.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

Hmmm... why are men in white coats with butterfly nets at my door?

Oh, crap, not again!

Hollywood Babble On & On #786: Seething Rage & Questions Answered

MY ADVICE FOR HOLLYWOOD

What's up with the Scott Bros.?

First Ridley signs on to do a follow up to Blade Runner, which will be done sometime after his prequel/whatever for Alien called Prometheus, and now, his brother Tony Scott has signed on to commit an act of cinematic blasphemy of unspeakable proportions.

He's agreed to direct a remake of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

Let's ask original Wild Bunch character Pike Bishop what he thinks...
Well said Mr. Bishop.

Now I know that it's impossible to get Hollywood to pay the slightest attention to new and original ideas, so I'm going to ask them to do something they'll probably find easier.

Take this stiff metal wire brush... careful, it's a little rusty...

Insert brush into asshole.

Scrape until you see blood.

Remove brush.

Rinse with iodine.

Repeat until you stop fucking things up with stupid remake ideas.

While I know it'll probably mean some work for Val Kilmer, can't you come up with something original, instead of pissing on Hollywood's cinematic legacy?

Now onto less enraged business...

A QUESTION!

Edited for length...

Nate Winchester asked...

So in a reply you said:

-Stephanie. In the old days an actor in R. Pattz's position would do a war movie or a Western next to someone like John Wayne. Nowadays they don't want sacrifice top billing, & there doesn't seem to be any John Wayne's available.

Now, I know you (and others - including me) have talked about the lack of "manliness" or "machismo" in Hollywood.

Yet I can't help but think that there's plenty of manly men... on TV.

And I've forgotten my point. I think I was asking why manliness seems to be stuck in a "ghetto" of TV and some genre films? It didn't always use to be thus, right?

It all boils down to speed.

The faster things like movies and TV are made, the more responsive and responsible they are to popular tastes. In TV your product is judged every week, and if you deliver what the audience wants, you can survive that judgment week after week.

A-List movies generally take a long time to make. Sometimes years are spent in development before a single frame of film is shot. In Hollywood, time=money. Since they're investing so much time, and henceforth money, into said projects, they think they need to insure it against failure in some way. One way they're certain of is to win over the youth market by giving them what they think they want, youthful looking people.

Now boyish does not look manly, even if they manage to grow some sort of patchy peach-fuzz, because they look young, immature, and inexperienced, even as they hit their 30s and 40s.

Time=Money also works in the field of TV and smaller budget genre films. Because money and time is tighter on these projects they usually go for actors who are cheaper than the ones in most A-List movies. These actors don't fit in the mold created by Hollywood's juvenile dementia, and are more affordable in both time and money. The irony is that audiences seem to respond to these actors better, because they are more suitable to such action/heroic roles than the usual A-List man-children.

At least that's my theory.

ANOTHER QUESTION?

Blast Hardcheese asked...

Here's a question for you, D.

The world economy is still mired in a slump, at best. Even taking into account the glamor factor, people can't keep throwing money down a rathole forever. And I can't think of anything that screams 'rathole' more than spending $250M on a stupid Western.

When is it going to end? When will the investors who pony up the money finally say 'this is ridiculous' and walk away from the business? Have they already started?

It has started to a degree, but movies are a tempting business. It's glamorous, sexy, high risk, with great potential for reward, traditionally recession proof (though that may change soon) and being a big wheel in it will get you laid at any number of film festivals.

However, the hedge funds and investment houses that finance a lot of Hollywood's movies are taking recent developments into consideration and following one or more of these three plans:

1. They're getting out of the movie business entirely, and moving onto something safer, like mortgage backed securities, or just playing the ponies.

2. They're subtly cracking the whip and forcing the studios they work with to be more responsive to them and their needs.

3. They're forging relationships with smaller/newer distributors and producers, and/or getting into the business of creating their own content, and/or means of distributing said content.

Hope that answers your questions.

Hollywood Babble On & On #726: Random Snark Attack

Not much business news for me to harp on at the moment, so I'm just going to dump a hell of a lot of snarkasm at people way richer than me!

Let the fun begin!

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger has separated from his wife Maria Shriver after 25 years. The cause for the split was him impregnating one of the family's maids.

But that's not the shocking part.

The part that has shocked Californians are reports that the maid in question was a legal US Citizen.

What pissed Maria Shriver off the most was that her husband was acting like a Kennedy.

In a related story Schwarzenegger's planned Terminator comeback project will now be retitled The Sperminator.

2. Seth MacFarlane has been contracted by Warner Bros. to do a reboot of the venerable cartoon The Flintstones. I can now present to you an excerpt from every script of the upcoming rebooted Flintstones.

FRED: Hey Barney, this reminds me of the time I... (Insert Random Visual Gag Here)

3. Actor/Raconteur/Race & Marital Relations Expert Mel Gibson got a standing ovation at a screening of The Beaver at the Cannes Film Festival.

Oh those wacky French and their love of Anti-Semites.

4. The Fox Network canceled The Chicago Code to make room for Stephen Spielberg's time-travel/dinosaur soap Terra Nova. That's technically incorrect. To be more accurate: Fox canceled The Chicago Code to make room for the show that will be on after Terra Nova gets canceled.


5. Recently Twitter suggested that I follow the US Secret Service, and I had to ask:

A) Why are they on Twitter, aren't they supposed to be secret?

B) Isn't it their job to follow me?

*KNOCK-KNOCK*

Who could that be?

Oh, it's the US Secret Service, and they have a gift for me. Sweet! It's an all expense paid vacation at a resort called Guantanamo Bay. Sounds like a sexy Club Med kinda place.

Why is my ticket one way?

What's with the tasers?

*ZZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPP*

AAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!

Hollywood Babble On & On #718: Random Snark Attack!

I'm still sick folks. But that doesn't mean you have to go without my unique brand of bloggy goodness. So instead of doing the sort of in depth analysis that I usually pretend to deliver, I'm just going to be all snarky and cranky, and hopefully these fevered ramblings will make some semblance of sense.

Let the snarkasm flow as freely as my nose.... that's too much information, isn't it?

1. Armie Hammer, most known for double-teaming The Social Network as the Winklevoss twins has been cast as The Lone Ranger, a role that did wonders for the acting career of Klinton Spilsbury. He joins Jonny Depp who has already been cast as the inaccurately named Ranger's partner Tonto.

All that's left is to find cast the love interest.

Ahem, ain't that just like homophobic Hollywood. They already have Tonto. Sheesh, don't you think a smart fellow like Tonto would hang around with a masked cracker who is always getting him into dangerous situations if they did not partake of the love that dares not speak its name?

Leave it to Hollywood to ruin a perfectly good relationship.

I wonder if the plot is going to be about the Ranger and Tonto finding an old Confederate officer trying to restart the Civil War. Because that would be so original and not seen before at all, except in the last Lone Ranger movie, the Wild Wild West movie, and the Jonah Hex movie, and we all remember what blazing box office successes they all were.

2. Teen haircut Justin Bieber is set to make a movie with Mark Wahlberg, the involvement of the Funky Bunch has yet to be determined.

Anyway, the film is to be about urban street level basketball players, because nobody embodies the concept of "street" more than Justin Bieber.

3. Venerable comic book hero Superman, tired of his every action being interpreted as acts of US foreign policy, is set to renounce his American citizenship in Action Comics #900. At least that's the official story. The real reason is that he got sick and tired of Donald Trump's demands to see his Kryptonian birth certificate.

Anyway, it's a moot point, since he is technically an illegal alien.

4. Producer Chuck Lorre has reportedly come up with a way to save hit sitcom Two & A Half Men without Charlie Sheen. In an exclusive scoop I have the details of the show's new format: Since the kid's getting too old to be the "Half Man" and Charlie Sheen is off his nut, the new show will start after the funeral of Sheen's character. At the reading of the character's will, Jon Cryer's character and his son learn that they now have to share the house with the Sheen character's last "true love," a mid-op transsexual named "Lola" played by Ron Perlman.

Let the hilarity ensue!

A Lot More Studio Notes for Literary Classics

If you're one of my regular reader then you know that I like to goof off on Twitter by making up bogus "Studio Notes For Literary Classics" and posting these neural drippings here each Friday.

The rules for creating them are simple, pick a prominent, and acclaimed novel, short story, poem, or play, then offer advice on "improving" it that completely misses the point of the source material.

In keeping with my Friday tradition, let's have some more....

To. D. Trumbo. Re. Jonny Got His Gun. Book will work better if lead character gets rebuilt as an ass kicking cyborg.

To. JD Salinger. Re. Catcher In The Rye. Don't get the dislike of phonies. Phonies need love too.

To. Z.N. Hurston. Re. Their Eyes Were Watching God. There could be money if their eyes were watching CSI: Miami.

To. T. Capote. Re. In Cold Blood. The grim story could hamper getting a toy line off the ground.

To. G.B. Shaw. Re. Man & Superman. No Superman, no Lex Luthor, no Lois Lane. I felt gypped.

To. E. Rostand. Re. Cyrano De Bergerac. No one will like a lead with a big nose. Can't he have a bad haircut instead?

To. D. Mamet. Re. Lakeboat. Would work a lot better if rewritten into a reboot of "Love Boat."

To. R. Bolt. Re. A Man For A Seasons. If you re-title this "A Man For Four Seasons" we can get a hotel promo deal.

To. C. Dickens. Re. Martin Chuzzlewit. Don't care for title character's name. What do you think about Steve Chuzzlewit?

To. J. Swift. Re. Gulliver's Travels. Lilliput isn't sexy enough. Think Rio during Carnivale!

To. H. Lee. Re. To Kill A Mockingbird. Needs new ending. How about Scout & Boo engineer a jailbreak with a shootout?

To. N. Mailer. Re. The Naked & The Dead. Needs a lot more naked and a lot less dead if we're going to sell this.

To. M. Mitchell. Re. Gone With The Wind. Civil War is passé. Drop the war, the slavery, & make it about models.

To. E. Ionesco. Re. Rhinoceros. Can't the people transform into bunnies or kittens? They're way cuter.

To. A. Miller. Re. Death of a Salesman. Just a couple of quibbles, needs some laughs & the title's a bit of a spoiler

To. B. Brecht. Re. 3 Penny Opera. Can "Mack the Knife" have that name because he's a chef? Foodies have deep pockets.

To. S. Beckett. Re. Krapp's Last Tape. Think about rewriting this as a musical vehicle for Justin Bieber.

To. E. Gibbon. Re. Roman Empire book. Read the book & found nothing about Ray Romano, just a lot of dead foreigners.

To. C. Bronte. Re. Jane Eyre. "Jane" is such a bland name. Try calling her "Derry" it sounds much hipper.

To. R. Heinlein. Re. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Was expecting infidelity & a dominatrix, but it's all space stuff.

To. A. Nin. Re. Delta of Venus. Um, it took me minute to realize that this isn't sci-fi. Might affect sale to Disney.

To. F. Hayek. Re. The Road To Serfdom. This book's about economics, not surfing. I was very disappointed.

To. WS Burroughs. Re. Naked Lunch. Love the book, but the drug stuff will ruin the deal for a Saturday morning cartoon.

To. HG Wells. Re. Dr. Moreau story. Instead of human animal hybrids can't it just turn out to be a furry convention?

To. R. Bradbury. Re. New book. If something "cuddly" this way comes we'll have a lot more merchandising deals.

Even More Studio Notes For Literary Classics

In what's becoming a semi-regular feature, I've concocted some more drippings from my brain pan in the form of the sort of notes that major studios or networks would give to literary classics. Enjoy.

To. CS Lewis. Re. Narnia books. Does Aslan have to be a lion? Penguins are cheaper & make cuter toys.

To. V. Woolf. Re. Orlando. Continuity error: You forgot your lead's a man in the middle of the book. Glad I caught it.

To. ER Burroughs. Re. Mars book. Got a great idea for a title: The Face On The Barsoom Floor. Great, isn't it?

To. J. Verne Re. Submarine book. Needs a new ending, how about they land in Miami?

To. D. Defoe. Re. Robinson Crusoe. Does Friday have to be a dude. There's a lot more story possibilities with a hot chick.

To. B. Pasternak. Re. Dr. Zhivago. Setting it in Russia puts a crimp on any sexy beach scenes. Reset it in California.

To. WP Blatty. Re. The Exorcist. Do they have to be priests? Personal trainers look better on the cover.

To. S. Jackson. Re. The Lottery. I don't see them selling many lottery tickets with such a lousy prize.

To. R. Matheson. Re. I Am Legend. The vampires don't sparkle. Real vampires sparkle.

To. HP Lovecraft. Re. New stuff. When you pitched doing a "dream cycle" I thought it was going to be about choppers.

To. J. Thompson. Re. The Killer Inside Me. If there was a dancer inside him, the story would be more uplifting.

To. J. Wambaugh. Re. The Choirboys. I'm confused, there's no singing in the entire book.

To. C. Woolrich. Re. The Bride Wore Black. Not to be a nit picker, but brides traditionally wear white.

To. J. Thompson. Re. The Grifters. Do they have to be con-artists? Would sell better if they were a teen boy band.

To. J. Heller. Re. Catch 22. I think we need to start this franchise at Catch 1 before jumping ahead to #22.

To. R. Condon. Re. Manchurian Candidate. Is Manchuria like Oz or Wonderland? Try someplace more realistic, like Malibu.

To. M. Puzo. Re. The Godfather. The whole book's a tad grim & violent. Think making it more like the "Fockers" movies.

To. P. Straub. Re. Ghost Story. We think the title is a little too "on the nose" so to speak.

To. EL Doctorow. Re. New novel. Ragtime music isn't exactly hip these days. Think retitling book "Emo."

To. FS Fitzgerald. Re. Flappers & Philosophers. Needs more flappers, fewer philosophers. Nobody likes philosophers.

To. B. Orczy. Re. Scarlet Pimpernel. First Wally Scott & now you! There are no damn pimps in this damn book!

To. Sir W. Scott. Re. Ivanhoe. The title's about a Russian pimp, but the book's about knights & stuff. Confusing.

To. A. Dumas Sr. Re. Three Musketeers. This book really needs a big ass airship chase.

To. R. Connell. Re. The Most Dangerous Game. I don't get the title, I didn't see any games, just a lotta hunting.

To. J. Steinbeck. Re. Grapes of Wrath. The Depression/Dust Bowl stuff is, well, depressing. Needs a funny talking dog.

To. H. Walpole. Re. Castle of Otranto. Italian castles are out this year. Think Malibu beach house.

To. B. Tarkington. Re. New novel. The Ambersons could be really "magnificent" if they were a family of acrobats.

To. D. Hammett. Re. New character. Is a "continental op" some sort of European gender reassignment surgery?

To. M. Cervantes. Re. Don Quixote. Continuity error: your lead is called "Don" when his name's Alonso & not Donald.

To. GG Marquez. Re. Love in the Time of Cholera. Cholera isn't exactly sexy, nymphomania sells better.

To. WS Maugham. Re. Of Human Bondage. There's no S&M in the book, we could be accused of false advertising.

To. A. Haley. Re. Autobiography of Malcolm X. We think the book will sell better with a hot blonde chick in the lead.

To. J. Joyce. Re. New novel. I think it would sell better with the title: "Portrait of a Sex Machine."

To. L. Wallace. Re. Ben-Hur. Love the story, but it's got a bit of a preachy streak. Needs a comical sidekick.

To. U. Sinclair. Re. The Jungle. The tone of the book is endangering our cross promo deal with Hormel. Lighten it up.

To. T. Wilder. Re. Our Town. This play would be sexier if your town was set in my 90210 zip code. Think about it.

To. PS Buck. Re. The Good Earth. Are you married to the idea of setting it in China? The Jersey shore is hot this year.

Hollywood Babble On & On #708: Please Elect Me Supreme Ruler

Okay people I think it's time for a change.

I think it's time for you to elect me the Supreme Ruler of the Planet. See, I already have my appropriately regal outfit picked out.

Because it's as your Supreme Ruler I will be a brutal but completely unfair tyrant who will finally bring a little common sense to the planet through savage oppression and creatively bat-shit punishments.

I will hereby ban and render punishable by catapult:

1. Any more movies about action bad-asses going to war against their own evil CIA masters for some inanely contrived reasons. It may have been clever at some point, but for the love of Cthulu, look at this ever growing list:

Hanna
Salt
The A-Team
Green Zone
The Losers
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Shooter
Mission: Impossible 1
The Long Kiss Goodnight
and many many more....

And that's not even a complete list. Face it, when it comes to spy movies, it looks like the Bond franchise is the only one allowed to use villains who don't work for the CIA. Get another goddamn plot, find another goddamn villain, or I'll catapult you into the Hollywood sign.

2. Stupid studio notes. The history of Hollywood is riddled with inane "notes" those inane neurological farts executives like to toss at projects claiming to improve them, but really only to justify their own existence. Under my tyranny, if you're an executive and your note doesn't include anything constructive, or helpful, it's onto the catapult, and straight into the LaBrea tar pits.

3. Bad remakes. I'm talking about the sort of logic that makes Universal drop $150+ million on redoing Land of the Lost, simply because it was an old piece of shit with a familiar name. Now if someone has a very specific vision that could breath new life to an old story, then consider it. But if it's all about name recognition and digital effects, it's a one way trip on the catapult into the empty shell of a closed Blockbuster outlet.

4. Celebrities being made into cartoon characters. Sorry Stan Lee and Arnold Schwarzenegger, your grand plan to have Arnold as The Governator wearing Booster Gold's second hand cast-offs fighting second hand Go-Bots to save the environment from somebody... or something... either way, it's straight to the catapult with you for a one way trip into that billboard in Hollywood advertising that wannabe actress who looks like an octogenarian drag queen pretending to be a half-melted Barbie doll.

5. Shitty reality shows. If all you have for a concept is putting a bunch of raging narcissistic assholes together to act like a bunch of raging narcissistic assholes, then get on the catapult and prepare to be launched off the Jersey Shore and straight into the Atlantic.

6. Shady studio accounting. From now on bills will be paid, in full, and on time. Contracts will be simplified, as well as any and all other obnoxious and destructive business practices. Anyone violating this edict will be immediately catapulted off the highest point in Beverly Hills, and into Rodeo Drive.

If you have any other suggestions for my coming tyrannical rule of the planet, feel free to leave them in the comments.

More Studio Notes For Classic Literature

Last week I used a slow news day to justify posting some of my Twitter silliness where I made up some "Studio Notes" for literary classics.

Well, I have some more, so enjoy.

To. J. Kerouac. Re. Dharma Bums. Folks find the word "Bums" offensive, change to "Dharma Homeless Males."

To. F. Kafka. Re. Prison colony story. Needs a new title because folks might misunderstand meaning of the word "penal."

To. O. Wilde. Re. New play. Not to nitpick, but salami is not spelled "Salome" & why was she named after lunch meat?

To. M. De Sade. Re. New novel. Putting "120 Days" in the title makes the book sound like a long pain in ass.

To. W. Shakespeare. Re. Merchant Of Venice. The Shylock character comes across as too "ethnic." Try renaming him Steve.

To. E. Hemingway. Re. Movable Feast. I don't get the title, there isn't a single food truck in the entire book.

To. R. Dahl. Re. New book. Does the fantastic Mr. Fox have to a fox? Ocelots are very in this season.

To. J. Steinbeck. Re. Of Mice & Men. Mice give me the willies. Try "Puppies." Also, ditch Lenny, he sounds kinda dim.

To. AC Clarke. Re. 2001 project. Book's a bit of a sausage fest. Instead of space can they "odyssey" to Miami Beach?

To. E. Hemingway. Re. Fishing novel. Does your protagonist have to be an "Old Man?" Think Jennifer Garner.

To. S. Crane. Re. Red Badge of Courage. War stories are passé. Think Adam Sandler/Kevin James buddy comedy vehicle.

To. AC Clarke. Re. Space Odyssey. 2001 is an awfully long way away, change it to 1983.

To. V. Woolf. Re. New novel. When the family goes to the titular lighthouse can they find smugglers? Think Hardy Boys.

To. E. Waugh. Re. Brideshead Revisited. Ditch religious/philosophical stuff & think wacky romantic misunderstandings.

To. A. Christie. Re. New character. Can you make Miss Marple young & hot? Oh wait, we're doing it!

To. G. Flaubert. Re. Madame Bovary. The ending's a bit of a downer. I think it needs a heist for an exciting finale!

Studio Notes For Classic Novels

Welcome to the show folks...

Ex-NBC chief Brandon Tartikoff allegedly said: "Some see the glass as half full, others see the glass as half empty. A TV executive sees the glass and asks- 'Does it have to be a glass?'"

Which got me thinking, and for shiggles I started a little game for my own amusement on my twitter. They're basically Studio Notes for Classic Literature, or #ClassicStudioNotes. Here are what I've done so far...

- To. L. Tolstoy. Re. War & Peace. The Russian names are hard to read. Think relocating story to California.

- To. HP Lovecraft. Re. Antarctic book. Do they have to be mountains of madness? Makes it sound unpleasant.

- To. G. Orwell. Re. 1984. Needs some laughs, we're bringing Bruce Vilanch to punch it up. 14 hours ago Favorite Reply Delete

- To. M. Twain. Re. Tom Sawyer. We're not wild about the dialect. Makes everybody sound like a bunch of rubes.

- To. E.A. Poe. Re. New story. We love the pendulum, but market research isn't wild about the pit.

- To. C. Dickens. Re. Great Expectations. What kind of a name is Pip? Can you call him Steve?

- To. A. Christie. Re. New novel. Does your detective character have to Belgian? Luxemburg's the next big thing.

- To. W. Shakespeare. Re. Romeo & Juliet. Great play, but needs a happy ending. Hiring Ed Devere to punch up the laughs.

- To. H. Melville. Re. Moby Dick. We find title character all over the place thematically. Needs scene where he talks.

- To. G. Orwell. Re. Animal Farm. Need you to sign off on line of plush toys. They're too cute.

- To. RL Stevenson. Re. New scary story. I don't get where this Mr. Hyde character comes from? Is he an out of towner?

- To. A. Burgess. Re. A Clockwork Orange. We think the main character would work better if he was nicer.

- To. R. Bradbury. Re. Fahrenheit 451. Does he have to burn books? Magazines make better product placement opportunities.

- To. S. Beckett. Re. New play. We think the Godot character needs to be a sexy surprise. Think Paris Hilton.

- To. E.A. Poe. Re. Latest poem. We think the raven character is repetitive and annoying. Maybe a wisecracking pigeon?

- To. R. Graves. Re. I, Claudius. Love book, but ancient Rome's isn't hot now. Consider relocating it to Jersey Shore

- To. E.A. Poe. Re. Cask of Amontillado. We think making it a cask of merlot will work better.

- To. AC Doyle. Re. Baskerville book. Does it have to be a hound? Cats are very in this year.

- To. Z. Grey. Re. Book title. Does the riders' sage have to be purple?

- To. W. Shakespeare. Re. Henry V. Does the audience have to see Henry IV to understand this?

- To. R. Chandler. Re. The Big Sleep. We think the title implies the story could be boring. Perhaps something snappier.

- To. Homer. Re. The Odyssey. All that wandering makes it come across like a travelogue.

- To. A. Christie. Re. Orient Express book. Does it have to take place on a train? Buses are cheaper.

- To. HG Wells. Re. Invisible Man. Does he have to be invisible?

- To. B. Stoker. Re. Dracula. Your title character's name sounds foreign. Can't you call him Steve?

- To. S. Pepys. Re. Diary of... Do you really need to go into such detail about every damn day?

- To. C. Dickens. Re. Tale of 2 Cities. Your book keeps going back & forth between the same places, it needs more cities

- To. J. Austen. Re. Pride & Prejudice. Title sounds like a legal tome. Try "Sex & Sexability" it's much catchier.

- To: J. Tolkien. Re: The Hobbit. I don't like a hero that's so short. Can't he be taller?

- To: HG Wells. Re: War of the Worlds. The Martians come across as too nasty. Can't one own a cute dog?

- To: D. Hammett. Re: Maltese Falcon. How can a statue be a falcon & a Maltese dog? Is it a breed of bird-dog?

- To: R.E. Howard. Re: Conan's catchphrase. Can you change "By Crom," to "By crumb?" Think Twinkies product placement.

- To: HP Lovecraft. Re: Monster's name. Cthulu sounds like a sound made while sneezing. Rename him Squidface Steve.

- To: AC Doyle. Re: Your detective's sidekick Watson. Does he have to be a Doctor? Can't he be a sass talking monkey?

- To: Jules Verne Re: The 20,000 leagues. Is it really possible for a boat to go that deep? Get back to me Julie.

Hollywood Babble On & On #679: Random Snarks...

Welcome to the show folks...

Slow day for the sort of business news I like to rant and rave about so I'm just going to snark like the bastard that I am.

1. The Late Show with David Letterman got a bit of egg on their face when a hoaxer posing as a "friend" of Lindsay Lohan booked her to appear on the show. In a related story, Lindsay Lohan has hired the hoaxer as her new agent, because that was the first real gig she's landed in a long time.

2. Whoopi Goldberg accused the New York Times of "sloppy journalism" for leaving her out of a story about African American Oscar winners. The New York Times was reportedly shocked to find out that somebody actually still reads the New York Times.

3. Comic and screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has been hired to rewrite the script for the troubled musical Spider-Man: Turn Of The Dark. In keeping with the show's tradition he broke his right leg, cracked three ribs, and ruptured a testicle in a freak accident with his laptop.

4. Seth McFarlane has been named Roastmaster for the Comedy Central roast of Donald Trump. Despite what you expect, jokes about Trump's hair will not be allowed, because TV is not allowed to broadcast cruelty to animals.

Okay, I'm snarked out.

Hollywood Babble On & On #652: Snark Attack!

Welcome to the show folks...

This being the interregnum between the love and fellowship of Christmas and the drunken revelry/debauchery of New Year's, it's slow for the sort of pop culture business news that I like to rant and rave about. So here are a few random snarks to entertain you until something interesting happens.

1. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is reportedly inking some lucrative book and movie deals. I wonder how much he's going to freak out when his galleys and script get leaked on the internet.

2. Hugh Hefner has gotten engaged, again, this time to a 24 year old Playboy Playmate. Now before you pass judgment, I have to say that this relationship is not about sex. It's because this young lady is Hef's perfect match. That's a beautiful thing, because he's really going to need that kidney.

Anyway, his proposal was so romantic. The moon was in the sky, soft music was playing, Hef looked deep into her eyes and said those three little words: "Who are you?"

Even at his age, it's pretty much guaranteed that Hefner will have her screaming during the honeymoon. Too bad it will be things like: "IS HE BREATHING? IS HE BREATHING?"

3. Actor Richard Chamberlain, who is openly gay, said that it's probably better for gay actors pursuing leading man roles should stay in the closet.

Personally, I think all actors should be in the closet, whether they are gay or straight.

Why?

Because I'm sick and tired of the constant coverage of celebrity's personal lives. Maybe a nice moratorium on such coverage will help stars get their own lives in order, and teach the world not to waste their time caring about who anyone is sleeping with.

Of course, if that happened I wouldn't be able to do these snarky filler posts.

A Furious D Exclusive

The other day I wrote about the dearth of Christmas movies this year. Well, I have to admit that I have a conflict of interest in that issue. You see, I made a Christmas movie, based on the work of a beloved author, and no studio or distributor would release it. Here's the poster:

Apparently those stuffed suits thought my blend of sex, savage violence, and Xmas cheer was just a few steps over some precious "line" of theirs.