- Variety reports that the film adaptation of Revolutionary Road is all systems go. But it comes with a price. Sam Mendes’ nepotism aside, Kate Winslet makes sense as April, but Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Wheeler? Good Christ, Richard Yates must be spinning in his grave. Yates’ fiction was written with great subtlety and, while Leo is perfectly acceptable in melodramatic roles, even accounting for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, I simply can’t see him conveying the careful behavioral nuances of being stalled at thirty.
- Even if an author is Jane Austen has been deemed “too unattractive.” (via Books, Inq.)
- Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing fiction.
- Bruce Lee’s one inch punch explained.
- “An idle man is a dangerous man.” (via Happy Antipodean)
- For copyright and intellectual property fiends, the UK’s Court of Appeals has offered an interesting ruling in relation to video games. General ideas and structures behind games and programs can be absconded, so long as the source code and graphics are not.
- Another roundup later.
And Print People Think Bloggers Have Conflicts of Interest
It’s a mess at the Los Angeles Times right now. A plan to have Hollywood producer Brian Grazer guest-edit the Sunday Current section has gone awry — in part because editor Andres Martinez was having an affair with Grazer’s publicist, Kelly Mullens. Martinez has since resigned in protest through a post on the LAT Opinion blog because the Grazer-edited section, an ill-conceived and desperate idea if ever there was one, had been canceled. Nikki Finke has more. That such a plan was seriously considered, with L.A. Times publisher David Hiller apparently in the know about the Martinez-Mullens affair, is an astonishing conflict of interest. Oh well, at least Martinez had bitter words to say about the planned merger of the Opinion section and the LATBR. Even so, whatever Martinez’s talents or convictions, this is embarrassing for all parties.
I Saw This Coming
Editor and Publisher: “The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama. Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama’s presidential campaign.”
Orson Welles: The O.G. Podcaster
A good deal of Orson Welles’ radio work is online, including his dramatizations of Les Miserables and The Pickwick Papers, which I’ve long been curious about. (via 2 Blowhards)
Note to Actors: Avoid David O. Russell At All Costs
More on Russell’s Antics:
New York Times: Russell puts Christopher Nolan into a headlock, shrieking at Dustin Hoffman, and more.
YouTube: Lily Tomlin lets loose choice words at David O. Russell, with Hoffman trying to smooth things over.