Hollywood Reporter: “And Ridley Scott, who has been attached as a producer on ‘Monopoly’ and has been mentioned as a possible director, is now officially attached to helm the project, with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic ‘Blade Runner.’”
EXT. BOARDWALK – NIGHT
Plumes of gratuitous atmospheric smoke drift across the boardwalk. Lots of blue light. The steely blue that Ridley always likes. Needlessly quick cutting from Pietro.
Two gigantic white dice TUMBLE to us from the distance, VIOLENTLY DEMOLISHING all bright red houses in its path! ATLANTIC CITY RESIDENTS run furiously towards us. Many are destroyed by the enormous dice. Much blood.
A LOUD ENGINE! CAR roars into the Boardwalk.
Rampant BARKING. A LARGE HAND materializes from above, placing DAWG next to the Car.
Car whips out his Jericho 941 pistol and points it at Dawg.
Car shoots Dawg four times with his Jericho 941.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (