Fantasmo brings The Last Man on Earth and House of Wax to the library tonight.

So the trailer for Spike Jonze’ version of Where The Wild Things Are looks amazing, doesn’t it?

You’re damn right. He is Shaft.

As I just told George, my point in the short article “Novel Ideas” was that literature is not removed from those who reject the genre.  But I never meant to suggest that Hollywood truly loves books.  Hollywood loves books like the wife-beater loves his family: he might think he does, but ego and insecurity have [...]

You make-it-outers better make it out to something. And you I-didn’t-make-it-outers, please compensate for your no-shows on Halloween and masquerade as a make-it-outer tonight and, again, make it out to something.

As I just told George, my point in the short post “Novel Ideas” was that literature is not removed from those who reject the genre.  But I never meant to suggest that Hollywood truly loves books.  Hollywood loves books like the wife-beater loves his family: he might think he does, but ego and insecurity have [...]

So, yeah, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences: if you love books so damn much, why do you bother making movies?

The power here is in an accumulation of honestly earned emotions and real, believable situations. By the climax, which superficially follows the “big fight” sports movie cliche but completely sells it as real, one can’t help but feel heartbroken for Rourke.