By way of Quiddity, the cast of Hitchhiker’s Guide gets rounded out, and I like what I’m hearing. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Mos Def will be Ford Prefect (good race-neutral casting, although I hope he’s still British), Zooey Deschanel plays Trillian (how’d her agent ever manage to stop the Knightley Behemoth? Keira’s got more momentum these days than Kerry) and Sam Rockwell is Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the universe (That’s classic…but no word yet on how or if they’re casting his second head.) This should be fun.
Category: Authors
Sigh.
More news on the Hitchhiker’s front: Apparently Warwick (Willow) Davis will be playing Marvin the Paranoid Android, and this Marvin prototype suit by Jim Henson’s workshop leaks online. I really like this look for Marv, not that he really cares one way or another what a pea-brained humanoid like me finds appealing, mind you.
6×7.
The forthcoming Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film gets its Arthur Dent, and it’s apparently this fellow: Martin Freeman, of Love Actually and The Office, neither of which I’ve seen. Well, he looks like an ordinary bloke, which is half the battle. (The other half is straight-man timing.) Apparently, Bill Nighy (also of Love Actually, but I only know him as the Big Bad in the very lame Underworld) is playing Slartibartfast, and I also think that’s pretty good casting. Now for Ford Prefect…Steve Coogan? Keira Knightley as Trillian? Andy Serkis as Zaphod Beeblebrox’s second head?
Now what?
With the Lord of the Rings sadly, inevitably drawing to its conclusion, the Post delves into His Dark Materials. Hopefully, the powers-that-be will have the sense to get Brett Ratner the hell away from this project.
Watercolor on Vinyl.
By way of Scrubbles, the Greatest Album Covers that never were, including Kurt Vonnegut’s Phish cover.
White Bear Down.
Will Ridley Scott direct His Dark Materials? Monty Python‘s Terry Jones seems to think so. Hmmm, I dunno…I suppose a Scott Materials might be interesting, but it might also be Legend. Update: Debunked.
Hari and the Mule.
On the heels of the Rings trilogy, Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation gets the green light, with Jeff Vintar writing (with I, Robot, this will be his second Asimov project) and Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) directing. I’m down, although I’d think much of the first book will be particularly hard to translate into cinema.
Rusted Root.
Quicksilver, the first tome in Neal Stephenson‘s new trilogy, has just been released to decent reviews. I may just have to take a break from orals reading and procure a copy…fortunately, Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle seems to be set in Colonial America, so I might even be able to rationalize such a digression.
Bring your towel.
After years in development Hell, complicated by the death of Douglas Adams, the film version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy finally gets a thumbs up. Let’s hope they do it right.
Schadenfreudenberger.
Upon the publication of Lucky Girls, author-to-be Curtis Sittenfeld evaluates the Nell Freudenberger backlash for Salon. I knew Nell decently well in college and, although I haven’t read her full book yet (I just ordered it, and expect to attend the reading tonight), I suspect Sittenfeld is right in noting (however snarkily) that the literary grousing in certain circles has more to do with frightful envy than with Nell’s ostensible luck. Whether or not she fell into good fortune with the New Yorker story, it’s pretty clear to all who meet her that Nell is not only smart and talented but also remarkably down-to-earth, and I very sincerely doubt she would have escaped notice for long. In sum, she earned her big break, and most of those who’d think otherwise are just trafficking in sour grapes.
Update: The Complete Review, cited in the Sittenfeld piece (and this entry) as backlash central (and an otherwise compelling source of literary info, as far as I can tell), responds to the Freudenberger furor, in part by complaining about my “typically American sense of entitlement.” (Continentals, it seems, appreciate much better the formative value of laboring away in penury and obscurity for years – no silver platters for them!) I don’t particularly want to get in a flame war with another site about something as unoffending as Nell’s success — why begrudge her this moment? Nevertheless, two points:
1) The Saloon claims they must continue to harp on Freudenberger because the hits and search-requests demand it, which anyone who keeps a weblog knows is disingenuous. If site content was dictated by search requests, I’d be posting essays on “Sex Machines” and “WTC Ghosts” every week.
2) I think the Saloon does clarify their position to where there’s an inkling of point to be had: “The big issue we’ve had, from the first, with Freudenberger, and the reason we’ve harped on her case so is that she got a fat contract (two, actually, one from Ecco/HarperCollins and one from Picador UK) without having written practically anything.” The doling out of literary contracts is clearly an important state-of-the-industry issue that deserves coverage and note by journals like the Saloon. But, again, arguing that Nell isn’t receiving undue condemnation from the Saloon and other outlets because she’s “pretty and went to Harvard” is also disingenuous. After all, I don’t see the Saloon publishing fake dialogues entitled, “Whoa Jon Foer!,” and critiquing his back-of-the-book sartorial sense. (Full Disclosure: Jon’s brother Frank is a friend and former colleague of mine, and I personally wouldn’t hold Foer’s success against him either – there’s that sense of entitlement again.) In sum, the Saloon can argue good intentions all the live-long day, but it’s pretty clear from the levels of snark exhibited in their Freudenberger posts that the site’s opprobium for her reflects less wholesome motives than dispassionate, just-the-facts-ma’am coverage of the literary scene. Schadenfreudenberger, perhaps?