I've got this backlog of posts that I've been meaning to link to, and they're starting to clutter up my bloglines folder, since I use the "keep as new" function to prevent myself from forgetting about them. Well, time for some frivolous linking to good stuff. I'm unifying these highlight posts around an Arts & Entertainment theme.
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Some of you will recall my love for P.D. James mystery stories? Well, her lone science fiction work, Children of Men, doesn't feature my favorite protagonist, Adam Dalgliesh, but it is being made into a major motion picture. Gene Edward Veith, formerly the Culture editor for WORLD magazine, notes:In [Children of Men], the human race becomes infertile. No more children can be conceived or born. The world is just waiting to die out. The novel, which also takes on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, is a pro-life classic. And now it is being made into a movie, by a top-flight director and with a top-flight cast...
View the trailer here. Optimistically speaking, can an Adam Dalgliesh film be far behind?
While I'm on the topic of promising movies, I should also note that my ambitions to write a screen play for the medieval epic, Beowulf, have been crushed. The American release, starring Anthony Hopkins, is due in 2007. I can only hope this attempt will be a horrible flop...but Hopkins hasn't signed on for too many of those. Darn.
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Awhile ago I was impressed by James Harleman's review of the film Fight Club, and commented on the logical nihilism that is an outworking of the materialistic (atheistic) worldview. Since then the topic has been developed further, first by Lynn, who continued the discussion, in effect, and then by Tim, who commented on the teen fight clubs that are springing up around the nation. (Surprise! apparently ideas have consequences.)
The original Fight Club post is a thing of the past, but James Harleman proved he's not a one-trick-pony with his more recent post on the enduring impact of the original Man in Black, Johnny Cash:I hope people don't bob their heads to the plucky guitar strings of American V and only hear nostalgia. It's my fervent hope that Cash's technological ghost might prick some ears and be a tool the Holy Spirit uses to open some eyes, while Saint Johnny rests with Jesus and is finally the Man in White. I can only imagine that when he opened his new eyes to hear "Well done, good and faithful servant" his autonomic and sheepish response was "Hello. I'm Johnny Cash."
Harleman blends cultural savvy with to-the-point takes. I really like this guy, and encourage you to take in the whole post.
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OK, final link. No A&E collection would be complete without some C.S. Lewis, and Iambic has a beautiful take on Lewis's myth, Till We Have Faces. Her observations are profound, and if you 1) enjoy Lewis or 2) have heard of this book, you'll really enjoy her reflections.
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All right: having tossed out superlative A&E posts like confetti, I'm out.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Still More Hot Links: A&E Edition
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4 comments:
Thanks again...
Linked to you at Bloggin' Outloud. Lyn
I think you can still write a jolly good screenplay for Beowulf. Or maybe I'll beat you to it? One of my fantasy careers, which will probably have to wait for another life, involves turning all the great, neglected, visually compelling classics into movies. What would be on your list? Here's mine:
1. Dante's Divine Comedy
2. Milton's Paradise Lost
3. Lewis's The Great Divorce
4. Lewis's Space Trilogy
5. Virgil's Aenied (although I'd need to learn how to spell it first)
6. Homer, Iliad & Odyssey
7. Another Narnia take; why not?
8. Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. OK, maybe not as naturally visually compelling, but it could be done.
~ Admonit
My imagination is very restless after that question, Iambic. Let's see...
I'd have to steal a couple from your list:
1) Lewis's The Great Divorce (written in somewhat spooky M. Night Shyamalan style)
2) The Illiad (with bloodletting that would put The Gladiator to shame)
And beyond those:
3) Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow (CGI would bring the talking animals to life)
4) George MacDonald's Phantastes (piercing beauty meets heroic action)
5) P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh series (the psychological realism, suspense-thriller plots and understated dialogue would make each of the dozen sequels welcome ;)
6) Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov (I'm afraid the dailogue would suffer, but I'd have to try)
7) Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (the existing versions are awful, and the story is full of incredibly compelling characters, haunting drama, and shocking jump scenes)
I'll leave it at that for now. Add another great question to your list of contributions to this blog.
I must say, you have been pointing me to all sorts of interesting material.
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