"Cine–Excess VI was entitled 'Transglobal Excess: The Art and Atrocity of Cult Adaptation' and took place at the Odeon Covent Garden and the Italian Cultural Institute, London between the 24–26th May 2012. The event focused on global adaptations of cult narratives, genres, themes and icons across a broad range of media and fiction formats. From pulp novels into pulp horror films and recent big budget blockbuster remakes of marginal midnight movies, to nationally defined interpretations of the pre–established extreme, the cult image remains a fascinating index of adaptation, whose wide array of remakes, renditions and realisations frequently reveals fascinating issues of nation and narrative, as well cultural, regional and historical distinction."
"Fiction – with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions – offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people's thoughts and feelings.
The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real–life social encounters."
(Annie Murphy Paul, 17 March 2012, NYTimes.com)
"Students of screenwriting can have a field day in the height of awards season, when many studios post pdfs of screenplays online as part of their marketing for Oscar and guild award consideration.
Not every studio posts scripts online (cough Warner Bros. Paramount cough), and there are some films for which scripts appear either unavailable ('Midnight in Paris') or – given the film's editing process towards the finished product – are perhaps besides the point ('The Tree of Life')."
(David Morgan, 17 January 2012, Celebrity Circuit – CBS News)
"It was eons before I discovered that 'lauded' was a good thing.
Anyway, I'm more like that slack–assed buddy who doesn't return your phone calls, has owed you twenty bucks for the last 14 years and flirts with your wife when it comes to updating the site at times. For that I feel shame. Shame, I feel. But hey, it's 2010 now, and I'm a changed man. Besides, don't I get some slack since I've had this site up since 1995? Val Kilmer used to be Batman back then! And Mr. Showbiz left you high and dry, but your friend Drew, he sticks with you while simultaneously referring to himself in the third person!"
(Drew, 2010)
[Note that this site includes a large number of inelegant ads.]