News Junkie

Patty here…

Hello. My name is Patty and I’m a news junkie. I'm happiest on those days when the news causes me to think, shake my head in amazement, or laugh out loud. This past Friday was a banner day.

THE OTHER MR. GORE

In Friday’s Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan wrote a review of Mel Gibson’s movie “Apocalypto.” I’d heard that the film was violent, but I was planning to see it anyway for research purposes. Maya history and culture play a part in my fourth book, which I’m writing now.



But after reading the review I’m having second thoughts. Turan says Gibson’s “well-established penchant for depictions of stupendous amounts of violence” overshadowed all of the good things he had to say about the film. I’m no wuss. I don’t mind watching one or two severed heads rolling down the side of a pyramid, but in books or in movies I draw the line at “stupendous” violence.

Turan concludes:

Gibson unblushingly intends “Apocalypto” as a clarion call warning modern man to watch has step or risk following the Mayas into decline and near-extinction. To this end he opens the story with a famous quote from historian Will Durant about the fall of Rome: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

This is all well and good, but the reality of “Apocalypto” is that this film is in fact Exhibit A of the rot from within that Gilson is worried about. If our society is in moral peril, the amount of stomach-turning violence that we think is just fine to put on screen is by any sane measure a major aspect of that decline. Mel, no one in your entourage is going to tell you this, but you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. A big part.

One of the things I admire about Turan is he never leaves you wondering where he stands on the issues.

DON’T GIVE HIM REWRITE

Also on the front page of the Friday Times in Column One by Glenn Buntino was yet another tale of a novelist being screwed by Hollywood or vise versa depending on whose lawyer you believe. The article profiles the suits and counter suits between writer Clive Cussler and Philip Anschutz, the Denver industrialist-turned-movie-maker over “Sahara,” one of Cussler’s books made into a film staring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz.

I suppose if the picture had been a success we might not be reading about their spat on the front page of the Times. But by most accounts it was a stinker.

Problems began from the get-go when Mr. Anschutz gave Cussler unprecedented control over the final screenplay in order to cement a deal to establish a franchise using Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels. The relationship went downhill from there, which should have come as no surprise to Cussler. Apparently, the author’s distrust of Hollywood began in 1980 with the film adaptation of his third Dirk Pitt novel, “Raise the Titanic.” In a classic case of repetition compulsion, Cussler went back to Hollywood for more abuse. In this latest brouhaha, Cussler accuses Anchutz’s company, Crusader Entertainment, of deceit.

Countering, Anschutz accuses the author of blackmail, failing to understand what makes a hit movie script, and the ultimate peccadillo: lying about the number of books he’s sold (Egads! Who would DO such a thing?)

Charges of anti-Semitism, trickery, and just plain fiscal stupidity are flying fast and furious. During the fray, Cussler is reputed to have lobbed various epithets to vent his rage, “hacks” being one of the few printable ones. A jury trial is scheduled for next month in Los Angeles. It’s almost worth tackling the hellish downtown traffic to sit in on the fireworks.

We never hear much about the Book-to-Screenplay marriages that work. But even knowing that some turn messy, most authors continue to court Hollywood’s attention. And no wonder. Mr. Cussler’s paycheck for the deal? Ten MILLION dollars per book.

FLATULENCE LEADS TO GROUNDING OF PLANE

And finally, in the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up department, this was recently posted on AOL News.

Nashville, Tenn. 12/05/06. An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches…All 99 passengers and five crewmembers were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

It took the FBI to get a woman passenger to admit that she lit a match to conceal a certain “body odor” caused by “an unspecified medical condition.” The woman was not identified or charged, but she wasn’t allowed back on the plane, either. Whew!

News. You gotta love it.

Happy Monday!