"Video Killed the Radio Star"?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtHEmVjVw8]
Well, we've been talking for years about how the Internet, film, and television are hacking away at the already-fragile bindings of the book, and yet a quick glance at the new season of film, it seems that some of the best visual storytellers are still taking their inspiration from books. Perhaps this is as it's always been--good films require good stories. Part of the mythology of writing a great story for film is that you don't actually have to be a good writer on the sentence level (see The History of Violence's Josh Olson's hilarious demolition of that myth right here), but I was struck by the sheer number of literary masters whose work will be gracing cinemas in the next several months:
[caption id="attachment_758" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="McCarthy's classic soon to hit the big screen."]
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Cormac McCarthy's The Road
I don't know anyone who read this book who wasn't completely absorbed by it, haunted, skittish, depressed, and, finally, exultant at reading such a good book. It'll quickly skyrocket to the top of your favorite post-apocalyptic reads.
J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace
Another one of those books that I read so long ago that it would probably be new to me if I read it again: but I do remember this. It kicked arse.
Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are
Need I even say it? Let the wild rumpus start!
In the Lighthouse universe, we've heard recent news that our own Nick Arvin's next novel, The Reconstructionist, has sold to Fox Entertainment for a dramatic TV series, and workshopper and board member Carleen Brice's novel Orange Mint & Honey is to be made into a movie on Lifetime Movie Network. So it's confirmed: video is not killing the writing star. Not yet, anyway.
There are a number of other examples, dear reader (I know you're out there--I saw you that one time), so do edify the rest of us.
