Pop Bunker » Books

Starring Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher?

Dale Cooper — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:45:36 +0000

Jumping Zeus H. Jove. For years I have been looking forward to the big screen adaptation of Lee Child’s badass wrecking ball sleuth Jack Reacher. Child’s long running adventures with Reacher is the only pulp series I follow. I love the character. The Bunker has been trying to stay up to date on the news surrounding Child’s first optioned novel, One Shot, in one post, but this news is too big (and too awful) for it to be buried as an update.

Apparently Tom Cruise, a producer on One Shot, is going to play Child’s ex-military do-good drifter Jack Reacher. There is so much wrong in that sentence that I am surprised it does not defeat long standing paradoxes and disprove the Theory of Relativity.

Why? Here is the physical description of Reacher from LeeChild.com:

Name: Jack Reacher (no middle name)
Born: October 29th
Measurements: 6’5″, 220-250 lbs., 50″ chest
Hair: Dirty-blond
Eyes: Ice blue
Clothing: 3XLT coat, 95 cm. pants’ inseam

Yeah, you know who that sounds a lot like? Almost anyone other than Tom Fucking Cruise. Not only is Cruise batshit crazy (not that it matters in acting), but he is vertically challenged (5’7″ – half a foot shorter than me), and delivers about as much machismo as vegan almond cheese.

It’s not like Reacher’s size is an afterthought. His size and physical power permeates the action in Child’s books. Reacher’s massive build is a bit of a red herring because it’s his brains and deductive reasoning (like a hulking Sherlock Holmes) that propels each of the novels. But size is always part of the subtext. Here are excerpts from text available on LeeChild.com:

The four guys were each a useful size. The shortest was probably an inch under six feet and the lightest was maybe an ounce over two hundred pounds. They all had walnut knuckles and thick wrists and knotted forearms….

…The guy standing at the head of the table was the biggest of the four, by maybe an inch and ten pounds. He said, “You’re not going to eat at all…”

“…We don’t like strangers.”

“Me either,” Reacher said. “But I need to eat somewhere. Otherwise I’ll get all wasted and skinny like you four.”

“Funny man.”

“Just calling it like it is,” Reacher said. He put his forearms on the table. He had thirty pounds and three inches on the big guy, and more than that on the other three. And he was willing to bet he had a little more experience and a little less inhibition than any one of them. Or than all of them put together. But ultimately, if it came to it, it was going to be his two hundred and fifty pounds against their cumulative nine hundred. Not great odds. But Reacher hated turning back.

Does that scene evoke a Tom Cruise moment from your psyche? I guess he could jump up and down and pummel the baddies to death. Like an enraged horse.

Thoughts?

Source: HitFixSimilar Posts:

The Dark Tower Movie Collapses (or maybe not)

Dale Cooper — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:53:02 +0000

[Update] 06/03/11 – Various reports are suggesting that production on the Dark Tower adaptations have been delayed, but not put on hold. In fact, it looks like the series of films and television shows are to move ahead more or less as planned, but with a reduced budget.

According to Hollywood Reporter:

The project did hit budgetary snags and the fall start date was shelved. But Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman have regrouped to try to bring the budget down.

Insiders say the end result is that Goldsman is now rewriting the script to reflect a lower price point. No start date has been given although it will certainly not be the fall.

-Editor

According to Deadline, there are serious problems brewing with the Ron Howard directed movies and television mini-series of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

from the article:

Universal Pictures has put pre-production staff on hiatus as they discuss ways to bring down the budget of the ambitious adaptation of the Stephen King novel series The Dark Tower. Talks are ongoing between studio brass, director Ron Howard and his Imagine Entertainment, and writer/producer Akiva Goldsman about how they will proceed…

One thing for sure, even though staffers have been told there’s a chance they will return, the plan to start production in September is scratched…

Word that Universal would put the project in turnaround began circulating last night, but both the studio and Imagine denied it.

Be sure to check out the full article here.

This is certainly bad news for what is an almost unbelievably ambitious project. Response was generally favorable for both the format of the installments as well as the news that Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) is set to star as the Gunslinger Roland.

What do you think? Is this a likely death knell for the books to film adaption which has been plagued with resets? Or did you expect some budget concerns and are unsurprised that there are delays?Similar Posts:

Out of Print Lit Nerd T-Shirts

Dale Cooper — Mon, 02 May 2011 02:20:16 +0000

I’m not sure if they would clash with D&D cologne as I click-shop for my summer gear, but outofprintclothing.com has badass vintage looking t-shirts inspired by literary classics. With styles ranging from Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Mid-Century Modern to Psychedelic, this t-shirt shop has something to appeal to any t-shirt hunter and classic fiction lover:

I would buy nearly any of the shirts available on the site. Great looking gear. Adult prices start at $28. There are kid options and accessories for sale as well.

OutOfPrintClothing.comSimilar Posts:

Preview & Review – Wookiee the Chew: The House at Chew Corner (Audiobook) by James Hance

Baroness Heather — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:46:06 +0000

By now, you almost definitely know about James Hance and his eyeball-meltingly cute Star Wars/Winnie the Pooh tribute Wookiee the Chew: the House at Chew Corner. If not, you’re in for a real treat! Existing fans and newbies alike will not be able to help giggling aloud (and possibly jumping up and down and clapping) when you listen to this sample from the forthcoming audio edition, read for you by none other than our good friend Spike Nesmith! Music is provided by The Vitrolium Republic.

Wookiee the Chew

I’ve been fortunate enough to listen to a rough cut of the entire book, and let me tell ya, I’m glad I skipped dessert! It really is that sweet. Hance, along with co-writer Max Michaels, has reached deep into this great piñata full of geeky goodness and flung the best prizes around a landscape of cherished childhood daydreams. Spike provides the best imaginable narration, lending an overstuffed-teacherly intonation that makes listeners feel even more like they’re once more enjoying story time, with the promise of graham crackers and milk (blue, of course – this is a Star Wars parody!) any minute now. He also does a ridiculously cute Droidlet “peep!” The music is precisely what it should be, too. It’s fun and carries the story aloft without getting in the way.

Aside from my own pure enjoyment as an adult, I can appreciate this as an excellent way to introduce younglings to Star Wars without exposing them to the violence and scary bits that may be just a bit too PG-13. The next time I find myself driving with kids in the car, this will be playing on the stereo for sure.

Stay tuned to Pop Bunker for an announcement when the audiobook goes on sale so you, too can exist for a few minutes inside a bubble of pure, innocent joy.

If you want to do Jim another solid, check out HUGS for Maddy, a charitable cause to help his little girl get some medical attention she needs, and donate and pass word along as you’re able.

Follow James on Twitter @JimJeroo, and Spike @Spikester.

Image copyright James Hance, used with permission.Similar Posts:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kindle

Dale Cooper — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:00:50 +0000

Once, not long ago, the book business was my family business. In a series of stores stretching over seven years, I owned, managed, or worked in the business and made a (surprisingly good) living. It was a used book business with an inventory approaching 300,000 combined online, warehouse, and in-store. Books are a way of life with me. I love the smell; the new, old, or slightly stale smell that is a book’s personality, history and character.

When e-books first started making their rounds, I was unimpressed. You could only print them (who wants to do that with a four page article, let a lone an entire book?), read them on your home PC or on your laptop. Those options are not attractive to me for various reasons, but as far as reading on the computer goes, one of the things I enjoy most about reading is that I am disconnected from my computer for that time. I can relax and read as intently or as passively I want – the only distraction being when my mind takes off and tumbles blindly like a leaf in steady breeze, either inspired by the text I am reading or because I am finally free from the overly active stimuli incumbent to everything “on line.”

The first round of e-readers came and went and still I was unmoved. Then the biggest bookstore in the world aggressively launched what seemed like an incongruent venture: Amazon’s Kindle. Instead of dismissive eye-rolling, the Kindle inspired hatred in me that is usually reserved for evil step-mothers or school bullies. Just the name and its possible implications: Kindle. Like kindling. Like 451 [Degrees] Fahrenheit. First you get rid of the printed word and lure people into trusting such a dangerous idea as the paperless archiving of humankind’s literary history. Then the wireless enabled device which can make unauthorized changes to the user’s Kindle memory can start tweaking a little here and there. If it was the design, Kindle would be a wonderfully nefarious way to re-write history a few words at a time spread by wireless hotspots all over the world. I was dead set against it, its implication, its $400 price tag during its 2007 debut – in short, I hated it without having so much as seen one.

Years went by and in my own insular world Kindle never caught on. Of all of my friends (most inclined to read as much as I) only one had a Kindle. He touted it and professed love for it, but never tried to convert me. I assumed he was assimilated by Amazonian pod people and never really thought about it.

Obviously, by the title of this piece, you know that I have now converted to the Kindle. It started when many authors that I enjoy reading began to release some of their work in e-book and mobipocket format for a reduced price or even free. And then other authors would release e-book only special material. And then still other less well known authors began to turn to e-book as a cheap way to publish and distribute while still getting their work out in a professional format. Of course I could still get these stories, books, and essays, but I would have to read them on my computer and I just can’t do that and actually read what I am reading.

A few months ago Amazon dropped the Kindle 3 price to under $150. That planted the seed. Later I was shopping the Amazon Marketplace hoping to score a few old favorites that have been left behind after various moves and lifestyle changes. As I was browsing books by Dickens, Poe, Yeats, Conan Doyle, etc. – all old friends that I can read through or enjoy for a day or a passage at a time – I noticed that many collections and books are available at Amazon for the Kindle at no cost, or, maybe with a few added indexing features, 99 cents. I checked my cart and even while sticking to used books that were often under one dollar, the total with shipping for the eight or nine books that I had already added was over $50. That got me thinking even harder so I started browsing the free ebook collections* on Amazon. This, dear reader, was like Facebook for me. All my old friends were there; from elementary school through junior high; from my young and proud and dumb Ayn Rand days to my Russian Lit obsessed twenties. Dickens, Collins, Poe, Chekov, Dunsany, Lovecraft, Yeats, Maugham, Fitzgerald, Dumas: All present. All ready to gift me with their words once again. All free (or a slight cost for advanced formatting).

*I do know that there are several sites with an incomprehensible about of public domain e-books. Archive.org alone has over 2.5 million texts and books which more or less overlap with a lot that on Amazon’s site. The difference is Amazon’s superior search-ability and organization as well with Amazon’s store often less is more; less books, but more relevant results.

Sold.

I normally carry a backpack wherever I go. It’s a good habit because I can pop into a hotspot or stretch under a tree at any time and have my laptop and a selection of books to whittle away the day. But my book selection was limited. I can only carry so much and even less if I am packing a lunch or change of clothes as well. So, though I can always take my laptop, I could rarely take more than two or three books at a time. That is plenty of books, of course, but my reading interests drift and meander. I like to read novels straight through, but I also like to pick up a favorite work and read a few pages and maybe eventually re-read the entire thing in a few months or a year. Or maybe never finish it again, but still I re-visit. It is for that reason I have fallen in love with the Kindle. The Kindle is as big as a paperback book but much more thin, weighs less, and has a three gig internal hard drive. Three gigs is a stupefying amount of text characters which translates into an amazing amount of books. As of this writing I have around 100 books on my Kindle and when I hook it up to my computer and open the drive, it still reads at nearly 100% free space. With 100 books! It would take ten of my backpacks to haul around 100 printed books and that’s not terribly convenient.

I held out for a long time. I hated the Kindle. I feared it. I planned the plot of a techo thriller in my head that would abolish the Kindle from planet Earth. But I was wrong. I love it. I do miss the character bestowed on ownership from paper books, but those lovingly creased covers and hot sauce fingerprints are just houses for the words. My friends live inside.

All images are used under the Creative Commons license and are credited to kodomut on flickr.

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[Preview] A Dance With Dragons

Lithera — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:28:41 +0000

Hold me. I feel a little faint.

This is like the Duke Nukem Forever of fantasy novels and much like playing that game at PAX last year, some part of me will not believe this news until I have the novel in my hands. It is true, however, that George R. R. Martin has announced that there is a real, really, real live publication date for A Dance With Dragons.

For those of you who are unaware of the saga involved in this, A Dance With Dragons is the fifth book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The first book was released in 1996. This book was going to originally be the fourth novel but it turned out to be too long to be one novel, so it was split into to pieces. Book four (A Feast for Crows) came out in 2005. There have been several release dates set and missed for this book. In fact, the fan reaction to this whole situation was so intense, that is caused Neil Gaiman to make a post about fan entitlement and the general sense that when these things take more time than ‘expected’ fans have a ‘right’ to be angry. Give it a read. (You have to scroll down to the e-mail from a fan to see where it begins.)

Still. There is a date. This one is from the author himself, even though he says the book ‘isn’t finished yet’. Here’s hoping this one sticks.Similar Posts:

[Book] New Release: The Wise Man’s Fear

Dale Cooper — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:59:58 +0000

Brilliant fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss has finally released The Wise Man’s Fear | The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day 2. It hit the shelves today and thanks to my Amazon Prime membership, it was on my doorstep at 3PM ET.

Beautiful. Rothfuss recently gained notoriety for an open letter to Nathan Fillion that he wrote on his blog stating that he would help Fillion buy the rights to Firefly. We covered it on The Bunker HERE.

All of that aside, Rothfuss was not kidding when in an earlier blog post he mentioned working with a manuscript that was feet think. The final version ends something like this:

993 pages? Yes please. Trust me that the print in the book is not blurry.

This will finally inspire me to write my review of the first book of the series, The Name of the Wind, along with this one in what is sure to be something to surpass the work that I did on Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire series (link).

The Name of the Wind is, bluntly, the best fantasy work I have read without the name Tolkien attached. Yes, it is that good.

I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.”

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

Chills. Like hearing the Star Wars theme segued from the 20th Century Fox opening. Like when Jeremy Brett nails a certain delivery and expression as Sherlock Holmes. Like when seeing the faded and dark WB display at the start of a Nolan Batman film.

The Name of the Wind is myth building in extreme; a clever foray in world building that rivals the the best of King Arthur, classic mythology, and, yes, Middle Earth.

My next few days are booked solid. Look for the paired review with in the next week. I hope I can do it justice.
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‘The Name of the Wind’ Author to Fillion: I will help you buy Firefly rights.

Dale Cooper — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:31:08 +0000

I’ve found that this favor-for-a-friend overnight shift I am working is doing wonders for catching up on little tidbits of news. In one of those tidbits Nathan Fillion said, in an interview with EW, that if he had the money, he wold buy the rights to the fan-favorite early terminated television series Firefly and make new episodes to release on the web.

If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet.

That is a pretty typical statement for the Castle star. He has never hidden his love for his Captain Mal Reynolds character and the Firefly series as a whole. I believe he is serious even if he thinks it unlikely.

edit: There is also a web page and attached Facebook fan page that is becoming a place for folks who would like to be contributors to Fillion buy the rights to Firefly. Check out: http://helpnathanbuyfirefly.com/

Love the shirt?

On a related note, I scanned down to the “Authors” section on my Reader and read through the blog of Patrick Rothfuss. Rothfuss only has one book under his belt, but that book was the literally unbelievably awesome The Name of the Wind. The whole reason I hurried down to Rothfuss’ blog is because my pre-order of the the sequel is due to ship a scant four days from now and I wanted to make sure terrorists didn’t bomb a warehouse full of the books and rob me of the chance to finally read The Wise Man’s Fear which I have been nerdorgasming over for years. They haven’t, my shipment is secure, but even more awesome is this post from Rothfuss titled, “An open letter to Nathan Fillion.” It caught my eye right away for being the most random occurrence of geek awesome mash-up that I have ever seen. Then I read the letter. It contains many words, but the gist of letter is summarized by this quote:

Here’s the deal. My second book is about to come out. My publisher tells me there’s a decent chance of us selling a truly ridiculous number of copies. If this happens, I will have more money than I’ll know what to do with.

Except that’s not exactly true. I know exactly what I’d like to do with that money. I’d like to help you buy the rights to Firefly back from Fox.

What fucking what? I think I’m going to–

There’s no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me…

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Atlanta Nights: The Movie

ChiaLynn — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:41:52 +0000

The worst book ever written could also be the worst movie ever made.

No, no. This is good news.

In 2005, James D. Macdonald pulled together a remarkable collection of authors (and one random word generator) to write an unpublishable manuscript, as a means of proving that a certain vanity press would, in fact, publish anything.

Of course they published it.

This wasn’t just a prank. The authors, collectively known as Travis Tea, were making a serious point about publishing mills that prey on new writers, charging them for publication and making promises they’ll never fulfill. The vanity press in question yanked the book as soon as they realized they’d been had, but it’s available now as an ebook, or through the magic of Print on Demand. All proceeds go to the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund, which helps science fiction and fantasy writers (many of whom can’t afford health insurance) cope with unexpected medical bills.

The film, like the book, is intended to both educate and entertain. Check out the Kickstarter page for more info.Similar Posts:

[Review] The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Lithera — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:44:38 +0000

Philip K. Dick stories have a hit and miss track record with being adapted into films, with some of them being a lot more successful than the others. Still, when they’re done well, they’re unforgettable as is the case with Blade Runner, no matter which side of the voice over or no voice over debate you take. When I got the chance to see The Adjustment Bureau a month early, I jumped on it. (Thank you to my Local Comic Book Store for always saving me free passes to movies.) The Adjustment Bureau is an adaptation of the story “Adjustment Team” originally published in 1954, directed by George Nolfi and staring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

On Election Night, David Norris (who is running for Senate) meets Elise Sellas. They hit it off instantly but go their separate ways. Chance brings them together again, though in this case it was not meant to happen. At least that’s what the mysterious men who are running around attempting to stop them from being together seem to think. From this beginning, the movie questions if there is such a thing as free will or if everything is pre-determined. It also questions, if it is pre-determined, how would we ever know unless something, one day, didn’t go according to plan? It also questions the sorts of choices we make on a daily basis. Is it possible to choose what is best for me without also changing how the people around me make their everyday choices? None of these are explored too deeply but it is enough to get you thinking about how you interact with the world around you.

This was a movie full of surprises that come in a number of ways. The first surprise, is that this is George Nolfi’s first time being a director. While he has written a number of movies I’ve enjoyed (Ocean’s Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum) I never would have guessed that this was his first time out as a director. There is a confidence in scene selection and in the little details (especially important in this movie) that I would not have expected. It probably helps that he has some fantastic people as cinematographer – John Toll and film editor – Jay Rabinowitz but having quality people behind you does not mean that things will turn out for the best, especially when you’re adapting a short story to a full length feature.

This movie hinges on the relationship between the two leads. You have to believe that when these two people met, not only to the get along but they feel that sort of connection with someone that happens only a few times in a lifetime. It is the sort of emotion you’re willing to risk everything for. The connection is strong and believable. The only weakness of this is that while we get plenty of David Norris’ (Matt Damon) perspective on the events we don’t get much of Elise Sellas’ (Emily Blunt) perspective. When you have both sides of a couple making these sorts of life and death, I want to be with you forever no matter what choices, it helps to be able to see into both character’s motivations.

The largest suprise for me, was Matt Damon’s performance. This felt like the movie I’d been waiting for him to make. It wasn’t that it was bombastically better than what he’s done before. He was confident and charming, he was completely believable in the role. The best part, was that it felt effortless for him to be this man, to be this driven and focused. This was a leading man performance and not an action movie lead or a comedic lead – this was both of those plus even more. This performance felt like the first time where all of the pieces he’s been building so far came together as one solid whole.

Over all, this is a very strong and enjoyable movie. In case you aren’t aware of the entire cast of the movie, I won’t spoil it for you here but I was very pleasantly surprised when they called in the big guns that they’d hired someone with exactly the correct sort of screen presence. The ending comes together quickly, once the pieces are in place and with very little fanfare. It almost feels a little too smooth, which is disconcerting considering the main premise of the movie. Then again, maybe that’s how it it was meant to be all along.

I give The Adjustment Bureau 4 out of 5 stars.Similar Posts: