Robert Downey, Jr. on The Dark Knight; Blurb-O-Matic; Tarrantion's Holocaust ;

Comparing Iron Man to The Dark Knight, Robert Downey Jr. said:

"My whole thing is that that I saw 'The Dark Knight'. I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get how many things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so f--king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? F-ck DC comics."

--------------Blurb-O-Matic

Essay
He Blurbed, She Blurbed

By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: August 15, 2008

"A new company recently emerged on the publishing scene, offering writers the chance to buy and sell book endorsements. Aimed at self-published authors, Blurbings LLC traffics in “blurbs,” the often hyperbolic declamations on book covers alerting readers that they’re holding the greatest single work of literature since the Bible — or perhaps since “The Da Vinci Code.”

"At least one writer was so affronted by the idea of blurbs for cash that he complained to the Authors Guild. But the more jaundiced might say that asking one unknown writer to endorse another unknown writer hardly helps to make one of those writers known. Besides, some might argue, what the company appears to have done is simply put a price — starting at $19.95 for 10 blurbs — on the logrolling and back-scratching that have long marked the process by which mainstream publishers or agents ask authors to blurb a book.

Caveat lector! The endorsements on books aren’t entirely impartial. Unbeknownst to the average reader, blurbs are more often than not from the writer’s best friends, colleagues or teachers, or from authors who share the same editor, publisher or agent. They represent a tangled mass of friendships, rivalries, favors traded and debts repaid, not always in good faith. There’s some debate about whether blurbs actually help sell books, but publishers agree they can’t hurt. Often, agents try to solicit blurbs even before a publisher buys a book. "

for the rest go here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/books/review/Donadio-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

-----------------------------Tarrantino's Holocaust

Xan Brooks in The Guardian wonders about Quentin Tarrantino making a movie about The Holocaust

"Rumbles of controversy surrounding Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Nazi flick have now been amplified by the apparent leaking of the film's script. It suggests that Inglorious Bastards comes packed to the gunnels with torture scenes, revenge attacks and casual slaughter (as opposed to, say, the sensitive, poignant human drama that is the director's usual stock in trade).

"Inglorious Bastards, in a nutshell, focuses on the escapades of eight Jewish-American soldiers who are parachuted behind enemy lines and ordered by their commanding officer to "git me 100 Nazi scalps". It is not a Holocaust movie, as such. But it uses the death camps as a touchstone and therein lies the danger. "This is pop culture meets Nazi Germany and the Holocaust," explains German film critic Tobias Kniebe.

(more)

"According to his detractors, Tarantino's proposed marriage of pulp fiction and Nazi brutality will be "completely unpredictable". Maybe so - but here's a prediction to be getting on with. Inglorious Bastards (when it is finally released) will be callous and crass and gleefully sadistic. It will toss historical accuracy to the wind and employ the Holocaust as nothing more than a convenient excuse to show lots of cackling Nazis getting their gruesome just desserts. It will be wildly irresponsible and morally defunct. For all that, it will be a more sensitive, truthful and satisfying film on this subject than the Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful. And for that we shall be thankful."

for the rest go here
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/08/would_you_buy_a_holocaust_movi.html