Comments on: So You Think You’ve Got a Film-Worthy Book or Script. Wicked Witch of Publishing Sees 10 Films and 20+ Shorts at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Begs to Differ.

by: Lynne

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:08:18 +0000

November 23rd… A. O. Scott of The New York Times gives “Starting Out in the Evening” with Frank Langella a rave review in Scott’s article “A Scholarly May and a Literary December Meet in a New York Autumn.”

Did he sit alone in a theater? Did he not hear the scoffing of other theater-goers as I did? He calls the romance between Langella’s character and Lauren Ambrose’s “one of the most delicate and peculiar romances recently depicted on film.” Scott’s seen one too many films without a helmet.

by: minx

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:35:10 +0000

The day that the film industry puts interest before money will probably be the day that The Curmudgeon marries me. I would imagine that all writers toy with a vision of their masterpiece in celluloid. I did, I do, seems to part of the process. Thanks for the Amazon review, WW, it meant a lot. Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Kate Bousfield lives in Cornwall, England. She has a terrific blog called The Inner Minx.

by: Billy

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:39:14 +0000

I agree with what you said at the beginning of your post.

As a ghostwriter, I am inundated with queries in which people tell me that they are positive that their books will be made into a movie. Jung’s collective unconscious has told them so, or so they say.

Unbelievable!

by: Maralyn Rittenour

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:00:48 +0000

For The Curmudgeon. Thanks. I guessed patchouli. (a la many NYC taxicabs), but never in a million years could I have come up with “moldy cruciferous plants”!

by: Gina Burgess

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:37:01 +0000

And soon we’ll be able to see Stephen King’s 25 year old creativity in “The Mist”. It was a great novella with an ambiguous ending… no, wait, it didn’t have an ending. I wonder what King will do with that in the movie?

I agree, Lynne, we could all be reading a good book… um, after reading your blog, of course.

by: The Curmudgeon

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:21:56 +0000

For Maralyn: a Turkish brothel smells like patchouli oil, the noxious aroma of the sixties used to mask the body odor of people who smelled like moldy cruciferous plants.

by: Dave Newton

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:53:58 +0000

You’re impossible. Joyce lives, of course.

by: Dave Newton

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:15:36 +0000

Excuse me. Doris Lessing dead? I think not, my dear, leaving you unmoved. What you perhaps thought was the hooha surrounding a literary giant’s obit was merely the hooha surrounding a writer getting the Nobel, Nell.

Or do you have inside information unavailable to us mortals? Is “Doris Lessing” a pseudonym of Joyce Carol Oates — used because nobody’d believe she can write even more stuff?

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: How come you are the only one who noticed that dumb error? I just don’t read her. Never have. (Sorry, Ms. Lessing.) As to Joyce Carol Oats? Hey, I like her fiction even though something terribly disturbing always takes place. I still haven’t recovered from Them, the first novel I ever read that was written by her. I felt terrible about her death.

by: Russell Bittner

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:42:47 +0000

Lynne, alias Wicked Witch,

Welcome back just in time for your big night! You’ve been missed — though apparently not by Hamptoners, Hamptonians…Hamptoneezers?

I’m with both Bridget and Maralyn on kudos. While the “lice” of bad scripts leading to bad movies is always a cause (truly less than celebre!) for head-scratching, it’s once again refreshing to see the documentary crowd standing head and shoulders above, unafraid to take a risk, unconcerned with profitability or celebrity, making movies with a purpose.

At the risk of sounding self-serving, may I recommend for your reading pleasure “Next Stop Hollywood: Short Stories Bound for the Screen” (edited by Steve Cohen)? We (the contributors) would love to see one or two of our efforts realized in moving pictures, even (or maybe especially) if those pictures are the product of some outfit without much money, but with a lot of heart, brains and conscience.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: You can read some of Russell’s poetry at Showcase@LaurelHird.com.

by: David Thayer

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:23:10 +0000

The Wellington Leg International Film Festival was a disappointment this year. The categories Dead Italians and Spaghetti Westerns led to some culinary documentaries capturing the coveted Greased Palm. PUTNEY SWOPE took the prize of the thirty fifth consecutive year.

At least the family sized box of Junior Mints were on sale. It took the sting out of “Robert Redford Lookalike Night.”