Oh, that's what I should be reading.

Read the Twilight books on hols. Really enjoyed them in a sort of 'creepy old man reading delusional, horny, daughter's diary' way.

No, the title of this post doesn't refer to the Twilight books, which I'd never bother to read, but I just thought that tidbit from Simon Pegg was just way too funny to pass up.

What I'm actually referring is the quartet of Red Riding novels by David Peace, "Nineteen Seventy-Four," "Nineteen Seventy-Seven," "Nineteen Eighty" and "Nineteen Eighty-Three." If you're unfamiliar with Peace, he's also the author of "The Damned United," a damned fine book about football coach Brian Clough that's now been made into a feature film starring Michael Sheen, if you're lucky enough to see it.

The Red Riding novels, a different kettle of fish, sound a lot like a "Prime Suspect" kind of thing to me, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. The books have already been made into a three-part British miniseries, which was unfortunately not yet available through my Netflix account, described as "a study of power and police corruption framed around the investigation of the disappearance of several young girls."

I'll see that as soon as I'm able, and I've already just ordered "Nineteen Seventy-Four" from the Amazon, but of course an American version (bastardization?) is also already in the works.

Ridley Scott has been hired to direct and Steve Zaillian to script a two-hour movie (shortened from the original five hours) flick which will transplant the action from the U.K. to the U.S., because I guess that's just supposed to be more palatable to us somehow. I'll keep an open mind about all that until I've at least read the four books and seen the original miniseries.

All I have after that today is a couple of fun videos, starting with this series of six clips from Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," courtesy of Collider. The more I see of this stop-motion animated flick based on and expanded from the classic children's novel by Roald Dahl just makes me think it's gonna be a real winner when it comes out Nov. 25. Enjoy.



And lastly today, since my (and many other people's) most-anticipated movie of the year finally comes out tomorrow, here's a "Where the Wild Things Are" featurette showing how big a part actual kids played on the set of Spike Jonze's flick. Due to furloughs, vacations and other fun stuff, I'm gonna have to work instead of seeing this tomorrow, but I'll certainly be there Saturday morning, and I just can't wait. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Where the Wild Things Are Exclusive Featurette

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