Related Books:
I saw Million Dollar Baby last night and enjoyed it. As with most boxing movies, there are some cartoonish moments, but the acting is great. The film relies upon a good deal of narration supplied by Morgan Freeman, and much of that narration comes directly out of the book from which the script was adapted. Rope Burns – which has been rereleased as Million Dollar Baby to tie in with the film – is a collection of boxing stories written by F.X. Toole, the nom de guerre of Jerry Boyd, who, before the book came out in 2000, “had been a bullfighter, a bartender, a cement truck driver and, for the past 20 years of his life, a boxing trainer and cut man,” according to this profile/movie review in the Sydney Morning Herald. Jerry Boyd died in 2002, but before he did he sat down for this very entertaining interview with Terri Gross.
I’ve decided I’m going to follow the story of the impending big screen version of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections because 1) I think The Corrections is one of the more important books of the last ten years, and 2) like Scott at Conversational Reading said a few days ago, I’m skeptical that “Mr. I-don’t-want-The-Corrections-lowered-by-Oprah is going to be cool with a full Hollywood version of his opus” So, here’s the latest casting speculation from the movie rumor site Dark Horizons: “The latest word is that it will be starring Judi Dench (playing Enid, the family matriarch), Brad Pitt (playing the central character Chip), and Tim Robbins and Naomi Watts playing the other two grown children of the family.” Brad Pitt as Chip? (shudder)
