The trailer for the film version of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball has arrived. (via Kottke, whose skepticism I share)
Moneyball Trailer
Pre-Detective
Need more than just a hashtag to get ready for the new season of True Detective? Tom Nolan is here to help. At Salon, Scott Timberg interviews the biographer of Ross Macdonald, a crime fiction writer whose mysteries tackled the underbelly of California. You might want to read the new collection of Ross’s novels, or else our list of crime novels where women are the detectives.
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This Week in Literary Journals
The latest issues of Barrelhouse and Big Bridge are online, free, and ready for your perusal.
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Sandra Cisneros Goes International
Mexican-American novelist Sandra Cisneros was awarded the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, judged by a panel that consisted of authors Alexander Chee, Edwidge Danticat, and Valeria Luiselli. Since the publication of her groundbreaking novel, The House on Mango Street, Cisneros has influenced generations of writers – as noted in our recent conversation between Ada Limón and Erika Sánchez.
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On Pronouns and Ownership
Dr. Dennis Ryan Storoshenko is conducting research for a Yale Linguistics project, looking to ask people about theirselves and their pronouns. Take a minute of your time to help him out.
On The Rise of the Book Trailer
“These are terrific diversions, but their status next to the book is a little ambiguous. Isn’t using animation to advertise a book a little like using sculpture to promote poetry?” asks Lindesay Irvine in this article about book trailers in The Guardian. If you’re looking for a diversion, this video short based on César Aira‘s Ghosts is certainly worth watching.
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Brad Pitt provides skepticism? After Sevem 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, the Oceans movies, Assassination of Jesse James, Burn After Reading, Inglorious Basterds and Tree of Life? I think the man has proven himself by now.
Well, we really don’t know what they are skeptical about, do we? Is it Pitt, is it the content of the movie, is it skepticism about popular non-fiction books made into movies, or is it the ability of this movie to earn money?
Ok. Enough mystery. I am skeptical that this very interesting book, which is primarily about ideas and numbers, will translate well to the screen. The book doesn’t have a very cinematic plot – Oakland doesn’t win the World Series, there is no pivotal game. It’s more about the methodical triumph of numbers over “instinct” over a period of a few years. Maybe there’s room in there for a great movie, but the trailer makes it seem as though the book’s plot is being shoehorned into the typical “sports movie” plot. I mean, throw in Charlie Sheen and a few wisecracks and that could have been the trailer for Major League.
This book/movie has more than numbers going for it. It’s about characters. Billy Beane was exactly the kind of player the “old school” scouts adored. But he was a failure on the field. The story is a triumph of modern analytics over “rut” thinking and a pack mentality. It’s the rebel beating the system, David over Goliath, a classic story-telling structure. Think “The Social Network” in a baseball uniform. It has all the right people in it and behind it. Write it down: This will be a hit.