WHY GEORGE LUCAS SUCKS

How screwed is this??? The Lounge is VERY aware that there's an error message below. It's a prime example of how greedy George Lucas is. Yesterday, I was going to post the entry below. It hawked a fun little site that allowed you to replicate the opening CRAWL scene from the "Star Wars" flicks. I geared it towards a Hemingway novel and embeded it into the blog. It looked way cool.

Not two hours later, did George Lucas' stormtroopers shut down the site. Isn't it bad enough that as "Star Wars" fans we had to but the films like 30 times because of the way Lucasfilm manipulates his fans.

Instead of leaving the site up to perhaps promote his upcoming CGI "Clone Wars" film, the sith himself alienated the exact demographic for whom he has to thank for putting him in the position he's in today.

Thanks again, Lord Lucas... Lookin' forward to dropping a bundle on those remastered BLU-RAY "Star Wars" discs!!

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We love this. Star Wars Crawl.com allows fans to create their own custom Star Wars opening crawl. It’s simple, fun and awesome. How long before George Lucas wants to change an arm and a leg for this?? Create your own HERE.

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THE REAL 'OLD MAN AND THE SEA'

One of my recent blog posts poked fun at Hollywood and the notion of making Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" today. It was hilarious. Filled with explosions, Will Smith and all that Michael Bay jazz. Sad, but true.

Now, in all seriousness, check out this striking and gorgeous rendition of Papa H's classic Pulitzer- and Nobel Prize-winning novella in Alexandr Petrov's version of the story.

Petrov's style is striking, gorgeous and distinctly his own. Unique. His process? He paints on glass, which yields a soft flow to his images and allows him to perfectly capture the lyricism of Hemingway's poetic tale. Made in 1999, the centennial of Hemingway's birth, director Aleksandr Petrov released the film, created from 29,000 hand-painted images. It was initiated in 1995 after Petrov's first meeting with Productions Pascal Blais, a Canadian animation company.

It received the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Grab some java ... sit back and enjoy something fucking brilliant.

PART ONE


PART TWO


SOME COMMENTARY

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WANNA LAUGH - CHECK OUT BRANDO (VIDEO)

Both Hemingway and Marlon Brando were men's men. They both possessed pure genius and defined their generation within their work.

Time capsule stuff.

I came across this precious, short video made by the San Francisco Children's Theater that overdubs a dramatic reading of Marlon Brando's famous monologue from "On the Waterfront" performed by kids.

Funny crap ... Enjoy!

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'OLD MAN & THE SEA' circa 2007 (HILARIOUS)

Hemingway's 1952 novella "The Old Man and the Sea" was written in Cuba (in 1951) and was the last major work of fiction by Papa H. Unarguably, one of his most famous works, it centers upon an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. And while it's been the subject of criticism, it once again affirmed his worldwide literary prominence, ultimately snagging the 1953 Pulitzer-Prize for Literature and the 1954 Nobel Prize. Damn ...

Of the several films that've been produced, the most notable was released in 1958 and stars Spencer Tracy as Santiago. Interestingly, while he garnered an Academy Award nomination, Hemingway thought that Tracy was unfit for the role, having been known to call the actor a "fat lard" among other names. Another prominent version was a well-received 1990 television movie starring Anthony Quinn as Santiago and Francesco Quinn as the young Santiago. The new version introduced two characters not in the novella, Tom Pruitt and Mary Pruitt, played by Gary Cole and Patricia Clarkson, respectively. Leave it to Hollywood to add characters to a Pulitzer and Nobel-winning book.

BUT WHAT IF ... Hollywood made the movie NOW??

Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" circa 2007

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THE BEST 100 FIRST LINES FROM NOVELS

My blogger comrade "Stephen" at Sand and Cotton first posted this and it was too good (for obvious reasons) not to pass along. It's Pantagraph's 100 Best First Lines From Novels.

Papa H weighs in at No. 48 and 75, respectively:

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
--Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains."
--Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Click below to read the entire list. Enjoy!
Pantagraph.com News 100 Best First Lines From Novels

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WELCOME TO THE LOUNGE

Greetings . . .

I'm bored. It's late.

And, no matter how I love it, I just can't bear to watch any more episodes of "COPS." A dude can watch only so many toothless wonders who beat their pregnant wives in trailer parks.

You see, these days, I'm feeling my age and need to do something constructive and creative with these aging brain cells. Enter the blog.

As I sit in my living room, dubbed Hemingway's Lounge for its kitschy African knick-knacks, overtly masculine furniture and dare I say, possibly gaudy decor, I'll attempt to enter this thing called The Blogospehere. The millions of trailblazing souls that are already here are truly inspiring and I hope to contribute as much as I possibly can.

I fancy myself a writer by trade and by passion. I've dabbled in the screenplay form, have authored short stories and currently trying to get a comic book off the ground. I've had the most luck, however, in journalism. I've been paid for my words in various national magazines and work as an editor at a Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper.

Hopefully, my future posts will not be grandiose or pretentious in their language. The goal is to be simplistic, really. Let's think Minimalism. I'm of the belief that you can probably say more with less.

Like Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski and of course, Papa Hemingway.

I don't think there's going to be a running theme in the posts - just me musing as I sip on some Jameson here in Hemingway's Lounge.

Let's see where this blog thing takes us.

-- Sneaky Tiki

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