The Twilight Report

Presidential Assassinations and Ender's Game

2005-07-23T02:50:00

I just noticed that Wolfgang Petersen directed both In the Line of Fire and Air Force One. That means he's directed at least two movies about people who want to kill the president [1].

I was looking at Petersen's Wikipedia entry and apparently he is to direct a feature film adaptation of Ender's Game. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The only Petersen movie that I have really liked was the classic Das Boot. None of his Hollywood blockbusters have impressed me much. His direction of John Malkovich's psychopath in In the Line of Fire seems mechanical and faux-psychopathic rather that genuinely creepy (and his direction of Harrison "Mr. President" Ford in Air Fore One is best remembered (by me at least) by him saying "Get Off My Plane" in the manner of Sparkplug Witwicky to his son: "When next we meet, we are enemies!").

On the other hand, the only Orson Scott Card book that I really liked was Ender's Game. The first set of sequels of that series which feature Ender are interesting, but nothing to write home about. The second series, which features his lieutenant Bean, has degenerated into poorly conceived and written war stories about young brat military commanders, and is made up of much pseudo-intellectual banalities. Maybe it is appropriate that someone who only directed one really good movie direct movie adaptation of the one good book written by a science fiction author.

[1] Dear secret service. Please note that I am talking about fictional assassin and presidents. Thank you.

Acheron Hades

2005-06-13T01:12:00

...The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts-and let's face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field-is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good-and we all know how rare that is...

Acheron Hades, Degeneracy for Pleasure and Profit (as quoted in The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde)

BTW- if you are interested in literature and have a sense of humor, you should check out the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde.

Thursday Next

2005-01-26T11:29:00

I just used the phrase Thursday Next in an e-mail to a friend of mine and it amused me, so I capitalized it as though it were her name instead of the phrase. I am sure the person who received this e-mail doesn't even know who Next is.