- Joe Biden does seem determined to live up to his reputation for saying dumb things — like, oh, needlessly fueling the panic over swine flu — but I still find that preferable to a Vice President who is, y’know, evil incarnate. [via]
- I don’t think Roger Ebert liked the new Wolverine movie very much. I’m a little disappointed by his not so subtle digs at comic books in general and their readers — “Am I being disrespectful to this material? You bet.” Keith Phipps didn’t like it much either — “A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story’s mounting ludicrousness…or a conclusion that’s only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown.” — but he suggests the film might be a failure in spite of its comic-book origins, not necessarily because of it. That may be reading too much into Ebert’s review. Despite the occasional dust-up with the fanboy set, Ebert has liked plenty of comic-book movies. (And X-Men Origins: Wolverine is maybe just a bad one.) Still, it’s hard not to get a little riled up by that constant refrain of “this is good…for a comic book” or “this is good…so it can’t be science fiction. It’s hard not to get a little tired of that.
- Speaking of science fiction, though, these Penguin Science Fiction covers are pretty cool. [via]
- Over at TV Squad, Brad Trechak suggests a list of American actors who could play Doctor Who. I assume he’s not serious — his choices are pretty ridiculous — but it’s an interesting thought experiment nonetheless. Not the idea of casting it, necessarily, nor Trechak’s specific casting choices, but the question of why it can’t be done. Other British television shows have been remade across the pond, some even successfully, so why not this one?
I think you’d have trouble finding a more quintessentially British show than Doctor Who. Its being a British show is so completely wrapped up in its identity that an American remake just seems unimaginable — even though there’s nothing inherently British about the chracter, or nothing that couldn’t easily be made more American with a few minor tweaks. I’m trying to think of an American equivalent that really couldn’t be remade overseas — something that’s too distinctly an American show — and I’m not sure I can. Any thoughts?
- And fianlly, a fascinating look at the ancient Roman bookselling world:
…booksellers were the rich pimps of Roman publishing and authors, or even the books themselves, were the hard-working but humiliated prostitutes.
I’m also amused to learn that “at some periods of Roman history, it was the fashion to copy out the text with no breaks between the words, but as a river of letters.” And we think reading on a computer screen can be tough! [via]