Though some forget, rock and roll always has been about rising against the system – about giving voice to dissatisfaction and unruly desire. But it’s also been wildly male-dominated, as if everyone tacitly agreed that guitars were extensions of phalluses that woman had no business strapping on. The result? There may be nothing more fundamentally rock and roll than a woman defying the powers-that-be by wielding an axe while howling her guts out. In the last few years, some of these goddesses have penned memoirs. Raw, smart, and stirring, they’re the stuff of which adaptation dreams are made. Sure enough, a Showtime series based on Patti Smith’s Just Kids is already in the works. Smith, who is co-writing and creating the series, has said she wants Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart to play artist Robert Mapplethorpe and herself, respectively. (Given the former “Twilight” dream team’s recent edgy work, it’s not as bad a call as it may seem.) Here are five other recent lady rocker memoirs that would make amazing biopics, with the stars and directors who could make them happen. Continue Reading →
Archive | Book Matters
Of Art and Nature and You and Me
I am sitting on the expanse of my friend’s yellowed, crackly Hamptons lawn. It is a meadow, really, and its overripeness is not unappealing. It is comforting, a scent and sign of a summer well-lived. As my own summer was not, I cannot help admiring such wear and tear.
And yet: I am here now. This friend, who has worked for everything she has, listened to me say, with more than a little self-pity, that I needed a break but could not afford one. Then, rather than murmur the platitudes most offer when confronted with others’ hardships, she did something practical and immensely kind. (The most immense kindnesses are always of a practical nature, I find.) She took a key off her ring and handed it to me. “I will be out of town for the next few weeks,” she said. “Stay in my house while I am gone.” Continue Reading →
All Hail the Heroine’s Journey
It’s a special sort of movie that asks audiences to tag along on an extended trek by foot, as this month’s “A Walk in the Woods” does. An adaptation of Bill Bryson’s eponymous memoir, it stars Robert Redford as travel writer Bill Bryson, hiking the Appalachian Trail while reconnecting with an old friend, Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte). But the walkabout film is actually a beloved genre – perhaps because there is nothing more Hollywood than a hero’s (or heroine’s!) journey. Consider these other walkabout features, many of which, interestingly, are also literary adaptations. I’m deliberately omitting the “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” films (they get enough air time!) but what else do you think deserves mention?
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
Sure, “The Wizard of Oz” is another film that gets plenty of air time. But when was the last time you actually watched this adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel? Dorothy (the great Judy Garland) and her ragtag crew get an awfully good workout as they wander through the emerald and straw-hued labyrinth of her exceptionally vivid subconscious. They even manage to warble a few catchy tunes along the way. See also: “The Wiz” (1978). Disco cities, disco soundtrack, young MJ, and D. Ross as Dottie? Um, yes please. Continue Reading →