Burn, Celluloid, Burn! [& A Bit of Romance]

A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.

-- Joan Rivers

Teresa Eckford highlights one of her pet peeves: "Aspiring Writer". Interesting take. In actual fact, I think she does have a point. Worth reading, methinks. What Rotten Tomatoes does for films is what Candy Covered Books does for Chick Lit novels. Candy Covered Books displays excerpts of book reviews from various online and print magazines about each Chick Lit novel. It even has a thermometer for each book, based on these reviews. Have you plenty of time on your hands? Try this portal of weird news: The Obscure Store. Historical romance author Eloisa James posts this at Romantic Times message board:

Hey book lovers! I've added a new book rec--gossip section. Hi everybody, This is a new page on my website. Here's my idea: every month I recommend one romance and one "other" book, of any genre. The romance part is particularly fun. You all know how small the romance world really is, and after this many years of writing, sometimes I feel as if I know everybody. So this part is going to be a book rec with gossip: I'm going to call up the author and get some information about the book that's NOT on her website or elsewhere! Here's the URL: http://www.eloisajames.com/studio/studio.html Eloisa, an Unrependent Gossip Lover

I'm trying not to sulk, but I am because Alison Kent and Shelly managed to see Constantine. And both liked it. That's good, I suppose, considering the fact that I'm trying to recover from the shock over how bad these films are: Elektra, The Chronicles of Riddick, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Punisher, Blade Trinity and Faust: Love of the Damned. But not as shocked as I was when I saw the film version of Tank Girl a few years ago. I still haven't forgiven Rachel Talalay. Let's not go there with the film version of Judge Dredd. I was startled that Sly Stallone took his helmet off. How had my jaws dropped... I didn't understand why British director Danny Cannon [probably best known for his concept of American TV series C.S.I: Las Vegas] allowed this. For many of his generation [including myself] who grew up with 2000AD, the idea of having Judge Dredd without his helmet was unthinkable. Judge Dredd without his helmet would be like seeing Superman without his blue-and-red outfit or Batman without his mask. Ooh, speaking of 2000AD, I heard rumours that Alan Moore and Ian Gibson's The Ballad of Halo Jones is the latest recruit of the American Film Factory. I refuse to worry or such. Life is too short to fret over something like this. Halo Jones is a very strong character, well done and she represents what an ordinary person can do under adverse circumstances. There is a catchphrase: "Where did she go? Out. What did she do? Everything." Bragging time: I'm still chuffed that Judge Dredd illustrator Ian Gibson gave me one of his art strips for Judge Dredd. :D I haven't got round to framing it, but I'll take a pix of it for this blog one day. Anyway, I have Casshern, Serenity [according to some posts on message board, the film isn't good. Ack.] and Aeon Flux to look forward to, I suppose. Are there any other films worth looking forward to this year? Be good, be bad & be safe.