SOTA if there ever was one (was Re: Harvard of the South (HotS);...)

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:12 PM -0600 3/4/07, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
>
>
>>  On the other hand, once I spotted someone in a University of Chicago
>>  sweatshirt that was emblazoned with:
>>
>>  "Harvard, the University of Chicago of the East."
>
>Reminds me of how the Bible is sometimes called
>the "Sporting News" of religion.
>
...which brings us to an interesting and quite
enlightening piece ("It's God vs. Satan. But What
About the Nudity?") in today's NYT Arts and
Leisure section, relating the plans to adapt
_Paradise Lost_ into a blockbuster movie,
complete with CGI and the works.  Scriptwriter
Stuart Hazeldine explains "Milton was trying to
achieve with Paradise Lost what Scorsese was
trying to achieve with Henry Hill in
'Goodfellas'." (Presumably without the pasta
scene.)

Turns out Mr. Hazeldine, whose sole previous
credit is "Riverworld", a sci-fi TV movie (but he
is also currently "adapting the popular DCC comic
'Battle Chasers' for 20th Century Fox", so he
should be well-positioned to take on Lucifer &
Co.), is a replacement for the original (unnamed)
scriptwriter who unfortunately "hewed a bit too
closely to Milton for the producer's taste".  As
the producer, Vincent Newman (still basking in
the succès d'estime of his "A Man Apart" with Vin
Diesel), observes of P.L., "It's a
400-some-odd-page poem written in Old English.
How do you find the movie in that?"  Hmmm.

We turn to the author of the Times piece, Michael
Joseph Gross, who helpfully explains, "(It's in
blank verse, not Old English.)"  Hmmm.

Where does one begin?  I propose calling the new
flick "Goodfellas and Badfellas".

LH

ObADS:  Wonder what languages Adam, Eve, the
serpent, God, Lucifer, et al. will be speaking,
and with what sort of accents. Maybe safer to
stick with the original Old English.

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