[Editor's note: Flavorwire is counting down our most popular features of 2010. This post comes in at position number 1. It was originally published November 9, 2010.] The Guardian recently ran an article in which Rick Gekoski remarked on the disappearance of essential cultural books. He argued that a few decades ago, “there was a canon, which wasn’t limited to Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Scott Fitzgerald. You could assume people had read the hot contemporary books; when they hadn’t, it occasioned not merely puzzlement, but disapproval.” Well, Mr. Gekoski, we beg to differ. Here’s a short list of books that have found a place in Generation X’s (and for that matter, Y’s and W’s, too) common culture; books that people know about, relate to, and converge around, all from the last 25 years. Please share any other literary touchstones that are also part of this contemporary canon in the comments section.
Gray, empty, and full of collapsed architecture, the godforsaken landscape of The Road — which opens in theaters today — is true to author Cormac McCarthy’s lean, illustrious source.
Less a trained road warrior than a weary yet determined father, Viggo Mortensen carries this post-apocalyptic film and his family — namely The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — on his raggedy back. The plot is as spare as McCarthy’s prose: father and son must rely on each other as they trek across this eerie, desolate world to the sea.
This Thanksgiving weekend you’ll probably find yourself in line for The Road, the cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In many ways, it’s seemingly everything one could want in a holiday movie. Father-son bonding, check. Epic journey, check. There’s even a scene where the characters have their own post-apocalyptic version of a Thanksgiving feast with canned peaches and Cheetos substituting for turkey and stuffing. But while it’s an excellent film, be warned: The Road will suck all happiness out of your holiday buzz and leave you unsure that you’ll ever be able to smile again.
Along with creating music together for more than fifteen years with The Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and The Dirty Three, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have collaborated on soundtracks for films like The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. On January 12, 2010 the pair will release their soundtrack to The Road, John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic family drama based on Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. It opens in theaters tomorrow.
Viggo is back. He has a frayed, wild look in his eye. His beard is ferocious. He is the lead in the film adaption of the Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road. From the looks of the trailer and today’s newly-screened clips from the film, The Road is shaping up to be equally as gripping as McCarthy’s previously adapted work, No Country for Old Men. Instead of some dude with a freaky haircut shooting people with a cow gun, as is the case with No Country, we are treated with something arguably more frightening: a post-apocalyptic world… with cannibalism galore.
After an unexplained natural disaster, an unnamed family — Viggo Mortensen as the Father, Charlize Theron as the Mother, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Son — survive. Other people survive, too, but less fortunately as blood-thirsty, sun-deprived people/zombies. The film follows the father and son’s journey to safety. After the jump, we’re going to take you through the clips and back up why Tom Chiarella of Esquire is calling The Road “the most important movie of the year.” Read More »
Today at Flavorpill, we scanned the list of movies accepted at the Venice Film Festival, and wished we could afford a ticket to go — specifically to finally see The Road. We swore to go out and buy a Brita after seeing these adorable adds asking people to use less bottled water. We were nostalgic for a time when having this birthday cake at our party would have made us the happiest person on earth. We were curious to see what Stephen Schwartz‘s newest project would sound like. We felt bad for Vladamir Nabokov, who is having his final novel published posthumously against his dying wishes. We checked out the trailer for Wes Anderson’s new film, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. We got excited that some original CSI vets may be returning to the show. And finally, we were amazed at the orchestra conducting talents of this child prodigy.
I have a file somewhere on my computer where I keep what I call Page 10 Gems — single sentences, usually from the New York Times, buried deep in section A, or even deeper, that hit at something truer, and more powerful, than even the most timely news can aim for. The best so far: “New York City history, a force so cruel and monolithic that the mightiest are left to froth like sea spume in its wake.” (Curious? It’s here.) Read More »
We find the fact that Braddock, Pennsylvania — the town that serves as a backdrop for John Hillcoat’s upcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winner, The Road — has now been classified by the state as a “distressed municipality” totally depressing. It makes us feel really bad for the 3,000 people who live there (that number used to be closer to 20,000); in fact, it will make it difficult for us to lose ourselves in the flick, which has no current release date after getting pushed back by Harvey Weinstein last fall.
But maybe it wasn’t a move all about focusing attention on The Reader — maybe he anticipated a reluctant audience.
After the jump some recently-leaked gritty pretties from the set, via Quiet Earth, a site “dedicated to genre film and all things post apocalyptic.” In our past experience a studio sitting on a movie like this is usually a bad sign, but from the looks of it, the Weinstein Co. has been withholding a real stunner.
“We were shooting during the winter in Pennsylvania, and the cold and the bleakness were intense. It allows everyone to understand the material more intimately. When the elements work against you, it’s absolutely terrifying. But when they work for you, no amount of CGI can come close.”
Aussie film director John Hillcoat talks to Book Forum‘s Bilge Ebiri about the challenges of bringing Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road to the big screen — maybe he should have picked up a paperback copy of the newly released Congressional report on terror. Look for the pushed-back flick, which stars Viggo Mortensen, in theatres in 2009.
