Well this is a fun story.  Joe Penhall adapted Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for the film. He recently published an essay in the Guardian about what it was like attending a private screening in Albuquerque, for which McCarthy himself had driven his silver Cadillac up from Santa Fe (sounds like a Bugs Bunny premise, doesn’t it?).

Finally the three of us sank into the leather armchairs, a discreet distance from one another, and the film began. Immediately, McCarthy began scribbling notes on a reporter’s notepad. [Director John] Hillcoat and I eyed each other nervously. By the end, he had pages of the damned things. He stood up and stretched, yawned and said absolutely nothing as the credits rolled. Finally Hillcoat asked: “Well?” “I have to go to the restroom,” was the impassive response, and he was gone.

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(Viggo shepherds his son through the post-apocalyptic hellscape)

Opening this weekend (Trailers after the jump):

Fantastic Mr. Fox
I thought Darjeeling Limited was decidedly meh, so I’m hoping for a Wes Anderson to return to form here.  It’s already gotten an enthusiastic review from Punchface Thunderdog, and I’ll be finding out for myself in just a few minutes. So, you know, that’s what’s going on with me.

The Road
I loved the book, but it seemed like something that would be hard to adapt, and I wasn’t so hot on The Proposition, director John Hillcoat’s last movie.  I found it sort of slow and depressing.  Like giving your mom a sponge bath.

Ninja Assassin
It looks like a sort of ham-fisted mashup of every over-stylized action movie from the last ten years, like Boondock Saints with ninjas.  Also, the main weapon is CGI.  But I guess it’s great if you want to see a dude named “Rain” flex for two hours.

Old Dogs
I would rather watch an Al-Qaeda video featuring my own beheading, filmed in the future and projected back to me in the present where I could view it in real time.  Though it should be noted that Pete Hammond gave it an enthusiastic two flippers up.

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Granted I have a bit of a thing for curmudgeonly old men, but in this recent, rare interview with The Wall Street Journal, No Country for Old Men/The Road/Blood Meridien author Cormac McCarthy provides plenty of evidence of his own awesomeness.  That’s not an opinion, it’s objective fact.  Here are some of the highlights, although I’d recommend reading the whole thing.

WSJ: People have said “Blood Meridian” is unfilmable because of the sheer darkness and violence of the story.

CM: That’s all crap. The fact that’s it’s a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That’s not the issue. The issue is it would be very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary. [Editor's Note: I always thought Blood Meridien seemed much more movie-adaptable than The Road]

Besides Coca-Cola, the other thing that is universally known is cowboys and Indians. You can go to a mountain village in Mongolia and they’ll know about cowboys. But nobody had taken it seriously, not in 200 years. I thought, here’s a good subject. And it was.

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98% of The Road consists of the two main characters, a father and son who never get names, avoiding gangs of cannibals and scrounging for food.  Great book, but I realize that makes for kind of a boring downer of a movie trailer.  Solution?  Just slap some triumphant background music over it (starts at the 1:25 mark).  Man, that worked perfectly.  All Viggo did was eat some food and watch a town burn, but I felt all proud, like I was watching Sandra Bullock teach a black kid to play football or something.

(Viggo was terrified of life after pupation)

ZOMG, VIGGO MORTENSEN IS RETIRING!, reports every other site in the world.  All apparently based on this quote:

“I have no plans to do another movie. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m open to seeing how I feel in a while, but right now I’m not saying yes to anything.”

I wouldn’t even bother reporting this if a thousand other sites hadn’t put VIGGO MORTENSEN TO RETIRE FROM ACTING in big headline text.  Jeez, guys, at least have the journalistic integrity to put a question mark at the end.  (That’s a joke, MTV).  Key phrase: “I’m open to seeing how I feel in a while,” “right now I’m not saying yes…”  Point being, he never said he was retiring.  Being burnt out and taking a vacation is not the same thing as retiring.  To put this in movie blogger terms so that you guys will understand, Viggo is simply saying, “I’m really exhausted from all this photoshopping Paula Abdul on top of Mexicans.  I need to take a jerk break and the cats could use a-pettin’.”  In conclusion, CROTCH FIGHT!