When Videos Go Viral

The dancing wedding video that was on this blog yesterday made it to the Today Show this morning. It amazes me when something like this happens. The newlyweds posted this video on YouTube for family who couldn't make it to the wedding and then the video is viewed by millions and the couple is on the Today Show. Not only that, but the entire wedding party is going to be on tomorrow to perform the dance. Really? This is deserving of this much coverage? I had an interesting morning.

The news trucks were out again and the reporters were lined up waiting to grab a victim to be interviewed about the Hoboken mayor. I avoided the news web, got to work early and then heard a loud ringing. I recognized the bell, it usually means someone is stuck in the elevator, something that happens quite often. I walked by and could hear my boss in there so I began talking to her and calming her down. I peeked between the doors and could see her. There were a few moments of panic but 5 minutes later the elevator was up and running. Friday is already shaping up to be an interesting day.

I had the pleasure of meeting Zach Woods, who stars in the new film, out today, In The Loop. It is a very funny film and if you live in one of the select cities showing this flick, I recommend it. From the website:

IN THE LOOP is a smart comedy and Sundance Film Festival hit from the acclaimed team behind the award-winning BBC TV comedy series ALAN PARTRIDGE and THE THICK OF IT. The film is drawing instant comparisons to some of the great political and absurdist comedies such as DOCTOR STRANGELOVE, WAG THE DOG, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and MONTY PYTHON.
With razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue the film pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders. With everyone looking out for number one, and the fate of the free world at stake (but apparently incidental), the hilarious ensemble cast of characters bumbles its way through Machiavellian political dealings, across continents, and toward comic resolutions that are unforeseeable.

Soap Bubles IN SPAAAACE....

I know you are dying to know what celebrities will look like in 2040..well, here it is.

Interesting...

Thanks to the NY Times, we now know some more about the kind of shark that washed up on Long Island.

I'd like to finish today's post with a big announcement! Here's the press release...

FUNNY BOYS, LATEST NOVEL BY WARREN ADLER OPTIONED FOR FILM

Funny Boys, the latest novel by War of the Roses author Warren Adler about the Borscht Belt and Murder Inc.(circa1937) has been optioned for a film. It is the 12th novel of Mr. Adler’s bought or optioned by Hollywood.

Mr. Adler, whose The War of the Roses novel was adapted as a movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and Random Hearts with Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas, has published 30 novels which have been translated into 25 foreign languages.

Funny Boys is the story of a comedian, or in the Yiddish idiom of the time, a “tumler,” in a Catskill mountain resort hotel in 1937 who gets entangled with the mobsters of Murder Inc.

The story authentically reenacts the speech and customs of the era. In the thirties, forties and fifties the area was known as the Borscht Belt and nourished the careers of some of the most famous comedians of the time such as Milton Berle, Red Button, Jerry Lewis, Sam Levinson, Myron Cohen, Sid Caesar and scores of others.

Murder Inc. was one of the most feared and ruthless gangs in New York, a combination of Jewish and Italian mobsters who wreaked havoc in New York before World War II. The novel recreates the atmosphere and environment of one of the most colorful eras in the twentieth century.

“Every time I option or sell a book to the movies I have high hopes for the picture to be made and be a smash hit. I feel certain that the material in Funny Boys, if handled correctly, has all the ingredients to make that happen.”

Another novel by Mr. Adler and James Hume, Target Churchill, which deals with an assassination attempt on the life of Winston Churchill has also been optioned by another production company. Mr. Adler wrote the screenplay.

Three of Mr. Adler’s short stories in the acclaimed collection entitled The Sunset Gang were adapted into a three-hour trilogy and shown on the PBS network. A musical of the stories written by Mr. Adler with composer L. Russell Brown was performed in Manhattan.

Cited as one of the 100 Best Authors on Twitter, Mr. Adler is also a pioneer in electronic publishing having digitized his books starting more than a decade ago. All of his novels are available on Kindle, the SONY Reader and all digital devices and through bookstores worldwide.

“I am always baffled when a book of mine is either optioned or bought outright by the movie people,” Mr. Adler said. “I don’t write with the movies in mind. One of my books Private Lies was purchased outright for 1.2 million and, after more millions were invested to develop it, it was never made. This was also the fate of Trans-Siberian Express, Madeline’s Miracles, novels from my Fiona FitzGerald mystery series, and others, some of which were optioned and bought numerous times.

“It is a flawed system, but somehow it manages to survive. Unfortunately, original material gets short shrift in the face of Hollywood’s penchant to base its future productions on past marketplace experience. ”

Mr. Adler is often outspoken about the adaptations of his novels. He considers The War of the Roses one of the most successful adaptations of a book to a movie and cites the fact that it has become a classic depiction of divorce. The term a “War of the Roses divorce” is now part of the world-wide nomenclature to describe the existential battles between separating spouses. Mr. Adler has never been divorced.

He was not as complimentary about the way Random Hearts was adapted and wrote a critique of the film in The New York Times.

Mr. Adler is also a playwright and short story writer. His latest collection of stories is New York Echoes and his plays are currently being produced in Europe. He is in the fifth year of his short story contest which has fostered talent among many writers through the contest’s popularity on the Internet.

The option to Lime Orchard Production, helmed by Jami Gertz and Stacey Lubliner was arranged through Hughes Entertainment.