Everyone up to speed on The Golden Compass rhubarb? Claims are that the new film adaptation tends to soft-shoe some of the pretty clearly anti-fundamentalist religion elements in Philip Pullman's source novel. Here's Ryan Stewart's Cinematical item on Nicole Kidman going public with the "watering down" last August. Now, on MTV's movie blog, director Chris Weitz reaches for a time-tested defense: "Philip Pullman likes to quote James M. Cain on this issue. Once, when somebody asked him if he was worried what a movie adaptation would do to his book, he said, `What do you mean? The book is right over there, on the shelf.'"

Now, let me digress for a second. The only time I ever met Allen Ginsberg (wonderfully played by David Cross in I'm Not There, BTW), I wasted my thirty seconds in his presence listening to the same comment regarding Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. When a sage like Ginsberg says this bit about the unruined book you listen. But here's other claimants: In the blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, a correspondent is complaining about V for Vendetta, a film disowned by the source writer Alan Moore: "I keep meeting people who love this movie and my only solace in my bitterness after seeing what they did to Moore's brilliant work is a quote from the author himself:

"Interviewer: 'How do you feel about Hollywood ruining your work?'
Moore: 'What are you talking about, they didn't ruin my work, it is right up there on the shelf.'"

Here, a person worried about the then-upcoming film of Lord of the Rings cites Stephen King as the one who knows where his unruined books are, right on the shelf; here, it is Larry Niven calming the fears of those who feel his book Ringworld will be ruined as a film. Just for good measure, from the Portland, Oregon blog "Book Pusher," is a list of five good books that are waiting to be ruined, and the best way to ruin them. Can you wait for the The Farrelly Brother's wild comedy Me Talk Pretty Some Day with Adrien Brody as David Sedaris (does the hero have to be gay)?
My point is: let's don't hear this time-worn excuse anymore. Here's one from Evelyn Waugh instead: "Each book purchased for motion pictures has some individual quality, good or bad, that has made it remarkable. It is the work of a great array of highly paid and incompatible writers to distinguish this quality, separate it, and obliterate it."

In the ever-apologetic tradition of honorary and lifetime achievement Oscars, composer Ennio Morricone will receive an Academy Award on February 25. It is hard to believe that one of the most recognized names in film scoring has never been graced with an Oscar before. He's been nominated, sure -- five times to be exact (for Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy and Malèna) -- but he's never won.

Morricone shouldn't be bitter about losing those five times, especially considering he lost to other greats (Moroder, Hancock, Byrne, Menken and Dun). It should be a big enough lifetime honor for him to know that people around the world regularly hum, whistle or howl along to his theme to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. But in 2001 the composer told The Guardian, "if it was up to me, every two years I would win an Oscar." In the same interview, Morricone did express some bitterness with not winning for The Mission, stating that Hancock's score for 'Round Midnight was not technically original.

Ennio Morricone has scored more than 350 films and not all of them are masterpieces. He has been nominated twice for Razzie awards (for Butterfly and The Thing) and he even considers his score to A Fistful of Dollars to be his worst. But the 78-year-old is certainly deserving of recognition for his contributions to cinema. Other important scores of his include Cinema Paradiso, The Battle of Algiers and Once Upon a Time in America, which supposedly wasn't considered by the Academy because of an unfulfilled paperwork requirement.

The celebration of Morricone's music on Oscar night should make for an enjoyable program, and not just because his scores will be heard. Morricone seems via interviews to be an honest and, reportedly, grumpy old man, and he will hopefully have some interesting things to say in his acceptance speech.

While working the Rome Film Festival for his film The Departed, Martin Scorsese has announced a project with festival organizers to re-store and preserve 100 Italian cinema classics. First on the block is Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West starring Henry Fonda and Jason Robards. Leone's classic western has been hanging by a thread for a while now; few prints exist and those that do are in terrible condition.

Scorsese has always been one of the loudest supporters of maintaining and preserving classic films. At a festival event, Scorsese spoke to journalists about the project: "You can find that color (deterioration) can happen as quickly as within six years ... Millions of dollars goes into this industry and nobody thought about preserving the film. It's incredible."

So far, Scorsese and the National Film Preservation Foundation have convinced Sony, Warner Bros., and other major studios to start preserving their collections. The Rome Film Festival is promising to help finance the project and do a few films per year (with no word yet on how much this might actually cost). Film restoration is an incredibly expensive and time consuming endeavor but it's worth it when you think of all the amazing films that could have been lost. Being the classic movie junkie that I am, I'm thrilled that someone is leading the charge, and what better person than Martin Scorsese -- a God to film nerds everywhere.

Which movies would you like to see saved for posterity?

Related Scorsese:

Scorsese is Ready for a Break

Getting Up Close and Personal With Scorsese

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