The Not-So-Subtle Knife.

In less happy movie news, Brett Ratner – recently kicked off of WB’s Superman – is now threatening to screw up Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Pullman’s work aside, a Tom Stoppard screenplay deserves a better director. Can’t you just make Rush Hour 3 or something?

Iorek v. Aslan.

His Dark Materials author Phillip Pullman rips into C.S. Lewis. (Via LinkMachineGo.) Pullman’s got a point, but to my mind his trilogy grew a lot more ponderous and a lot less fun once the whole Republic of Heaven angle became the central thrust of the story (somewhere in the first third of The Subtle Knife.)