What's even more interesting is that he could possibly be coming back to replace Chow Yun-Fat as the film's lead, because the role he vacated in March was filled by House of Flying Daggers star Takeshi Kaneshiro. Maybe Kaneshiro will be bumped for another part, and the game of Musical Acting Roles will continue? At this point, only Terence Chang and John Woo know the full story behind the on-set craziness that has plagued this movie. I'm more interested in that tale than I am of the one of the actual film, which is that of a big historical battle in China's Three Kingdoms Period. Hopefully, we'll get all of that juicy secondary story someday. In the meantime, the production continues unabated."

What can I say, but I agree whole-heartedly. The behind-the-scenes story of this film is going to be infinetely more interesting than the windy posturing and overly-melodramatic end-product. What convinced his return? A bigger paycheck or the need to compete with Chow's dramatic exit by returning to the project? Who knows!

Kurt Vonnegut passed away today at the age of 84.

He was the writer of Breakfast of Champions and Slaughter House Five among others. One of my three favourite writers, two of which are now dead, and the living one just declared himself homosexual a few weeks back. His most famous character was Kilgore Trout, a science fiction writer that was his alter-ego, a shut-in who wrote about extra-terrestrial tales that were thinly veiled social commentary. His prose was delightful: it was simple, clear and whimsical. It was always written with kindness and innocence. He was afraid of not being understood, so it was as clear as possible. Breakfast of Champions almost ressembled a child's book, with the simplest explanations of all things. If there was a car in the scene, he would describe what a car was without making it sound like he was describing a car through mechanics jargon. It would sound like an Alien from another planet simply describing the curious contraption.

My other favourite writer is of course, Hunter S. Thompson. He's the flipside to gentleness of Vonnegut. Hunter was a humanist hiding behind his fisherman's hat and orange aviator shades and a mask of savagery. He was a journalist first and foremost, but a brillian novelist who never quite made the transition. His only 2 novels are Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diary. Fear and Loathing is the story of how he was sent to track the MINT 500, a race out in the middle of the Nevada desert. The story never spends more than one chapter there, because off he goes on some fevered quest to find the American dream out on the Las Vegas strip. Without a doubt my favourite book. I've read it at least 5 times or so. It's a vicious book at times, cruel and savage in its depiction of America and its people. On the other hand, read between the lines and you'll uncover just exactly what Thompson is saying about it all. The Rum Diary is a partly-thruthful novel about his time spent in Puerto Rico as a journalist. Hunter Thompson was sadly remembered for his flamboyant style and manic drug consumption more than anything, until he finally ended his life by shooting himself in the head with a hunting rifle just last year.

Finally, Chuck Palahniuk is the third. This author is most well known for Fight Club. He wrote a book that was just bubbling with anger underneath the prose, but kept a cool front the whole time. I prefer the movie to the novel, but that's because I'm more of a film guy anyway. That said, I think Survivor is definetely his best work so far, but they're all great in their own right. Some may think that the voices or stories sound the same after a few novels, but I think it's just his trademark. Survivor is about a broken man (an exiled Amish, of all things) who becomes a self-help guru and one day snaps and decides to crash a plane in the Australian outback. An excellent novel with the kinds of minute observations and throw-away facts that we've come to know from his style.