Top Book-to-Movie Misfires

Wired declares Klingon the king of sci-fi slang

(NEWSER) - Creators of true geek art follow JRR Tolkien’s example and craft fictional languages to populate their worlds. Wired lists the best examples:

1. Klingon. The Star Trek creation is the king of all sci-fi languages, with fully realized grammar and vocabulary.
2. City Speak. Blade Runner’s vision of earth as a mishmash of Western and Eastern cultures was greatly enriched by this language, described as a “mixture of Japanese, Spanish, German, what have you.”

The top ten real hotels featured in Hollywood

(NEWSER) - People usually use movies for escapism, but if you’d like to flip the tables and relive a classic film moment, just check into the hotel where it was shot. The Telegraph runs down some of the most famous, from around the world.

• Beverly Wilshire, Los Angeles: Get a room and put on your favorite spandex mini-dress and boom! You're Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
• Timberline Lodge, Oregon: For a spookier trip, visit this hotel where the exteriors for The Shining were shot. Don't worry: there are amenities year-round.

(NEWSER) - Willing Davidson knows his complaint isn't original. But he can't help asking in Slate, "Why does Hollywood take our favorite novels and turn them into crap?" In Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, readers see their own hopes within those of his characters; in the movie, character replaces plot "and the result lands with a wet flop." This is typical: "There's so much plot to get in that there's no time to tell the story" (even if 2 hours feels interminably long enough). More»

New takes on Ghostbusters , Terminator among flicks already in production

(NEWSER) - Hollywood is looking backward with an eye on the future, reports the Los Angeles Times. Plans to launch remakes of 12 sci-fi flicks from the last millennium are already under way:

• When Worlds Collide, an update of the apocalyptic 1951 film, will hit theaters next year with Steven Spielberg signed onto produce and Mummy director Stephen Sommers in the director's seat.
• The Terminator returns next summer, starring Christian Bale, with a war between humans and the armies of Skynet. But the real question is, will the California governor "be back" as promised?

From the Fresh Prince to Captain Jack Sparrow, stars aren't sweating the small notes

(NEWSER) - Hancock isn't the "have you seen it" superhero movie of the season, but star Will Smith isn't crying in his beer: The ex-Fresh Prince raked in $80 million in the year that ended June 1. The rest of the Forbes top 10:

2. Johnny Depp ($72 million)
3. Eddie Murphy ($55 million)
4. Mike Myers ($55 million)
5. Leonardo DiCaprio ($45 million)