Bleak Road Not as Good as Book

Denzel Washington impressive in post-apocalyptic road fable

(NEWSER) - The Book of Eli is almost certainly the best post-apocalypic Christian action movie you'll see this year, say critics, although many were put off by the preaching.

• The directors scored with the casting—Denzel Washington as a grizzled gunslinger protecting the world's last Bible—the fight scenes and the explosions, Derek Malcolm of the Evening Standard writes in a spoiler-laden review. But the message is overkill. "The result is like The Road rewritten by Sarah Palin for the greater good of Alaska and mankind."

Auction for machine smashes $20K estimate

(NEWSER) - The typewriter Cormac McCarthy used in creating his novels sold today for $254,500, smashing presale estimates of its value. Christie's auction house had projected a winning bid of about $20,000 for the Olivetti manual machine on which McCarthy wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men, among other works. An anonymous buyer will pony up far more cash, which will go to charity. More»

(NEWSER) - Entertainment Weekly looks at the most promising movies for the fall. Here's a sampling:

• 9: Shane Acker’s Oscar-nominated short about sentient rag dolls gets a big-screen treatment courtesy of producer Tim Burton.
• The Informant: Matt Damon gained 30 pounds for Steven Soderbergh’s film on corporate whistleblowers.
• Jennifer’s Body: A possessed Megan Fox eats boys for lunch in this high school horror film, written by Diablo Cody.
• Shutter Island: Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the novel about two US marshals forced to spend the night in a mental institution.

Coen brothers adapt McCarthy novel to good effect

(NEWSER) - It's a far piece from their Oscar-winning Fargo, but No Country for Old Men, the new thriller from Joel and Ethan Coen, is generating the same kind of buzz. Set in a West Texas border town in 1980, No Country, an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel about a drug deal gone horribly wrong and the resulting fallout, is "entertaining as hell," raves Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. More»