Partly Cloudy, 64°
A big-screen adaptation of Henry David Thoreau's classic introspective existentialist masterpiece "Walden" will now include "enough explosions to make Hiroshima look like a poorly-controlled fart," reported newly signed director Michael Bay earlier this week.
Bay, whose résumé includes such works as "Independence Day" and "Transformers," has made a name for himself in the film industry as a purveyor of big-budget popcorn flicks, sparking controversy over his appointment to this director's chair. The adaptation, slated for a July 2008 release, will surprise some of Bay's action-loving fans, he says.
"The material in this book is deep. Like, really deep. And so what happened was I was sitting there in my living room, digging into the SparkNotes like nobody's business, and then it hit me: if my adaptation of this noble work was going to succeed, it was going to need, at minimum, two car chases."
"Waldependence Day: A Michael Bay Film" has elicited the ire of cinemaphiles online, the majority of whom surprisingly lack the grasp of the English language one might expect from self-proclaimed American existentialism fans.
"WTF," begins one typical post, "how can Micheal Bay do dis 2 4reau?"
The moderators at www.michaelbaycansuckmy.com said they are not responsible for the relative ineptitude of angry contributors to their site forums.
"I think we're really focusing on the wrong stuff here," said Chuck Crawson, one of the webmasters. "This is not a discussion about uses or misuses of the English language. This is about expressing our dissatisfaction with that no-good son of a bitch."
Bay said he consistently fails to understand the backlash directed at his art.
"Look, you can say what you want about me. That's part of our Constitution and part of our freedoms and whatnot. But what I'm saying is, let me have the freedom to put a laser-shooting Panzer that is mankind's only hope for defeating alien invaders in a mid-19th century non-fiction narrative. Is that so much to ask?"
