On Fame. Not Fame, Fame.

If you thought the best thing in this Guardian story about Kevin Spacey’s popularity in London is the phrase “pashmina intelligentsia,” you’re too easily pleased:

On one occasion, the actress Sienna Miller was sitting next to Spacey at a bar. She had just seen The Usual Suspects and was excited to find herself close to one of the film’s stars.
Approaching him she said: ‘I just wanted to say I can’t believe I’m sitting in a bar drinking champagne next to Kevin Bacon.’ ‘Spacey,’ said Kevin. ‘Yeah, it is, isn’t it?’ said Miller.

Which reminds me, I saw a part of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil the other night on TV, and I realized its similarities to Adaptation haven’t been mentioned anywhere. [Of course, my mentioning them here isn’t going to help me get ahead at Spacey’s online film company, Triggerstreet. What the hey, here goes.]

Both are adapted from very popular books, which were in turn adapted from magazine articles (Okay, Midnight just seemed like a 400-page Vanity Fair article.)

The writer, desperately inserts himself into the story. Hilarity ensues. We then experience a melange of fiction, fact, imagination and multiple levels of reality. (Okay, Charlie Kaufman was upfront about it. To a fault. John Berendt’s been much cagier. No pun intended.)

John Cusack is in both films. But he’s much better in Adaptation (Okay, I’m guessing, but he can’t have a worse role than he did in Midnight, etc.)

And most significantly, Midnight director Clint Eastwood is Adaptation director Spike Jonze‘s father. (Okay, I made that one up, but I had to finish big.)