Linda Holmes

It's perhaps a testament to my resistance to this material that I've never felt moved to read Jack Kerouac's On The Road, but I have to suspect it's better than this disappointing adaptation, or at least more interesting.

The story of the Arkansas murder trials of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley — the men known as the "West Memphis Three" — has already been the topic of the three well-known documentaries in the Paradise Lost series made for HBO by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. Those films, in fact, helped the case come to the attention of many of the people whose work ultimately resulted in the three defendants' release from prison in 2011.

[Monkey See will be at the Toronto International Film Festival through the middle of next week. We'll be bringing you our takes on films both large and small, from people both well-known and not.]

Tomorrow at this time, I will be forgetting something vitally important as I pack my bags for the Toronto International Film Festival, where I will be for a week. Fortunately for my nerves and sanity, I'll be there with Bob Mondello, whose fall movie preview we put up yesterday, and Trey Graham, whom you may know from Pop Culture Happy Hour.

When you can't beat the slowness of late summer as an entertainment season, you can at least embrace it, and that's what we did this week. Dog days of summer winding down, you say? We say it's time to talk about pop culture dogs. Not dogs in the "lousy product" sense, but dogs in the sense of literal, actual dogs. Faithful, friendly, silly, whether the size of an ottoman or the size of a wallet.

Among the little treasures, Stephen is fond of this slightly obscure dog — at least these eight minutes of him.

No surprise, but still impressive: mobile content is rising and rising ... and rising. [The Hollywood Reporter]

It's a little hard to believe, but apparently the NFL is going to open its regular season with replacement officials — or at least it says it will. [ESPN] [caution, opens a video]

So far, the I Will If You Will Book Club — a very occasional project of Monkey See — has read Twilight, Moby-Dick, and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Dream Country. It has been much too long since we read a book, so we will do so now.

Yesterday brought the rare piece of television production news that actually surprises and intrigues me: Eddie Murphy and producer Shawn Ryan are reportedly shopping around a TV adaptation of Beverly Hills Cop featuring Axel Foley's son — with Axel showing up here and there. [Vulture]

Okay, so Bic has been taking a lot of flack for selling this pen "for her." (As it says on its web site, it is "a ball pen essentially for women," although that seems to invite a caveat, such as, "although there may be certain men to whom it appeals and we don't judge.")

Who might direct the upcoming Justice League film? Perhaps the Wachowskis, whom you might remember from a few films with Matrix in their titles. [Vulture]

Clive James has an essay about Pauline Kael, whose stuff you really should read if you never have. "Trash, Art, And The Movies" changed my life. [The Atlantic]