Reading stack: Cameron Crowe's slump, Fincher's Spidey, and Lord of the Beatles

• I love Cameron Crowe movies. Almost Famous was fantastic. I still like Jerry Maguire, even though so much of it has been overplayed in pop culture. And I have a big soft spot for Singles.

But man, Elizabethtown was a major letdown. (I think I was so disappointed because the trailer really got to me. My father had just died.) On the bright side, Kirsten Dunst's character inspired Nathan Rabin to coin the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl."

It also kind of exposed Crowe as formulaic, with protagonists that always go for the big move, fail, then have to come back from that. So is Crowe's upcoming We Bought a Zoo more of the same? [Slate]

• While watching David Fincher and the cast of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo talk to Charlie Rose over the weekend, I recalled that Fincher was once interested in directing a Spider-Man movie. Except he didn't want to do the origin story.

As it turns out, Fincher was on the short list to direct the rebooted Spidey flick before Marc Webb was chosen. Should it be any surprise that the story he wanted to tell is probably the darkest, most tragic in the Spider-Man mythology? [Spinoff Online]

• This doesn't sound like it could be true, but apparently it is. It's certainly the first I've heard of it. In 1969, The Beatles contacted Stanley Kubrick to ask him if he'd be interested in directing them in an adaptation of Lord of the Rings. As the story goes, Kubrick decided against doing it because he thought J.R.R. Tolkien's novels were "unfilmable."

But where do you even begin with this? Would John Lennon have played Frodo? Paul McCartney as Samwise Gamgee? Ringo would've made a great Gollum, I bet. I like the idea of George Harrison as Gandalf, as one fan-made poster here suggests. Of course, this is all overlooking trying to imagine what Kubrick would've done with this material. That is, if this story is true.  [Movies.com]

• Last week would've been Bill Hicks' 50th birthday. It certainly would've been interesting to see how Hicks would've endured through the rise, fall and re-emergence of comedy in our culture. Would Hicks have done a comedy podcast? The form probably would've suited him wonderfully. Here, David Haglund looks at the six-minute set that was infamously cut from David Letterman's show in 1993. [Browbeat]

• Apparently, the ideal way to take a nap is in a hammock. I don't have a hammock. Also, the recommendation is for a 10-minute nap. I don't do 10-minute naps. Power naps have never worked that well for me. I just want to sleep more. But maybe I should string a hammock up in my garage and give it a try. [Men's Health]