It's been a crazy week or so, figuring personal things out, getting stuff situated. But I'm back and ready. And, hopefully, with less horror-related posts than in recent weeks, just for diversity's sake. There's more to my viewing habits than just the scariness. Though, I'll be buying Martyrs tomorrow (finally!!!), and a long-winded post about that long-awaited flick is inevitable, and rather soon-coming.
The news that has brought me back to this blog full force is that the awesome Empire Magazine's new "20th anniversary" issue has in it, amongst tons of other goodies, a few new stills from Peter Jackson's forthcoming adaptation of Alice Sebold's popular novel The Lovely Bones. Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame, of course) has gone back to his Heavenly Creatures days with this film, and that's much more exciting to me than the guy doing another huge spectacle, a la Lord of the Rings (call me crazy for that). I'm under the opinion that Heavenly Creatures is the man's best work, but naturally I'm more prone to love dark, intimate fare than the blockbusters.
As for The Lovely Bones the novel, I really liked it, but didn't love it. The story captivated my attention more so than the actual writing, which is impressive but loses some steam a few chapters in. The first 20-or-so pages of the thing fly by, introducing one hell of a depraved tragedy and setting up the main character's, 14-year-old "Susie Salmon," plight: after being raped, murdered, and dismembered by a neighborhood pedophile, Susie can only look down from heaven as her grieving family and friends try to move on with their lives, unsuccessfully, while she also watches her killer's world carry on under growing public suspicion. Partially taking place from her point-of-view in heaven, partially within the moving-forward real world that her death has left behind. A few sections of Sebold's novel drag, unfortunately, but the story is established with such initial force that it's damn hard to give up on the book as things plod along. The payoff is a bit too cutesy for my liking, but still satisfactory enough.
Originally, Jackson cast Ryan Gosling as Susie's father, a central character here and a role that requires massive dramatic chops. Gosling dropped out early on, though, and Mark Wahlberg came on his replacement. At the time of the news, I was all for this; I've long thought that Wahlberg is a better actor than he's given credit for, and The Lovely Bones is the perfect vehicle for the guy to reclaim some respect. Of course, this was before I saw that steaming pile The Happening, and the less-steaming but still a pile Max Payne. Now, who the hell knows what Marky Mark is going to bring to Jackson's table.
Check out his sweet '70s hairdo:
The rest of Jackson's cast is eclectic but all skilled: Saoirse Ronan (Oscar-nominated newbie, from Atonement) as "Susie," Susan Sarandon as her high-maintenance grandmother, Rachel Weisz as her adulterous mother, Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos' "Christopher Multisanti) as the detective on the case, and Stanley Tucci as her pedopiliac killer, "George Harvey."
Saoirse Ronan, as "Susie Salmon" Stanley Tucci, as "George Harvey"
The Lovely Bones hits theaters on December 11 (after several release date pushbacks), just in time for awards season.
If you know me, I'm sure that you'd suspect Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds as my most-anticipated movie of '09, but then you, my friends, would be stricken by some false assumptions. Well, maybe not. I have rambled on and on here about how much I'm dying to see some Nazi-scalping and listen to Brad Pitt's Foghorn Leghorn accent, so I could understand. The more I think another high-profile flick coming later this year, though, I realize just how quickly I'd punch an old lady in the face across the street at Chelsea Square Park to catch an early screening of Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island (or, Ashecliffe, whichever he's calling it; I much prefer Shutter Island). For the unaware, Shutter Island is Scorcese's next tag-team with Leonardo Dicaprio, and it also stars Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach, bitches!), and Michelle Williams. Its an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's astoundingly-great novel, which still reigns supreme as my favorite novel of all time.
As of now, the flick is looking at an October release.
Simple plot breakdown (courtesy of Barone's World): Set in 1954, and Dicaprio plays a detective sent with his new partner (Ruffalo) to investigate a missing person case on a secluded island off the shores of Boston. Only, this island is actually a Riker's Island-like detention center for the criminally insane, and their "missing person" is a homicidal woman (Mortimer). The investigation itself becomes a royal pain in the ass, with lies, deceptions, mis-leads and other issues surfacing, but then all hell truly breaks loose once a freak storm traps the two detectives on the island, in the midst of an all-out riot.
I'd be a horse's ass if I said anything further, but I will tease with this: the book has such a captivating Gothic dread-power throughout, and it ultimately pimp-slaps the senses with some crazy Twilight Zone turns. I've read it twice now, and the novel literally went from "awesome" to "holy shit" for me. So having such mega-talents like Scorcese, Dicaprio, Ruffalo, Haley and Williams has me feeling all warmly confident inside, but not 100%---if you read the book, you'll understand my questioning of just how Scorcese will pull it all off visually and structurally. And the overall tone is much more quasi-supernatural than anything Marty S. has done before; not that I'm doubting the god Scorcese, of course. I'm just insanely curious.
A paparazzi shot, of sorts, caught during the film's production
There won't be a trailer for this one any time soon, I'm sure, but I've just come across something a bit cooler, only because it's not something you see everyday for films you love (or expect to love). Here are some storyboard illustrations for the production, drawn by a great artist named Karl Shelfelman. Pretty cool stuff. Shows you just what goes into some of a film's pre-production process:
Note to self: Must figure out how to expand this site's width for picture-posting benefits.
Storyboards (including a couple more not posted here) spotted over at: Rope of Silicon
Try to look past the no-name actors and overall "totally independent" feel here, because this one is an adaptation of a downright sick, awesome, nasty, very-well-done novel by one of my favorite authors, Jack Ketchum. The book, also titled Offspring, is a recommended-read not only for horror chums but for anyone who appreciates strong, fearless storytelling. Actually a sequel to Ketchum's Off Season, but for legal-rights reasons an Off Season movie can't be a go, so we're jumping right in with Offspring, instead. All good.
It's a perfect book to turn into a film minus star power and plus uncensored grit, so I'm pretty excited. Give it a peek---if you're anything like me, you'll like what you see.
As of now, there is no set release date, but hopefully it'll be out by the end of the year.
Offspring
Fun fact: The CSI dude who says "They ripped her heart out" is Jack Ketchum himself.
....and, after a good 20 minutes worth of pacing around Cosmic Comics, mentally "me-vs-myself" debating over whether this would be money well spent or not, I opted for "yes," and now I'm pleased. 24 stories all in one hardcover shell, meaning 24 ironic twist endings and 24 marriages of shocks and messages. Divine.
As was the older guy who owns and runs the nerd-heaven of West 23rd Street, Cosmic Comics. The girl working the cash register seemed to be about my age, dressed in stereotypically-geek-ish blue hoop earrings, a green-and-black-striped sweater, and hair dyed with streaks of dark blue. Quite the friendly, excitable gal, she greeted my EC Comics Archives purchase with an unexpected dose of glee. "Oh my God, I have to go get my boss!" she immediately blurted. "He's going to be so impressed!"
Like that, she disappeared into some backroom for a good three minutes, leaving me to wonder, "Should I be scared?" You never know, right? Not that I was intimidated, in the slightest; just that, the ecstatic facial expression she beamed with caught me totally off-edge, and brought with it uncertain possibilities. Better judgment told me to "chill the fuck out," though, and by the time the older, white-haired, four-eyed fanman came out front, I had a great feeling of what was about to go down.
"She tells me that you're buying some EC Comics Archives....that's so great!" You could tell that these EC Comics volumes aren't exactly top-sellers at his shop, which surprises me, truthfully. "The only people that I've ever seen buy these are my age or only slightly younger. You can't be older than 25, right?" I'm actually 27, I informed the man, but thanks for keeping me even further away from the big 3-0. After chuckling, he told me that he is 58 and that the EC Comics arsenal was, and still is, the main reason why he became such a massive comic book head, and when EC released these newly-restored prints of their beloved 1950s-issued classics, he felt like his life come full circle. So seeing somebody as young as myself showing enough interest in his cherished EC product to shell out 50 cool ones filled him with "so much joy."
I must say, this was a pretty profound experience. I've always felt like I'm a bit beyond my years as far as storytelling-preferences go, but this pretty much solidified the hunches. I went on to tell him how at least once a week I wish I could've grown up at least 30 years earlier, when my love for conscious genre fiction and exploitation cinema would've fit like a much more-snug glove. And how as a kid I'd watch the old British horror anthology films that were directly inspired and adapted from the EC standards: Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror, especially included. And then we went off on a "That one scene was my favorite" tangent, all while the blue-haired girl listened in. Maybe it's a bit chauvinistic on my part to think, but I swear that she was feeling me something wicked, and, if I were in the mood to, I could've scored her digits and we could've read Scott Pilgrim comic books together under a scenic tree, in Central Park. But nope, not my type. Nice girl, though.
All in all, a rather rewarding and enlightening trip to Cosmic Comics. Money well spent, and nostalgia well absorbed and nicely delivered.
Started this one yesterday morning; just finished it about 30 minutes ago. If not errand-handling yesterday and pesky money-earning today, I'd have finished this one much quicker.
Jack Ketchum has officially become the tops, author-wise. The stories keep getting better, gorier, scarier, more extreme. This dude is a master at bringing otherworldly horrors into everyday reality. The Lost is still his best, to me, in terms of overall effect. But Off Season is paced at triple time, striking sharper and more often.
Off Season's "sequel," Offspring, shall be cracked open tomorrow morning on the good ol' PATH train. Could very well be ran through by Wednesday afternoon.
After Offspring, it'll be time to delve pupils-first into the compiled works of both Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft.
It's a self-imposed genre fiction workshop from here on out, punk mutha suckers.
The Netflix queue is about to inflate, dramatically; Barnes & Noble will soon be ransacked, and my horror know-about will mature, twenty-fold.
All thanks to this, my current fixation, attenton-holder:
Highlight so far, and I've only begun to scratch the pavement: Eli Roth's ten greatest genital mutilation scenes in horror film history. Truly compelling stuff, I swear. Just in his list alone, I've learned about six films I'd previously never even heard of, but now must see.
Coolest book ever assembled? It's in the running, at least....
Just started this classic, this morning on the train. Cranked through 40 pages on that short ride, already. I'm hooked, can't wait to continue. Only within Chapter Two and the writing is something serious. Reads like butter, baby.
Have a ticket to an early screening of the Christmas-opening film adaptation, with Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet for those unaware, on December 10. That gives me 22 days to finish the novel. No sweat. Something tells me I'll breeze through this one, concluding its bleak portrayal of '50s-era suburban-set domestic implosion by this week's end.
ShockTillYouDrop reports that the second can-use-as-a-dumbbell thick volume of this violently-loved horror comic series will release in January, so I felt compelled to purchase Volume 1, finally.
Just bought. Took me long enough.
There's been talks of a movie in development for some time (starring Megan Fox, I'd hope), and the basic premise alone [teenage girl survives a slasher-movie-like, multiple-girl slaughter, then joins forces with a giant named Vlad to hunt down and dispatch of the genre's most notorious killers, such as Jason Voorhees, Chucky, Michael Myers, etc, all in her search for The Lunch Lady] rules.
A tongue-in-cheek yet still honest-to-goodness gory and ferocious horror comic about slashers, for lovers of slasher cinema? Score. Omnibus is crazy big, though. Hopefully I'll finish the whole shebang come January, before the second edition hits. If it's as sick as others have exclaimed time and time again, shouldn't be a problem.
If I were an animation creation, Cassie Hack would be mine, wife status. I can tell already....first Lady Gaga, and now Hack---feels like my "type" is transforming, something peculiar.
Filed under "Movies I'm now impatiently waiting on".....
Casey Affleck was, easily, one of my top performers of 2007. Gone Baby Gone was a great piece of moody investigation blues, and Affleck proved ten times more charismatic and attention-commandeering as a leading man than I'd ever guessed. Then came The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a dense, quiet, arthouse-goes-Western dose of psychological drama that'll forever rest comfortably in my "how was this movie so overlooked" memory bank-vault, and Affleck chilled at that coward.
Big brother Ben has been demoted to "the other Affleck."
But the better-thesp Affleck hasn't had much going on since his Oscar nom for ...Robert Ford in this year's nobody-watched Oscar telecast. So the following announcement immediately drew my eyes and ears in:
Affleck has signed on to star in The Killer Inside Me, based on a 1952 classic noir by beloved author Jim Thompson that some say must've inspired Bret Easton Ellis' killer-yuppie novel American Psycho. He'll play the main character, " an amiable small-town Texas lawman wrestling with a dark secret, demonstrated through increasingly sociopathic actions." Upon deeper investigation, these "actions" are the brutally-violent murdering of townsfolk, namely prostitutes.
Dude was great playing "disturbed man harboring homicidal tendencies" as Robert Ford, so this sounds like a great fit. Props awarded to the casting crew and Killer Inside Me director Michael Winterbottom for passing by more prestigious names for Casey A. This one's high on my to-watch front, now. No question.
About to buy Jim Thompson's original book after work today, in fact. It's not a game. This story sounds right up my dark, seedy fictional alley. Was going to decide on-spot between Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door and Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, but those may have to fall back momentarily.
Besides, Jessica Alba's also down for Killer Inside Me as a prostitute, and there's no denying the potential greatness that exists in Alba hoping for acting cred through portraying a hooker. It's like, she's finally realizing where her true talents reside: her blazer of a body and melter of a mug. "Respected actress" she's not. Though, something like Killer Inside Me seems like a decent step in the right direction.
How about a shot from my favorite performance of her's (next to the winning Sin City, of course)?
Yes, I saw Honey in a theater. With a friend, named Ben. What? That shit came out at the height of my once-burning passion for Alba (Idle Hands and Dark Angel had me soaring in lust).
She's a bad, bad actress. Won't be able to keep up with Affleck in pure "batshit crazy" mode. Throw some skimpy olden-times garb on her, though, and I won't give two shits. I'm shallow like that.
Later than 1am on reading this one. But a rather engaging, heart-touching piece of creative storytelling (young girl is raped and murdered; she watches, from Heaven, her family struggle through years of grief and evolve into a hardened unit that never would've happened if she were still breathing). Bleak at times, but not in the extreme, visceral ways I'm typically more partial to, while sad in ways that have me loving my family (especially Lil' G, known to the government as Gianna) the more after finishing page 325.
The way Sebold ends the story is the only real drawback. Things start off swiftly, gripping from page one. In the middle, it slows down considerably, but still commands. As the resolutions, or lack thereof, surface, though, steam is let out. Namely in how the killer's subplot is wrapped up, which left me saying out loud (literally), "Fuck outta here....that's it? Just like that?"
Let's see if Peter Jackson turns it into an equally-touching movie. But Mark Wahlberg as the father? Ehhh...pre-2008, I would've supported, but post-The Happening-and-Max Payne, not so much. Ryan Gosling dropping out of the role before Wahlberg stepped in = tragic.
I must say...I've read quite a few of Stephen King's books, and enjoyed them. Some I've loved to no end (The Shining, Carrie, From A Buick 8), others I've enjoyed though at times bored me if not slightly underwhelming me in their basic thrills (Cell, namely). King has a savvy humor to his writing, that blends in well with the scares and chills found within his tales. Such a unique, all-his-own voice, which I admire.
But if you know me, you know that, when it comes to my horror storytelling, I'm a-thousand-times-more partial to humorless. To the gut. Cold-blooded. Piercing. Sure, an occasional joke or whatever is allowed, but best left to character dialogue, and not writer's interjection. And yes, I fuckin' adore Shaun of the Dead, so my sense of humor does get along with my imaginary-sadist side. But that's the minority, folks.
Which all leads to this...I've found my favorite horror fiction author. Had thought it to be Mr. King, but I'm realizing now that he won such honors only because he's the author I've read the most works of, not because he's fully earned it. Make sense? It should. And that point is further smashed by the following statistical truth: I've only read two books by my new favorite horror fiction dude. But these two works alone have excited me and gripped more than any of King's. So therefore, I'm crowning Jack Ketchum as my favorite author.
[that's Ketchum....dude's hoodie says it all, huh...worth nothing here that "Jack Ketchum" is actually a pen-name; research shows me that his real name is Dallas Mayr, and he's a former music critic...I'm a hip-hop critic, from time to time...hmmmm]
Ketchum's is a name I've read about for the past year or so pretty regularly, while killing time (pun intended, get it?) on my various horror websites. The lion's share of his book-ography has either been adapted into films already or are currently in pre-production. Naturally, I was intrigued. I fancy myself a holder of a cinematic eye, so I figured, Ketchum's books must be that shit, then. Indeed, they are. The two that I've read, Red and The Lost, were fuck-I-don't-want-to-put-this-book-down-but-I-have-to-go-to-fucking-work good. Containing everything I'd want in a page-turner: great, well-drawn characters; sudden acts of stunning violence and gore; smart, fluid dialogue; and a lack of plot holes and narrative choices that, once I finish reading, ring true to what I would've done with the set-ups he presents.
His characters are priority numero uno, and given such rich and compelling back-stories, that there's hardly an unappealing, he/she-can-die-now-and-I-won't-give-two-shits one in the lot. He spends time explaining why each person does what he or she does, even when the actions aren't for the faint of heart. Internal monologues are recurrent, and no stone is left unflipped. Skeletons are injected with souls and come crackling out of closets to haunt you like that bone-twitching scene in the original House on Haunted Hill when the walking skull-and-bones dude scares the backstabbing lady to death. Which is why I'm so surprised that all of the book-to-film adaptations of Ketchum's work have been met with generally positive reviews. If there's one that books are able to do much better than movies, it's providing ocean-deep background and history for multiple figures. Movies are stricken by running times, where as books can go one for 400 pages and not feel overlong.
[now that's a book cover...]
And meticulous, dense character development is the name of the game in The Lost, which I just completed an hour or so ago. Wednesday, as I carried the 395-page book with me to the PATH train, I was somewhat intimidated by its thickness, its size. "Between the truncated train rides and everything else cluttering my weekdays, it's going to take weeks for me to finish this shit," I thought. That was, before I actually turned leftward-in Page One, jamming its hook into my brain like that I Know What You Did Last Summer fisherman out for blood. From that point forward, my workdays were progressing with, "Need to leave, need to continue The Lost." And now, a hair past two days later, shit's a Reynolds (wrap). Breezed right through it. And man, was it a scorcher.
Location: Sparta, New Jersey, an actual town in South Jerz that's pretty much the boonies, very to-itself and inconspicuous. The main character is a teenager, Ray Pye, who's basically a suave, ladies-man, wannabe-Mick Jagger bent by a real Hannibal Lecter-like fascination with inflicting pain and feeling pleasure from watching others tremble in his presence. A true scumbag. As the story opens, he's hanging out in the woods with two younger friends, the insecure and follower-type Tim Bess, and the also-insecure, from-a-broken-home, Jennifer, who is utterly infatuated with Ray. And Ray knows it, so he fucks her frequently to get his rocks off, which angers Tim because he secretly sweats Jennifer....so anyway, they're in the woods, and Ray happens across a pair of attractive female campers nearby. I won't spoil what triggers this, but in a random fit, Ray blows both girls away with a rifle he had stashed all along. And convinces a scared-and-bewildered Tim and Jennifer to keep mum. Shut the fuck up.
Fast forward four years, Lieutenant Charles Schilling is still convinced that Ray killed the two girls, but hasn't been able to pin him, and now the case has gone cold. His partner, Ed Anderson, has retired as a result of the un-solve-able case, and Ed's now in a loving relationship with Sally Richmond, an 18-or-so year old girl who's young enough to be Ed's daughter. Which means they're keeping the sex-and-dating a secret from the rest of smalltown Sparta. Also in love is Ray, now, with Katherine, a beautiful California-to-New-Jersey transplant who suffers from a mother confined to an insane asylum back in Cali.
That's the basic set-up. What transpires, though, as characters interweave with one another and emotions flare, is a total derailment. I can honestly say, I was reading with my jaw firmly slumped the floor as the climax grew and grew. Devolving into a serial killer bloodbath. Sexually sick at times. Hard to stop reading the whole time, though. The way Ketchum describes the outbursts of death-dealing always hits like a sneak attack to the sternum: [the following excerpt comes directly after a casual conversation between two friends]
"Lisa felt something strike the back of her shoulder, an acorn falling from high above, she thought, from the tree, but knowing even that something was wrong, that whatever it was had struck her too hard and then instantly heard the cracklike someone stepping on a branch in the brush out there in the dark and at first there was no pain, it was only startling, a sound out of sync with the world. But she turned at the sound and at the sudden wet feeling feeling on her shoulder.
And that was when her face exploded.
Her teeth shattered the bullet. Fragments of teeth and bullet drilled her cheekbone and poured out through her cheek.
Had her neck been turned a quarter of an inch to the right the third bullet would have severed her jugular, would have cracked her larynx a quarter inch to the left. Instead it entered and exited clean thumped into the tree beside Elise's shoulder."
Serious shit. But so well dictated.
The reason why I cited each major chaaracter above is simply to do The Lost justice. Ketchum goes to incredible lengths to flesh out each person, in typical Ketchum fashion, of course. Each chapter is distinguished by whichever character's perspective it's being told from, and they're all given equal time to shine. As a writer, this guy clearly cares about all of his creations, even the despicable ones like Ray Pye. Not once, while reading this, did I feel cheated, or disconnected from any of the central peeps when something good or bad happened. Everything registered. Everything clicked. And Ketchum's visuals are worded to extremely-detailed ends. Which plays out like a "movie for the blind," a cinematic experience that I had playing head-wise throughout the reading process.
I'll stop now, though, because, well....I'm a bit tired of typing. And hungry. And ready to watch the old-school The Day The Earth Stood Still (a sci-fi classic I've shamefully yet to see, and which has been remade into a huge December blockbuster, starring the positively-vapid Keanu Reeves, and hitting this Dec.), courtesy of Netflix....but again, The Lost is a Philadelphia Phillies-level winner.
Next week, I'll be stepping foot into a Barnes & Noble, walking around aimlessly looking for the ever-elusive "horror fiction" section (seriously, why is B&N so god-damn confusing in its layout?), and dropping dollar-bills on some more Ketchum. The plan, to read his entire catalog. I'm hooked, officially.
And here, as a lil' bonus, the trailer for The Lost's independent film version, which I hear is actually pretty damn good and faithful to this book. It's up next in my Netflix Queue (right before the film take on Ketchum's you-killed-my-dog-so-now-your-ass-is-grass revenge tale Red, actually), so I'll judge for myself shortly. Based off this trailer alone, I'm pretty optimistic. Looks about right.
Been reading books at a ferocious clip lately. More out of a sense of "why the fuck have I not been reading books regularly," and/or, "music is boring the bejesus out of me, causing movies to bring to the spotlight my appreciation and obsession with fictional storytelling, a natural progression into fiction literature if there ever was one." Yes, my thoughts are that unnecessarily wordy.
And, just as I suspected, falling in love with Cormac McCarthy's brilliant The Road (the first book I cracked open and submitted to in the wake of this "I sweat fiction" realization) unleashed the prose-piercing beast within. I've read six books in the month-and-a-half-and-change, two of which (Jose Saramago's Blindness, and Dennis Lehane's phenomenal Shutter Island) I've already "blogged" about.
Now, I feel the need to keep records of the books I've consumed here. Sort of like a log, a capsule of narrative treasures. No long-winded reviews or analysis; just quick-hitters. Plot summaries, in case anybody reading is open to my influence, followed by snappy feedback. Gotta feed the beast within somehow, now.
1) Cell, by Stephen King: What The Signal flick must've ganked inspiration from, or if not, would call its "kindred spirit." A sudden transmission sent through cellular phones turns users into ravenous killers, mumbling gibberish while feasting on warm human flesh. A ragtag crew of non-cell-owners (a graphic artist, a gay suit-and-tie type, and a high school girl) band together for survival, and gradually realize that this ever-growing society of "phone-crazies" is evolving, and operating within lifestyles codes and peculiar behavior. Reaction: Way, way overlong, flipping in at around 350 or so pages. Easily could've clipped a good 80 off, give or take. But its scope is so enormous and fully-realized that I find myself now appreciating Cell more than adoring. Writing-wise, though, its vintage King---droll humor, snappy pop culture references, and matter-of-fact violence dictated with a stellar sense of visual gusto. Didn't fall head over heels for the book, but still enjoyed. The random way one major character dies slugged my emotions, more than I'd have imagined the book could or ever would. So for that moment alone, this one earns mucho points...Would make for one sick movie, hopefully one not overseen by Hostel's Eli Roth, the long-rumored filmmaker circling the project. Why not somebody like Ridley Scott? Too much of a "slumming" project for his caliber, you say? Pish tosh. Scott's command of action would work wonders with Cell's three major setpieces, and he's clearly a genre head (Blade Runner, or Alien, anyone?)
[a visual bonus....somebody's artistical rendition of Cell's opening scene....which, in the pantheon of opening scenes, is pretty fucking great. Grabs you in like a fishhook through the cheek]
Next Up....
2) Red, by Jack Ketchum: A peaceful, world-worn-down war veteran, and widower (not to mention father of a psychotic runaway son who murdered his mother and little brother), lives alone with his loyal, aging dog, named Red. One otherwise routine day, he and Red are fishing down by a river, when three derelict teens try their hands at robbery. The old man doesn't have much $$$, so in unprovoked retaliation, they shoot poor Red in the doggy-head. Setting off, naturally and justifiably, a Charles Bronson-like revenge-stimulated bloodlust in the old fella. And things get messy. Reaction: Loved this book. Granted, any tale involving the death of a friendly and loving dog heartily tugs at my inner strings, making the old man somebody I'd loudly root for, any day of the week. But basic plot aside, its the smooth, addictive way that Kethcum writes. Told in such succinct to-the-pointness, yet reaches levels of unexpected complexity, in each and every sentence. It's linear storytelling, yet, it grabs you in ways that any Memento-ish structure could. The violence doesn't erupt; it blindsides your senses, offering little warning. Slap-boxes on the spot, rather than even-slightly-telegraphed hits.....consider me a Ketchum-head now, and his infamous opus The Lost is in the running for "next book I'll read." It's sitting on my desk, waiting.
And finally...
3) Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk: A journalist is investigating various cases of infant "crib death," those tragic fatalities where babies flatline suddenly, in their place-of-sleep. The deeper he digs, though, the more he uncovers a mystical cause--a book, Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, which, on page 27, has a "culling song" written out, a lullaby-spell that, when read, kills whomever passes through the reader's thoughts. The unfortunate, unsuspecting person slumps to the ground, dropping dead-as-a-doornail. The journalist discovers that a real estate agent also knows this culling song, and together they go on a nationwide road trip in hopes of all existing copies of the book, specifically every page 27. But, being a Palahniuk book (dudes is notorious for non-linear prose, rampant deviance, provocative tales and truly-bizarre imagery....he wrote the original Fight Club book, for those not in the know), there's much more at play here. Wiccan practitioners of the cynical variety; paramedics who get off on sticking their dicks in deceased hotties; and flash-forwards that feel like flashbacks, amidst other outrageousness. Reaction: Like Red, Lullaby has given me a new author to bow down to--Mr. Palahniuk. I've heard tons about his loyal readership, referred to as The Cult, and now I see why. Talk about "having a writer's voice all his own"; dude is so sick with it, I had to re-read the book IN ONE SITTING immediately after I completed it, just to wrap my head around the twists and turns that reveal themselves in the final chapters, yet were now-obviously at play since page 1. It's the kind of book that is done little justice being read on noisy trains full of please-shut-the-fuck-up worthy girls and Goth guys blasting shitty metal through their iPod-connected-headphones. Who frequently inhabit the PATH train. No, Lullaby is best indulged in the quiet of my bedroom, as I'm suspecting all Palahniuk books are. There's so much going on at once, its like feeling your way through a labyrinth. Like a David Lynch film in written form, only Palahniuk's books actually tie together by El Fin.
--Stacked atop the cigar humidor in my bedroom, awaiting my eyes: Jack Ketchum's The Lost (something about the disturbed post-murder lives of a serial-killing duo); Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (a little girl dies, and then, as an unseen spirit, watches her family cope with her passing while investigating her unsolved, supposed murder); Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted (a group of writers are locked in a room, and none can leave 'til they write one head-spinning tale a piece, or something like that).
I'm also gung-ho about tearing through the entire Ketchum and Palahniuk catalog(s) now. Part reading pleasure, part must-take-notes-because-these-are-two-authors-I'd-love-to-soak-up-as-much-game-as-possible-from.
Detecting a dark, anti-Harry Potter and the Whatever Nerdy Shit's Whatever The Fuck/Twilight/Babysitters Club theme here?
I prefer my yarns strangling, not sweater-knitting.
Actually, while I'm here seated in front of the laptop, digesting the Papa Johns goodness, I might as well drop some thoughts quickly on a short film I watched earlier, courtesy of the 'Flix (no real reason to abbreviate Netflix like that, just makes me look like a real corn, but oh well, what's done is done). This isn't going to be one of my usual in-depth reactions, just a quick brainstorm. Watched it like seven hours ago now, but its still fresh in my head, mainly because as I'm thinking about it now, I feel like spewing up some of my pizza. Shit was just plain old filthy, gross, and wrong (the short film, not Big Papa, that is).
Its called Aftermath, and its from Spain. Written and directed by this sick summa-da-bitch named Nacho Cerda, who I've read about being this highly-regarded champ of Spanish horror cinema. So of course, that's all my easily-intrigued ass needed to consult the 'Flix (there it is again) and toss his resume in my Queue (that's how its spelled, right? What the fuck is a "queue" anyway? Is that a word used anywhere else outside of the 'Flix? If so, I must look like a baffoon right now. Oh well. It just seems like a bit of phonetic rubbish to me).
So back to Aftermath....my first experience with Cerda was actually watching a first esxperience of his own---his first full-length feature, this creepy, surreal, largely flawed but ultimately sick-enough-for-me-to-love flick called The Abandoned, which was released in US theaters for like 49 hours early last year, earning a whopping $31.50 or so, I think, my $10.50 being a third of that, with the remainder coming from those two other weirdos in attendance with me. I now own The Abandoned on DVD, and maybe I'll rewatch it soon and write about it here some time. Or maybe not......cliffhanger, bitches?
[poster for The Abandoned, which, by the way, has quite possibly the coolest moment in a horror movie ever that features pigs. I'll have to think back a bit to fact-check such a declaration, but I'm pretty sure its spot-on]
So yes, I greatly enjoyed The Abandoned, so once I joined the 'Flix, Cerda's infamous short flick Aftermath was pushed to the top of Q-word with the quickness. Finally reached it in my list, and perused all 31-nasty-mins of it earlier. And man, what the fuck did I just watch? Like, I've seen plenty of shit that's made me question my own sanity and moral code. But this Aftermath....a whole new level of "maybe I am a sick fuck after all" reached, my friends.
There's no plot, really, or even a semblance of a narrative. At least not one that has any real conflict. Basically, you have these two dudes who work in a mortuary, and one happens to be a necrophiliac who gets off on blood, guts, and all kinds of wrongness. So after his partner leaves, and after our main nutjob cleans out a dead dude who looks like Adrien Brody with an ill mustache, the corpse-cleaner locks the door, and proceeds to go to town, sexually, on a deceased chick. Cutting her open. Jamming a knife into her hoo-hah. Beating his meat while rubbing her intestines. Photographing the gory carcass. And then, in his grand finale, he has intercourse with the slab of no-longer-breathing female meat on the table. And then he wraps her up, files her, goes home, feeds his dog some blood-soaked meat, and reads a paper. The end. Seriously. There may be some hidden shit going on, but not sure if I'm going to rush to watch this one again any time soon.
Now, with all that sick stuff said.....here's the kicker. I actually liked Aftermath. I know, I know. I'm twisted, and many of y'all who read this will look at me in a much darker light now knowing that I enjoyed a movie where a dude slapped the salami to a dead girl (now, we didn't see the salami....that much needs to be emphasized here, for rep's sake, at the very least). But my enjoyment here stems 100% from an artistic standpoint. Yes, there was art at work here. Tons, in fact.
First, Cerda stages this entirely as a silent movie....well, silent in the sense that there's zero dialogue. It's not totally mute, though, being that there is tons of music and score, comprised mostly of classical symphonies and compositions. A really clever and bizarre mish-mash of visual depravity and audible beauty. A slick pairing, for sure. And then, the way Cerda' camera frames every scene is really well done. Close-ups pan out slowly; the focus casually glides across the truly disgusting imagery, not stressing them but rather just treating them as natural things.
But I'll admit: there was a few moments in Aftermath where I nearly shut the DVD off, and simply for the fact of giving me such urges, Aftermath is a winner for me. If it had been "turn this off" in the sense of "because this shit sucks," I'd be typing a different tune. But it was in the sense of "turn this shit off because I'm not sure I can physically take it anymore." And that, kiddies, is quite the Matt Barone "Thumbs Up" if there ever was one.
Check it out, if you can. If you want to toss up your cookies, especially. Not even Famous Amos could withstand the pressure.
Oh, and before I hit the hay tonight, I'm going to peep Cerda's third, and last on my to-endure list, short called Genesis. Doesn't seem as sick as Aftermath, but has potential to be ten times spookier. Shall report back tomorrow.
And yes, I realize that my earlier "this will be a shorter reaction post, blah blah blah" nonsense turned out to be utter fiction. Sue me.
**If you're feeling brave, or just plain foolish, there's a trailer for Aftermath on Youtube that doesn't censor back some of the money shots. It's rough stuff. Not trying to post the video here, just out of respect of my weak-stomach(ed) readers. You know I love y'all too, now. Don't say I never did anything for y'all.
I can admit that I'm cheating a bit. By reading books that are in the process of being adapted into feature films, ones being made by highly-respected filmmakers, I'm sparing myself the experiences of reading shitty prose and sticking to quality lit. If a book is being turned into a movie, then odds are its a pretty good read, right? Safe to assume, no? Seems so to muah.
So thus far, in my newly-ignited penchant for readin a good book, I've breezed through a pair of great novels: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and Jose Saramago's Blindness. And I've had basically nothing but praise for both, and very rightfully so. And in my recapping here about Blindness, I hailed it as the best book I've ever read, or something along those lauded lines. And at that point, it damn sure was.
But such an honor has been dethroned faster than the New York Yankees atop MLB's dominant-chair (sorry to all my die-hard Yanks fans/friends....I just can't avoid a good and factual play-on-words). Enter Dennis Lehane's mind-blowing, page-turning, head-scratching, and for yours truly, infinitely-inspirational work, Shutter Island.
Lehane, a Boston-area native, is no stranger to having his books become movies---both his Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone were turned into stellar flicks, by Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck, respectively.
But the pedigree involved in the movie version of Shutter Island, scheduled for October of 2009 release, was more than enough to get me intrigued.....
Director = Martin Scorcese Actors = Leonardo Dicaprio, Sir Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer (who was great in the slept-on Transsiberian), and Mark Ruffalo (who is quickly becoming one of my fave actors)
And then I found out that Shutter Island has a mysterious, gothic, seriously-macabre tone to it, and my geekdom went into overdrive. Think about that.....Scorcese directing an eerie, unsettling, gothic psychological thriller? That's fucking sweet music to my macabre-loving ears! [I kinda hope they dont change the film version's title to the rumored Ashecliffe, though; Shutter Island just sounds much stronger to me. And besides, that's the original's name, for crying out loud!]
But man, oh man. Marty S. has his hands full, my friends, because Lehane's Shutter Island is absolutely brilliant. Seriously. It's certainly a book tailor-made for a talented filmmaker to transform into a live-action creation, but by-God Scorcese better stick to his source material as closely as possible here. This book is the tits, man! I only put it down maybe four times, and those were either due to need-for-sleep or my PATH train stop had arrived, unfortunately. I'd MUCH rather have stayed within Shutter Island's vice-grip than be at work, but that's not neither here nor there.
I'm not going to get into any real specifics about the story itself here, because truthfully, I really want those around me go pick it up, like right now, and immerse themselves in it, so I have somebody to talk about it with. I'm sitting here pissed off as I type that I can't engage in a thoughtful chit-chat about the insanity and density that I just read. I honestly may not even get a good night's sleep tonight; the story is still unraveling and festering within my thoughts. I can't stop mulling over it.
I will, though, give a very-brief synopsis, just to entice those reading this....the calendar reads 1954, and U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is sent on assignment to Ashecliffe Hospital, a home for the criminally-insanse-and-dangerous located on the remote Shutter Island, which is near Boston. He's assigned to go there with a partner he's never met before, Chuck Aule, and together they're supposed to locate a missing patient, a woman named Rachel Solando, who killed her three children and is batshit crazy. But as the two Marshals begin noticing how no person in Ashecliffe--including the wardens and the medical staff, led by Dr. John Cawley---seems to give a shit about the Solando disappearance, a freak hurricane hits, making any hopeful departure off the isle impossible, and strongly fatal. And this is where shit really gets heavy, with patients riots, mysterious surgeries, and tons more. TONS. MORE.
Suffice it to say, the story goes in places that I never imagined it would, directions I couldn't believe were being taken. Lehane's command of dialogue and character development, and just his handling of prose in general, is so superior, its a bit scary. I'm most certainly going back to read his entire book-ography now, surely on my to-do list. He's a writer that inspires aspiring scribes such as myself.
Reading Shutter Island could very well be a serious life-defining moment for me, just like seeing the film Grindhouse on opening day was for me last year. Both experiences are similar in that---and not to trivialize what I used to be so focused on or what any of my associates still do in any way; this is just my personal stance on the matter---they've each woken me up, to just how lame hip-hop writing really can be. For a lad like me, at least. I'll save my deep thoughts on this stance for a future posting, but I really challenge anybody to read a book like Shutter Island and try to make a case for ANY MODERN-DAY RAP ALBUM in terms of being more substantial or worth my time in a greater sense. And yes, this means Lupe Fiasco albums, or Nas albums. And don't get it twisted--I love both dudes' music. But there's no contest here, man.
Writing about lames like Flo Rida and Lil Boosie is a joke, really. What value will they have ten years from now? Fuck it---three years from now? I'm just saying, from here on out I'm focusing on covering things that really register with my heart and my brain, things that I can look back upon years from now and be proud that I shared a piece of it at one point in time. Things like a cinema-going experience such as the one I had while seeing Grindhouse. Speaking to those involved with it, picking their brains and delving into a genuine piece of singular, untainted, blood-and-sweat-soaked vision. Things like the novel Shutter Island, a stunning piece of art that can be digested numerous times, and most likely won't ever lose its impact.
Shutter Island makes me want to become a better writer. Makes me want to command my prose even half as well as Dennis Lehane. Makes me want to joggle my brain for narrative ideas and concepts, because I know I have a plethora of them buried in my head, I just need to shake them out a bit.
Makes me want to nurture and capitalize upon the talent I know I possess, a talent that I truly feel hasn't even scratched the surface. Not even one fingernail-ful of dirt.
Shutter Island is the exact kind of story I hope to one day tell and write: a superior work of fiction that consistently entertains, takes it time with exposition and character nurturing, grips the reader in a vice of tension and suspense, and then totally pulls the rug from under their reading-feet and sends their minds to a place where confusion and spine-tingles co-exist.
The Scorcese adaptation has just catapulted to the Number One Spot on my "2009 Most Anticipated Films" list, leap-frogging over The Wolfman and Watchmen.
Here is the writer who could have very well (only time will tell, for sure) changed my life (may sound a bit dramatic, but I'm so-sinsur), Dennis Lehane:
**And here's a couple of on-set images from the Scorcese flick....DiCaprio plays "Teddy Daniels," while Michelle Williams (yes, Heath Ledger's late baby mama, who just happens to be a pretty damn fine actress in her own right) plays Daniels' late wife, "Dolores"
Back in grade school, I was a Book It! beast, filling my pin with gold stickers on the reg. Granted, some of the time I was shamefully rephrasing the book's synopsis on the back cover, but whatever. Apples and oranges, that was. Either the teachers didn't care, or just didn't notice. But fairness meant little to an adolescent me since my reward for a pin full of stickers was a personal pan pizza at the heavenly Pizza Hut. And shit, when I was a kid, there was no great eating-out restuarant imaginable.
But what made Book It! so cool was that, when I didn't submit to slacker-syndrome and rewrite the synopsis, it was a program that inspired me to put down my magazines and horror comic books and actually read a piece of literature.
These days, I feel like I'm in the midst of an adult Book It! program, a self-imposed one. The first entry was Cormac McCarthy's outstanding The Road, which I read last month. And just this afternoon, I finished the second entry: Jose Saramago's international best-seller Blindness.
What both of these, as well as my upcoming slate of books-to-read, share in common is that movie adaptations are on the horizon. And I figure, what better way to form a well-rounded opinion of each respective flick than to read the original novel first? Makes sense to me, at least.
Blindness is amaing stuff. I was in love with The Road after reading it, and I still am, but now, Blindness has usurped The Road as my fave book. Of course, I've yet to read a staggering amount of literature, but I'm working on that, and thanks to the pair I've finished thus far, I'm pretty amped about this mission.
The premise of Blindness is simple, but then simultaneously complex. For no explained rhyme of reason, an epidemic of sudden blindness strikes. One man loses his sight at a traffic light; a prostitute loses her's while in the act of fornication; and so on and so forth. This isn't your common blindness, though...it's a "white sickness," with those falling victim to it seeing all blinding white.
And from here, we meet our main crew of characters. The two aforementioned (the first blind man and the young, pretty prostitute) are amongst the pack, but our main protagonist is the wife of a doctor, who for some strange reason is the only person who never loses his/her sight. But out of love for her now-sight-less husband, she accompanies him to this abandonded mental asylum, where the government has quarantined hundreds of now-blind citizens. This is when the real horror, drama, compassion, romance, and hope springs up. The asylum is divided into three individual wards, with our "heroes" living in the first, and then this delinquent, criminal, cold-hearted band of misfits living in the third ward. This crew of scoundrels is closest to the food rations that the military supplies, and after confiscating the edible goods, they begin to demand things from their neighbors in return for grub--valuable belongings, but worse, sexual intercourse and whoring out of all women residing in the first and second wards.
I won't get into further spoiling specifics, but needless to say, a whole mess of shit goes down, mostly of the depraved variety, but also some of hopeful humanity. The doctor's wife especially, who does everything in her power to use her sight to help those in her ward, and they begin to forge a familial bond.
I honestly have nothing bad to say about this book. Every page felt necessary, every event served a purpose thematically and dramatically. Saramago's (who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe, by the way) writing style has this acute sense of urgency, it's pretty much effortless to get immersed within his prose. There's no quotation marks separating dialogue, it all bleeds together, which is clever because it doesn't allow the reader any sort of line breaks to drift off or lose his/her reading momentum. And none of the characters are ever identified by name (a tactic also used cleverly in The Road). Each is distinguished by basic identification, typically that of the doctor's wife's discretion.....The Girl With The Dark Glasses; The Old Man With The Eyepatch; The First Blind Man and The First Blind Man's Wife; The Boy With The Squint; The Doctor; and so on and so forth.
Why I love this nameless technique so much is that it strips characters of any pre-judgment from the reader. No ethnicity in the name to form some sort of racially-wrong opinion from jump. No exact age or physical descriptions to visualize somebody more attractive or less attractive than he or she actually is. You're left to judge each character on just that precise thing: their "character." And in a story like Blindness, this is crucial. None of the characters can see each other, so they're left to rely on what those around them do, and what they say, and the feelings derived from their speech and actions. It's really, really intelligent on Saramago's part, I must say.
Best example: the young, strong-at-heart, warm (former) prostitute and the kind-hearted and philosophical old man forge a real love for each other....not in a sexy-times way, but in the way that they vow to live together if this epidemic ever blows over. They care deeply for each other, in ways that a meant-for-each-other husband and wife would in other circumstances. And really, this is only because they;re without sight. If the girl could see the wrinkly, pasty old man, she'd have never developed such a connection. Such is the cold way of humanity, a coldness that can be altered when something as basic as sight is deleted. It's really thought-provoking stuff at play, here.
This is a book screaming for a film adaptation, in my opinion. But one handled by an independent filmmaker, or somebody with real thematic and storytelling prowess. No big-budget blockbuster kinda dude. Or dudette. Somebody like Darren Aronofsky comes to mind for me (he did Requiem for A Dream), or maybe even Ridley Scott. But knowing that Fernando Merielles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) is responsible for the film coming out on September 26 (starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alice Braga, and others) does make me feel a bit relieved. Only a bit, though, because the early reviews of it have been pretty mixed, which doesn't fill me with as much optimism as I'd like.
Turning Blindness into a worthy film can't be easy, because some really disturbing and bleak shit happens. Women are graphically raped and sodomized. One fiend has scissors jammed through his throat just as he's ejaculating on a poor woman he's forced to give him oral pleasure. The military blow unsuspecting blind men's heads off at point-blank range. There's a church where, in a sort of blasphemic, hopeless act of religious betrayal, all of the statues (Crucifixion, Mary holding the baby Jesus, etc) have white bandages covering the eyes.
I really hope that Merielles hasn't skimped on the extreme nature of the middle section of this story. Once our crew breaks free of the [POSSIBLE SPOILER] asylum, venturing fearlessly out into the real world looking for a roof over their heads and food to eat, the tone gradually shifts back into positive territory. But while they're in the asylum, it's really dark and harrowing. It'd make one helluva movie, and I sure hope it does.
I'll find out on September 26, when I see Blindness on its opening night. I can't wait....but I really hope that I'm not pissed-off while exiting the cinema. I'll always have the book to fall back on, but I sure would love to see this narrative materialized, visually.
[Yes, that third person in is indeed a woman. Hard to believe, right? For about the first 20 pages or so, I kept making sure mentally that she was in fact a 'she' and not a 'he.' My guess is that she bats for the other team, if you know what I mean, but it's never outright stated. Just hinted at in subtle fashion toward the end. But anyway, I digress... ]
Just finished a new comic book. Not sure if this one's even considered a graphic novel, since it came out as one continuous narrative, to the best of my knowledge. Four Women, by a highly-respected fella named Sam Kieth. It's one I'd been put on to, shit, about a year ago now maybe, but finding it in stores and/or online has been tougher than locating Cam'ron in Harlem nowadays. I was recommended it by a friend who swore that its plot and storytelling style were both perfectly up my alley, so naturally I was quite intrigued. Finally tracking it down on the wonderful haven of discount shopping half.com a couple weeks ago, the time had ultimately come for me to experience it for myself.
Quite happy that I did so, now. A swift, entertaining, intense, harrowing and very quick read, filled with twists and character-arch shifts and all that good stuff. It centers on a fateful night where four female friends, three mid-aged and one in her late-teen years, en route to a wedding reception. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and rather than things remaining dormant 'til sunrise, things naturally go haywire. And why wouldn't they? This is dramatic fiction, dammit. So these two sleazy, greezy, trucker dudes pull up behind them, and proceed to terrorize the shit out of these four helpless dames. Well, helpless is how they first seem, until a couple of them take action with mixed results. I won't divulge what exactly happens, in case others feel compelled to read it, but let's just say its an unhealthy mix of monster truck rallying, stabbing-via-rusty-pole, rape, and shattered friendships. Fun for the whole family.
What makes it so effective is how Kieth structures the narrative here. Who you think is one person eventually flips and proves to be somebody else entirely, and the whole thing is told as our main protagonist sits in a therapist's chair, torn between what her guilt wants her to think happened, and the truth that her heart can't fully accept.
The first thing I thought while reading it was, "Damn, Quentin Tarantino could make the shit out of a movie adaptation." Strong and eccentric female leads, engaging in extended dialogue before enacting some sweet revenge on trashy scum. Cast some of the typically-fine actresses whom QT is fond of, and you'd have my ass in a seat on opening night, for cot-damn sure. If Tarantino ever reads this, I expect producer credits. (Riiiight, like he'd ever in a million years even know this blog existed, let alone read it. But in the fantasy land I live in internally, it's his laptop's homepage. Nerdy, eh?)
Kieth, who also illustrated this comic, should be commended for his paintbrush chops on display, too. I'm no art major, so I won't get all super-pretentious-technical here, but he attacks his canvas with a bit of playful, non-imposing skethces here. Gives it almost a kids-comic-book feel, but it surprisingly works. This isn't a horror story, so trying to cause nightmares with the imagery would prove counteractive. By using such non-threatening art, he's allowed the reader cling to the underlying story going on within the four gal pals, rather than the frequently-horrific goings-on around them. At least that's the impression the art gave me. I could be way off from what others have interpreted the pics as, but who gives a shit. Opinions are, as they say, like assholes.
So, in all, Four Women was a rather worthy reading experience for yours truly. It didn't necessarily rock my world or cause me to engage in deep meditative thought in its aftermath, but I really appreciate the storytelling and true dedication and focus on character over spectacle. It's the kind of story I one day hope to scribe myself, not to mention a tale I'd love to write a screenplay-on-equal-level down the line.
I'd totally push for casting chicks like Kristen Bell, Rosario Dawson, Mila Kunis, and Olivia Thirlby, though. Maybe one or two of them would even make sense for Four Women's characters in reality, but fuck it. My kind of chick flick has tasty eye candy.....Yeah, I should probably work on such pervy tendencies if I'm ever going to make it credibly in Tinseltown. Note to self, made and banked.
Just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, first released back in September of 2006. One hell of a book, I must say. It's one of those stories that packs such a hidden wallop on your emotions and senses, you're left almost blindsided with self-directed questions, soul searching, passion for living. Humanity is veered at with a strong sense of duality; the darkest sides of man make you cringe and want to go postal, yet the beauty of true love and bonds give you hope. It's heavy stuff, I tell you.
The aftermath of an unspoken, unknown, mysterious global apocalypse. Buildings are charred, burnt to the ground or abandoned or half-sustained. Mother Nature cries gray tears, dusty gray snowfall and freezing-cold raindrops. The streets look like dust-filled corners of bedrooms. Corpses, mostly decomposed to extreme degrees, clutter the scenery. The lucky few who have survived have been left as shells of humanity---scruffy, scarred, unhealthy, clad in whatever garments they can scrounge up from the corpses they pass. No electricity to keep them warm. Just whatever fires they can muster up outdoors. The majority of those still living have devolved into the most savage degree of man, resorting to cannibalism to maintain breathing and killing whomever crosses their path out of a sort-of self-imposed survival necessity.
But "the man" and his son, "the boy," are two of the 'good guys.' Heading in an uncertain direction that they hope is South, they're hoping to make it to the sea, where they can ideally make an escape from the cruel world they're clinging to reluctantly. All they have is each other. All they need is each other. The boy, optimistic and innocent, yet maturing at a rapid pace. His one and only, his father, is a tortured soul, haunted by dreams of his loving wife who gave up on living and abandonded her family, constantly considering suicide yet harboring such urges at the sight of his dear offspring. If he dies, who'll look after the boy? He'd rather the boy die alongside him, so they can both enter the better place together. But, of course, he can't kill his own flesh and blood.
[I wrote that, btw. I didn't copy and paste from the book cover. I just wanted it to exist understandably as my own synopsis]
There's so much that I'm admiring about this book. It's one of those works of literature that makes a writer, or somebody who even fancies his or herself as one, immediately want to step his or her game up. Drastically. You think, could I ever create such an amazing piece of work, written with such clarity and such a distinct tone and secular vision? It's a National Bestseller and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, so please believe, I'm not merely blowing smoke here.
McCarthy employs so many unique touches here. Two particularly ring brilliantly for me: 1) Providing no actual names for any of the characters, for instance. In the post-apocalyptic world he's created, mankind is a mere fragment of what it once was, and nobody is special. Nobody is doing better than any others, alas nobody deserves any special distinction. 2) Never breaking the story up into chapters is another. It moves swiftly and urgently, yet is only divided into nut graphs, extended line breaks. It's a reader's equivalent to two love-driven survivors traveling across a barren wasteland with no clear path. They're just moving forward, just as the reader is here.
McCarthy's use of language is also something to behold. Example, explaining the bond between the father and son: "....each the other's world entire." The emptiness of their world: "He tried to think of something to say but he could not. He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already/ The sacred idiom shorn of its referants and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever." Questioning his existence after killing a man to protect his son: "This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job."
Those are just examples I'm especially liking at this present moment. There's endless amounts of others. I could say so much more about this book, but I'll leave up to others to seek it out and read it for themselves. There's a movie adaptation coming out in mid-November, starring the great Viggo Mortensen. I doubt it'll better this book, but I have high hopes for it to at least do this work extreme justice. If not, at least the book is here to save itself.
We all travel down our own personal roads. After reading this, I'm fully realizing just how important it is to not take your life journey solo. You'll never make it out alive in the end.
If I truly want to be the unabashed cinephile that I long to be seen as, there's one crucial missing piece to the puzzle, and thankfully, I've realized it. And now, it's time ro remedy this dilemma.
So many movies, particularly ones currently in production or on the eve of release that I'm anticipating like Amy Winehouse does the crack, originate from books. You know, those hardcover/paperback collections of narrative pages and literature that I've neglected for far too long, opting for magazine stories and more recently comic books/graphic novels. The graphic novels are here to stay, as are mag pieces, but now I'm adding the fiction prose into the mix. I'm pretty geeked, too. Barnes & Noble is such an untapped resource, I'm envisioning many a dollar bill being dropped within its walls from here on out.
I started my first entry into this personal renaissance earlier tonight, and I'm alredy halfway through it, because it's fucking amazing so far:
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The reason why this is my first choice is because its the source material for a new movie coming around Thanksgiving that looks pretty great, and I keep hearing how stellar the book is, Pulitzer Prize and all. Plus, McCarthy wrote the No Country for Old Men book, and that movie rocked my world, so now seeing how briliant a scribe he is, I'll have to go back and read No Country, the book, now, and hope that the Coen Brothers' take won't become totally inferior as a result.
But yeah, The Road is really some breathtaking reading, and I'll report back with a full post-game report on it once I'm done. Which, at the rate I'm going, could be like tomorrow or Thursday night.
And I'm totally open to book suggestions, if anybody wants to drop a note with some recommendations. Any and everything, other than lame romance novels that my mom would read. Clarification: if Fabio is on the cover, please keep the fact that you actually liked said book to yourself. Reps should grow bigger, not deplete.
