Movie #1869: Let Us Be Gay (1930, Robert Z Leonard)
A pleasant drawing room comedy. I seem to remember Norma Shearer as a real nonentity - here she's excellent. Probably just a better role.
Note: In 1930, "gay" had a different meaning than today.
Book #396: The Adjustment (2011, Scott Phillips)
So, what will it be? Scott Phillips writes novels in 2000, 2002 and 2003 - then silence. Now, in 2011 a new book. His last one was very convoluted - he was going for epic. Eight years pass and here's "The Adjustment". The first thing you notice: only 215 pages - not epic length. In fact, there's nothing epic here at all. It's all straightforward depravity. Looks like, after all these years, Scott has given up and decided to settle for being the new Jim Thompson.
It's not exactly true that I gave up. "Cottonwood" sold so poorly that no one wanted to publish anything I wrote, apart from short stories. Finally my agent told me "all anyone wants from you is a short, nasty crime novel." So I wrote this one, and it got into print. I'd rather write big, ambitious books, with occasional forays into brief, straightforward depravity. Actually I've got 30, 000 words of a sort of sequel to "Cottonwood," but who wants to publish a sequel to a book that sold less than 5000 copies?
ReplyDeletedig the blog, by the way....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Scott.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought that all authors who got Hollywood to buy the movie rights to one of their books would be set for life. Luckily I did call him "the new Jim Thompson" which was a compliment and I hope he took it that way.
Turns out Scott has his own blog which can be found at http://www.pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/.