I just finished "The Kill Off" and "A Hell OF A Woman." So I've read 6 of his 29 or so books. Bless Black Lizard publishing for the best looking and feeling paperbacks ever.
Anyway, great stuff.
I just watched Casey Affleck in "The Killer Inside Me." So sad that it was ALL there. The script, the period, good cast. And the director ruined it by deviating into gore-porn for a crucial bit. I had to hit fast forward at 8x and it still lasted too long. Affleck is good but he is also miscast. It was also interesting to read how universally people hate that portion of this film. If I were the director, I'd pull a Francis Ford Coppola and re-cut it.
I added a drawing of Barry Fitzgerald from tonight's viewing of The Naked City. 1949 love letter to NY city.
Ellis, you are the Bad Boy.
ReplyDeleteLove the writing. Sounds great. You are the master connoisseur of the hard-boiled genre. Have to check this out.
m Thompson 1906-1977
ReplyDeleteThere was no more brutal and brilliant exponent of old-style pulp than the “Dime Store Dostoevsky” – Jim Thompson. Thompson churned out more than 30 novels in the course of his drunken, borderline criminal life.
Pop. 1280 and The Killer Inside Me are both narrated by murderously unhinged small-town lawmen, who mask their moral vacuity with goofy homespun wisdom. The Grifters shows the noose tightening nastily on small-time cons. The Getaway follows a viperous Bonnie-and- Clyde-style pair of robbers on the run, pitching them finally into a chilling hell of their own making.
Thompson’s novels are set, largely, in a world where there are no good guys. Dark as hell, his books are all the darker for being funny. SL
Read: The Getaway (1959)
The headline link is the place I got my first inkling I wanted to read Thompson. The reason to read him is that other writers envy him. He's a favorite of Stephen King and Harlan Ellison and Stanley Kubrick...etc.
ReplyDeleteJust read the KILL OFF. 14, 20 page chapters. Each chapter the first person viewpoint of a different character in a small NY coastal town.
Crazy display of characterization ability that goes way beyond being gimmicky.
Check it out Marty. That link includes your favorite guy, Walter Mosely.