Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Big Adios

Shit. Peter Yates died. The director of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Bullitt, The Hot Rock, Robbery, Mother, Jugs & Speed and one of my childhood favorites - Krull. Yeah, it was bad, but what can I say, I really enjoyed it when I was ten. Looks like David Gordon Green did too, (have you seen the trailer for Your Highness?) Been a while since I watched Bullitt, gonna have to pop that one in soon. And jeez, I don't think Robbery is even available on DVD, wtf? Sure made some good shit there, Pete. Well done.

Speaking of crime movies and especially those that involve cars, have you seen the cast for Nicolas Winding Refn's James Sallis adaptation, DriveRon Perlman, Christina Hendricks and Bryan Cranston from my regular TV on DVD appointments plus Albert Brooks, (whose turn on Weeds was a season highlight). Man, that thing sounds juicy. I also noticed Cranston's name on the cast list of the Michael Connelly adaptation, The Lincoln Lawyer. Officer, ahem, Lankford is his character's name. Nice hat tip to Lee, I suppose. Mike, here's hoping it's a helluva lot better than Blood Work, but then, how could it not be?

Trip to Chicago is history. I had to bail on Kent Gowran Saturday night and I feel bad. Really bad. Things just didn't go at all like I thought they would. But, happily I did get to see Julian Grant, the writer/director of RoboCop Prime Directives Sunday morning and we talked about his feature adaptation of my short story A Fuckload of Scotch Tape. Holy crap, has he got a vision. It's... it's... It's wild and dark and scary and I can't wait to see it. Supposed to start shooting at the end of the summer or early fall. I'll keep ya informed.

At Ransom Notes I posted a brief interview with the one and only Robert Randisi who writes about a dozen books a year. Here's what he said when I asked him about the stages of development one of his books went through -

"Stages of development" are for people who write one book a year. I have the general idea of what the plot is going to be for a Rat Pack book, and who your "guest" is going to be--Marilyn, Ava Gardner, Howard Hughes in the future--and then I sit down and start writing. The "world" is constant, Vegas of the 60's. From there on the book develops as Eddie and I walk through it. I do write proposals so the publisher has an idea of how to do the covers, but I do NOT do outlines, because I don't know what's going to happen next. I believe this is the beauty of the first person narrative, Eddie, the reader and I experience everything together. A Rat Pack book general gets about a max of three months of my time (one to three). During those three months, though, I'll usually write three westerns.

That dude is amazing. And this morning, at Ransom Notes I've got 2010 recommendations from Lynn Kostoff, Jack Clark and Benjamin Whitmer. 

Just call this one Beauty and the Beast. Sophie Littlefield and Scott Phillips discuss stuffs at Mulholland BooksA Bad Day for Pretty, indeed.

3 comments:

Kieran Shea said...

Bob is truly the greatest. And look at that. What do I have in my new reading pile? Yep...DOUBLE THE BOUNTY by Randisi.

Chris said...

That's a pretty backhanded comment to Sophie, isn't it? I mean, I know Phillips is one gorgeous man, but still....

Kent said...

I thought I left a comment before, but, hey, no worries man. We'll catch up another time.