Snippets
The two versions of his novel “The Getaway” — Peckinpah’s in 1972 and Roger Donaldson’s 1994 remake — are notoriously watered down and leave out the book’s most interesting feature: an ending in which the two central characters, a bank robber and his wife, descend into a physical and spiritual hell. Indeed. I always wondered why they left out the best and most bizarre part, when the protagonists go to a fabled Mexican haven for criminals and find it’s a nightmarish semi-fascist enclave (surprise!). I love Jim Thompson, have loved him since I was ten or eleven. The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters, Savage Night. Interested to see Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of The Killer Inside Me, which provoked lots of disgusted walkouts at Sundance. Trailer looks good.
I’ve been off new films for a while. They are all crap. Now I am actually excited by a new film.
Splice is worth seeing.
That article inspired me yesterday to pick up Killer and it’s wonderful, the kind of writing that makes me feel awkward trying to explain to my girlfriend why I’m laughing. There’s a line about suicide in the first quarter of the book that is probably the funniest thing I’ve read in a year.
The fact there were walkouts is probably a good sign for Killer. I discovered Thompson in the mid-80s when the original Black Lizard editions came out, with the lurid mock-50s covers. He and David Goodis blew my mind.
I’ve been off new films for a while. They are all crap. Now I am actually excited by a new film.
Splice is worth seeing.
That article inspired me yesterday to pick up Killer and it’s wonderful, the kind of writing that makes me feel awkward trying to explain to my girlfriend why I’m laughing. There’s a line about suicide in the first quarter of the book that is probably the funniest thing I’ve read in a year.
The fact there were walkouts is probably a good sign for Killer. I discovered Thompson in the mid-80s when the original Black Lizard editions came out, with the lurid mock-50s covers. He and David Goodis blew my mind.
I remember sitting down to read just the first chapter of that book one evening, right before bed … and then not stopping until dawn. It left me in a puddle of nerves.
The ending … OMG, Jim Thompson and his endings …
I remember sitting down to read just the first chapter of that book one evening, right before bed … and then not stopping until dawn. It left me in a puddle of nerves.
The ending … OMG, Jim Thompson and his endings …
Nick-
Thanks for linking this. I am a huge, huge Jim Thompson fan. My favorite is probably Savage Night, which is also one of his weirder books – it has that weird digression were the hitman actually meets someone very like Jim Thompson and “Jim” is telling him that he has a farm where he grows “live female anatomy”. Then the plot kind of falls apart, and and it all ends with this strange / tragic hell on earth for the hitman and his lover. Fucking brilliant writing, so dark and weird. Have you read The Alcoholics? Its a bit of an odd puppy as far as Thompson’s stuff goes, but very funny.
I will see the movie, although I have to say that casting Jessica Alba really put me off of it. I feel like she’s a jinx: it can be the best project in the world, but as soon as they cast Jessica Alba I feel like the movie is almost destined to be bad. i really hope that this one isn’t like that…
Agreed about Alba. :(
I read this in the times yesterday, having just read a lengthier piece in Film Comment the day before. I like the point made about how European authors tend to approach his work as something high-brow and literary, rather than mere pulp fiction, and that this yields better adaptations.
hey, wuzzup “Stephen.” are we going to have to “differentiate” via last name or “is it chill”? unsure…
oh my god, it’s real stephen
hehe
sup paul… “what’s the haps” re radioactive moat?
Well, you have the colored name… Glad you spell it the right way.
Nick-
Thanks for linking this. I am a huge, huge Jim Thompson fan. My favorite is probably Savage Night, which is also one of his weirder books – it has that weird digression were the hitman actually meets someone very like Jim Thompson and “Jim” is telling him that he has a farm where he grows “live female anatomy”. Then the plot kind of falls apart, and and it all ends with this strange / tragic hell on earth for the hitman and his lover. Fucking brilliant writing, so dark and weird. Have you read The Alcoholics? Its a bit of an odd puppy as far as Thompson’s stuff goes, but very funny.
I will see the movie, although I have to say that casting Jessica Alba really put me off of it. I feel like she’s a jinx: it can be the best project in the world, but as soon as they cast Jessica Alba I feel like the movie is almost destined to be bad. i really hope that this one isn’t like that…
As GONE BABY GONE proved, Casey Affleck is bad ass. An excellent casting choice.
Agreed about Alba. :(
I read this in the times yesterday, having just read a lengthier piece in Film Comment the day before. I like the point made about how European authors tend to approach his work as something high-brow and literary, rather than mere pulp fiction, and that this yields better adaptations.
hey, wuzzup “Stephen.” are we going to have to “differentiate” via last name or “is it chill”? unsure…
oh my god, it’s real stephen
hehe
sup paul… “what’s the haps” re radioactive moat?
Well, you have the colored name… Glad you spell it the right way.
As GONE BABY GONE proved, Casey Affleck is bad ass. An excellent casting choice.
I’m guessing The Getaway is Thompson’s send-up of Flannery O’Connor.
I’m guessing The Getaway is Thompson’s send-up of Flannery O’Connor.