A Writer's Life

Never Sing Never Say Never Again

The Rap Sheet clued me into the recently "rediscovered," rejected theme for the 1983 Bond movie NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN sung by Phyllis Hymann and composed by Stephen Forsyth. To be honest, I don't think it's any better than the bland Lani Hall/Michel Legrand tune (performed in the video below) that the producers ended up using... but you can decide for yourself.

Michael Clayton

I finally saw MICHAEL CLAYTON...it was my test drive using the Amazon Unbox to rent a movie on my TiVo (a service which I liked). If you haven't seen the movie, you can stop reading now, because I'm going to spoil some things.

I thought George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack were terrific and some of the dialogue really crackled, but  the simple plot was inexplicably and needlessly hard to follow at times and there were some logic flaws that pulled me right out of the movie, ultimately ruining it for me.

The bad guys did a slick and professional job of killing  Wilkinson's character and making it look like a suicide, thus establishing them as formidable opponents. But then they put a  car bomb in Clayton's Mercedes.  Why!?  Why not stab him  in an apparent "mugging gone bad" or run him over as he's crossing the street? Why kill him in a manner that will draw an enormous amount of attention -- the exact opposite of what the bad guys wanted? It was stupid and sloppy writing, made worse when Clayton is able to fool them (and apparently the police) into thinking he's dead even though there's no charred corpse in his car... just his wallet and his watch. Did his body get vaporized?

There was also one niggly detail that bugged me, too. At one point they say Clayton was born in 1959. Then, a few scenes later, Clayton says that he's 45. The math just doesn't add up (and the movie clearly takes place in 2007, sine he's driving a brand new SL).

I also don't get how Tilda Swinton got nominated for an Oscar, much less won the thing, based on her small role...

Movies A-Go-Go

I'm on strike...and on Christmas break...and I'm a lazy ass, so I have been catching up on my DVD awards screeners (one of the perks of being in the WGA, but I'm sure the AMPTP will roll that back on us, too).

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL - Cute and enjoyable, though the central conceit wears thin after awhile.
I'm looking forward to the USA Network series in which Lars and the Real Girl become a private eyes.

MARGO AT THE WEDDING - What a mess...but just when you are about to give up on it and watch BOSTON LEGAL on the Tivo instead, there will be a great line or a good performance. Jack Black is always fun, but he seems to be performing in an entirely different, and much better, movie.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR - It's one of the better first season episodes of THE WEST WING.

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY - Even better the fifth time. I loved it.  And I admire the creative choices. It takes really guts to have the third movie take place, chronologically, in the final act of the second film....and real skill to actually pull it off. 

Slush Hour

I saw RUSH HOUR 3 today. The story made no sense at all, but I had a good time anyway...mostly because of Chris Tucker. He was the movie. He made lines funny that weren't funny. Max Von Sydow was in the movie, too, which I also found amusing. If you cast him in a part, you might as well hang a sign around his neck that says: -------

Well, you know what it should say. 

Catching up

I finally saw LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and BOURNE ULTIMATUM.  DIE HARD was over-the-top, by-the-numbers, and dull. BOURNE ULTIMATUM was fresh, invigorating, and exciting...I loved it. I wish more movies were as smart and exciting as the BOURNE trilogy.  The geek in my can't wait to get ULTIMATUM on DVD so I can watch all three movies back-the-back in one sitting (as if I will ever have the time for that).

I also caught up with the last five episodes of THE SOPRANOS. They were definitely a big improvement over last season's episode, a real return to form dramatically and comedicly for the series. But like everyone else, I don't really get the point of the abrupt ending that felt more like a technical/broadcasting error than a scripted, dramatic moment.

Next on my Tivo... JESSE STONE: SEA CHANGE and the last five episodes of the season of HEROES and LAW AND ORDER: SVU.

Night in the Museum aka Boredom in the Movie Theatre

Because I have an 11-year-old in the house, and I'm a big fan of Dick Van Dyke, I went to see NIGHT IN THE MUSEUM...which proves the point that even the best special effects wizardry is no substitute for compelling stories and interesting characters. This is a tedious mess that apparently bored Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, and Ricky Gervais as much while they were making as it did all of us who had to watch it (The only actor who has the slightest bit of energy is Dick Van Dyke). Not even a fast-forward button could make this movie pass by quickly enough.

Ink and Celluloid Dreams Collide

There's a symbiotic relationship between books and films. The movie business likes to use books for content and cut their risks by relying on pre-sold characters and stories. The book biz likes to use movies as big-budget commercials for their products and piggyback on the huge promotional effort that surrounds new films and TV shows. But as the December issue of Moving Pictures magazine points out, there are some dangers.  In one article, headlined "Sin or Synergy," the magazine discusses the recent surge in alliances between publishers and studios...many of whom are owned by the same parent companies. But that doesn't guarantee hits...for either studios or booksellers.

Maria Campbell, a highly regarded book scout for Warner Brothers, believes "good movies are made because people are passionate about them and have a vision. Alliances can create conversations, but they can't create good movies.

Ron Bernstein, head of the West Coast Book Department at ICM shares Campbell's caution. "Books will always be part of the landscape, but it's certainly not the glory days. With movies based on video games, remakes and TV series, the extraordinary hold that the printed word had on movies is not what it once was."

It works the other way, too. Books based on movies -- also known as tie-ins and novelizations -- aren't the booming business they once were, either.  The short window between the theatrical release of a movie and it's availability in DVD has cut down on the need to buy a tie-in novel to re-live the movie experience. Why re-live it when you can own it?

In an article headlined "Novelization is a Nasty Word," the magazine also explores the publishing industry's continuing practice of turning movies into books. Among the authors they interview is Max Allan Collins, who they dub the "Leonardo da Vinci of pop culture fiction,"  co-founder (with yours truly) of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. "Novelization is an unfortunate term that tends to diminish the process or, anyway, the end result," Max told them.

Max and Greg Cox do a good job describing in the article the enormous obstacles confronting writers of novelizations...including ever-changing scripts, insanely short deadlines (two weeks to three months) and bad pay. Not to mention lack of respect.

Cox points out [that] novelizers almost never get to see the movie in advance. All they have to work with is an early draft of the script.

"If you're lucky," he says, "you get a stack of still photos and maybe a copy of the movie trailer. "

But when a novelization scores, it can score big. Max's adaptation of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN sold over a million copies in the U.S. alone.  And when a movie does well, the book it was based on reaps the benefits -- according to the magazine, the tie-in reprint of the DA VINCI CODE, with Tom Hanks on the cover, sold five million copies.

Regardless of the potential for these partnerships, the business still remains driven by agents, writers, and studio execs who have to read the material and get excited by it. As Maria Campbell observes,  "it takes a village to publish a book. It takes a continent to make a movie."

Casino Royale...Again

I took my wife to see CASINO ROYALE today and I liked it a lot better than I did the first time. I have no idea why...perhaps it had something to do with the audience, which was a lot more enthusiastic and reactive than the audience I saw it with before.

UPDATE: My friend Javi rates the Bonds. I don't necessarily agree with his line-up, but I love his commentary.

18. a view to a kill - everyone in this film looks like they are a hundred and thirty seven years old and dying of rickets.

My ranking? My favorite Bonds are Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and Roger Moore (though Roger had his moments). But my ranking of portrayals doesn't match how I would order the films. Each has its unique pleasures. It would probably go something like this:

1. Goldfinger

2. From Russia, With Love

3. You Only Live Twice

4. Casino Royale

5. Tomorrow Never Dies

6.  Dr. No

7. The Spy Who Loved Me

8. The Living Daylights

9. Never Say Never Again

10. Thunderball

11. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

12.  Goldeneye

13.  Diamonds Are Forever

14.  Die Another Day

15.  For Your Eyes Only

16.  The World is Not Enough

17. Live and Let Die

18. License to Kill

19. Octopussy

20. Man with the Golden Gun

21. Moonraker

22. A View to a Kill

Casino Royale

I just got back from the first show (yes, I am a geek). I enjoyed the movie, I liked Daniel Craig a lot and there are some fantastic action sequences... but it isn't a James Bond movie.  It's not your father's James Bond or even your grandfather's James Bond.  Sure, there are Aston Martins and casinos and exotic locales  and villians with scars near their eyes. But something was missing. Maybe for the better. (Though it could also have missed about twenty minutes, the film goes on way too long).

The producers weren't kidding when they said they were reinventing Bond (unlike, say, their attempt with LIVING DAYLIGHTS). This truly is a new interpretation, clearly one that's heavily influenced by the Jason Bourne movies... with a touch of DIE HARD's John McClaine thrown in for good measure. But if they are jettisoning so much from the old intepretation, the few hangers-on (the women who swoon at his glance, the scar-faced villains and Aston Martins) should be scrapped, too.

This Bond is basically Connery's take on the character as a ruthless assassin, a working-class  "blunt instrument" in a tuxedo.  In fact, you could say that Daniel Craig is dramatizing the formative days of  Connery's 007.  If so, then the next film will be a James Bond film. At least more so than this one was... or so they seem to be hinting at the end.

Casino Royale

There's a new trailer for CASINO ROYALE and it lays to rest any doubts that Daniel Craig can play Bond or that the producers were serious about rebooting the franchise. The last vestiges of the Roger Moore years seem to be completely erased.  Bond is once again the young,  lethal assassin from DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.  I liked the Pierce Brosnan Bonds, though they seemed like a compromise between the Connery and Moore versions of 007. CASINO ROYALE is definitely a throwback to the Connery interpretation. It looks like this movie could be the best Bond film since GOLDFINGER... (though the bad guy's scarred eye is a little too reminiscent of Donald Pleasance in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE). I can't wait to see it.