Monkey see, monkey do

That line gets funnier and funnier every day.

Chapter 3

The last chapter of Conflict of Interest is now up and running:

Paperback Parade

I was going to tell you all about Paperback Parade and Gary Lovisi, but Ed Gorman already wrote about it on his blog yesterday. Since I am lazy by nature, Ed has kindly allowed me to quote him here:

"As I've mentioned here several times before Gary Lovisi's Paperback Parade magazine covers material you never see anywhere else. Gary's love of pbs--and their history--has now carried him through seventy two issues. Features in the new #72 include a long and informative interview with novelist Terrill Lankford. Alan Guthrie is a fine interviewer as he shows here. There's are several pages of pb cover art by Paul Lehr, an interesting artist in that he never quite got the credit he deserved though when you see this collection you'll see how important and distinct his work was. Lots of other pb material, too, including a lengthy letter column and plenty of ads for buyers. Buy it.

Dames, Dolls & Delinquents is 200+ pages of full color pb covers of every kind of good girl art. This is a stunning book and a definitive one. Chapter include Sultry Streetwalkers, Deadly Femme Fatales, Women in Peril and Luscious Lesbians. Not only are the covers knock-outs the title are downright deranged: Make Mine a Harlot!, Never Trust A Rich Bitch and the famous Kiss My Fist. If you have any interest in paperback history, you really have to buy this outsize, jam-packed full color book.

Finally, Gary has edited a very cool collection of short stories called Deadly Dames. Modesty forbids me from commenting on my own story here (though I will say that my mom likes it quite a bit) but I will tell you that there are many standouts in this handsome trade pb including those of Max Allan Collins, Vin Packer Wayne Dundee, Michael A. Black and Gary himself among many others. If you like hardboiled fiction, this is for you."

Chapter 2

Chapter Two of Conflict of Interest is now posted on youTube. As always, please watch in HD and...be careful out there.

Attention. Earthlings.

Please. Stop. Using. Single. Words. As. Sentences. Especially. On. Magazine. Covers.

Worst. Literary. Gimmick. Ever!

Enough. Is. Enough. 

We. Get. It. Already.

What say JAFO?

I've gotten a few off-blog notes asking just exactly what JAFO is. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, but a detailed explanation of the term is probably too rude for blogger. So I will just have to suggest you all pull out your DVD copies of 1983's BLUE THUNDER and take another look (hopefully in HD). The answer my friends, is blowing in the super-helicopter downdrafts.

Porky's - A critical re-evaluation?

During a feverish period of attempted sleep yesterday, I turned on the Fox Movie Channel and watched Bob Clark's PORKY'S for the first time in about twenty years. Now it is probably a big mistake to make your third post on a blog a defense of PORKY'S, but either the sleep deprivation I was suffering or the Jack Daniel's coursing through my veins made me sit up and take this movie far more seriously than its reputation seems to deserve. Yes, it's - at times - crude, silly, and dare I say it? Ham handed. (Sorry.) But PORKY'S has more on its mind than just crotch jokes and revenge fantasies. 

PORKY'S is Bob Clark's bawdy nostalgia film about growing up in the 50s. And while it certainly set a standard for crude humor that many films have since tried to emulate, it also deals with topics as wide ranging as racism, anti-semitism, and child abuse. It packs a lot of serious subplots into its mostly comedic 95 minutes. It's these extra layers of characterization that set the movie apart from the dozens if not hundreds of movies that tried to ride the PORKY'S bandwagon after its massive financial success. It also deals with friendship on a level that is sometimes subtle and other times practically homoerotic (or more precisely, to use a 50s term,  just plain "homo." I wouldn't class the joint up by trying to call it erotic.) Recently the Judd Apatow team have been working this turf and I think they must have all sat through PORKY'S more than once in their lives.

The thing that may have impressed me most about PORKY'S was Bob's casual way with the camera and his ability to fill frames with lots of young actors doing difficult bits without it all seeming stagy (most of the time, at least). It looks effortless. But anyone who has ever tried anything like this will tell you it's not. The movie bounces all over the place, but that is part of its charm.

Yes. Movies are far more technically sophisticated now. (And far more expensive - PORKY'S cost only 4 mill and grossed over 100 million in the U.S. alone. This was back when a hundred million dollars was considered a lot of money.) But PORKY'S retains a strange, almost one of a kind, power to engage the viewer in the lives of people who seem real while at the same time seem to exist as classic caricatures as well.

Full disclosure - I knew Bob Clark - mainly through his long time association with my very good friend Alan Ormsby. We all even worked together on a film called POPCORN back in 1990, a situation that didn't really work out for any of us and put a strain on relationships for a while. But Bob and I were casual acquaintances and I usually got invited to the premieres of his films and I watched him ride the huge wave of success that PORKY'S brought him. I think the movie also cursed him a bit as well. His next film was the classic A CHRISTMAS STORY, but after that he had a very up and down career and I think PORKY'S has a lot to do with it. While he got the initial career boost that a giant hit will bring a director, the crude reputation of the film also stigmatized him in some of the loftier penthouses of Hollywood. (I have a feeling that most of the Hollywood snobs who turned their noses up at PORKY'S never even saw the movie.) 

But the financial success of PORKY'S also gave Bob a sense of self-confidence that was not always warranted. I always felt Bob was a far better director than writer - his early collaborations with Alan Ormsby prove what he could do with a low budget if he had a good script - and once he felt he could write or rewrite everything himself, I think his work suffered. If you watch his films in the order they were made you see a distinct growth in discipline leading up to PORKY'S. But PORKY'S is loose and funky and it worked for that movie (mainly because I think it was a very personal film for Bob), so I think Bob might have thought that looseness would work for every movie. And that did not prove to be the case. Success in Hollywood, like in most fantasy towns, is usually a double edged sword. 

(It should also be noted that when Bob stuck to the script in later years, as he did with an adaptation of Arthur Miller's THE AMERICAN CLOCK, he once again showed great discipline and form.)

Bob and his son were killed by a drunk driver a few years ago while driving late at night on the Pacific Coast Highway. While he was alive he made a lot of movies, some of them good, some of them bad, some successful, and some far from it. A couple were classics of their genres. PORKY'S was a big hit and it is funny as hell. I think it's also a pretty darn good movie as well.

Conflict of Interest

Too sleepy...to...blog...but must....tell...blogees...about....Conflict of Interest....

Michael Connelly's THE SCARECROW

Michael Connelly has a new book coming out at the end of the month called "The Scarecrow." It's Mike writing at the top of his form and features both Jack McEvoy and Rachel Walling as the protagonists. 

Recently we shot a promo for the book out in the blazing hot Nevada desert. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwekt7hgYbk

We have a very large project related to "The Scarecrow" that will hit the web in the next week or two. Stay tuned to this blog to hear more.

As always,

your faithful servant, TL