What it is with writers, they write, as you do, your point of view
Blatant perhaps, spam not, quoting the web dic.
“To indiscriminately send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or
inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising
in mass quantities. Noun: electronic “junk mail”.

My point of view relates to a phenomenon experienced common to many in this forum
without shame I post my musings related to these phenomena someplace with a wider range
hoping to engage a diversity and make a penny, Dutch would approve
We don’t live in a vacuum so I will quote the science guy
“The lifting ability of a helium (a low density gas) filled balloon is
related to the volume of (higher density) air displaced by the balloon—
the larger the amount displaced, the greater the lift.”
Anyone wishing an invite should ask me nice

The point you make about Hollywood’s role in the conflict of authors is a good one
The freaky deaky shown on youtube is a pale shadow of an ideal in the mind
The next generation must be made aware of it’s power

Raymond Chandler did not write the screenplay to The Big Sleep.  It was written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman.

...hoping to engage diversity and make a penny

The IP I’m using at the moment is French & the advertising on the Helium site - the source of Mr Slater’s pennies - is a bunch of cheap crooks trying to scam Europeans looking for a U.S. green card.

No tuned-in person could disapprove.

Now, back to the movie. This is how I see the opening scene. Groundlevel tracking shot of shiny brown lowrider dachshund SWIFTY speeding round BOOKER’S house turning up bags of coke, crack vials etc before coming to a halt behind green leather wingback chair seating BOOKER. Exit SWIFTY whimpering. Cue Roy Ayers….

Plus: there is no actor born that can play Woody. He’ll have to be done in 3-D animatronics.

And concerning Chandler & The Big Sleep have a look at this:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0038355/

Where it says ‘Trivia.’

Dog’s POV I love it of course you have just the dog for the role
Think about Maury Chaykin as Woody
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=133849
this link will get you to NY Times review of film in which he plays a very Woody like guy
I’ve recently begun listing the Rules of Reading
Messier for Elmore thread lower on this list
some rule to come must discuss the care taken
in context reading the fine print your link imdb
Chandler gets writing credit for the novel
not the screenplay

Okay okay so Raymond Chandler wasn’t under contract for the script of The Big Sleep. Must’ve been some kind of hallucination that momentarily made me believe the contrary. But my point remains valid; he maybe deliberately skewed things when he was asked for help. So that’s 2 writers helping Hollywood to make movies based on books with which they don’t bear comparison. I’m thinking, maybe it’s some kind of syndrome. Does anyone else have any examples?

I find it strange that Elmore should give his blessing to a version of Freaky Deaky based 4 or 5 years before the first recorded (Archie Bell & Roy Ayers) use of the phrase itself. Of course, I could be wildly wrong here as well.

Thanks for Whale Music. Sounds like my kind of thing. I’ll pirate it off BitTorrent if I can get my niece to let me download stuff onto her Mac.

If you get a chance, take a look at the novel Whale Music. It’s by Paul Quarrington and some of his other books are very good as well.

I wish we could keep these threads on-topic. I think the scene where Robin gives Skip acid could work very well. Especially if we could work in the shiny brown lowrider dachshund Swifty. I tell you, I’ve dropped acid with a dog (a dachshund, in fact; my sister’s had different ones going back 30 years) in the room, & it’s totally wild. They try to stick their tongue in your mouth…

The Slater Family has sent me an under-the-table invite to work for them, trying to sell fake green cards to Frenchies, but little did they know I already have (under an alias, of course):

http://www.helium.com/tm/157329/entertain-yourself-random-stupidity

i will buy FD again next year…and know that there is still some of that surprise that happened upon the first reading..the movie in my head of the book would take a few hours on the screen to include all the subtle actions, expressions and inferences…when chris is going to try and get woody out of the limo…and donnell says to the effect “..you goin pull him out of the car…” there has to be a very cool, confident grin in his voice and on his face as he said it…or chris with his dad cooking burgers…and talking about women…and the subtle interaction between robin and skip as robin works him with LSD and sex…

and in the movie…it would be way over the top to refer to the MC5…for that you HAD to be there…kick out the jams indeed…

wolf

Well, he refers to Donnell playing the Last Poets too. MC5 and the Last Poets, makes me think of Kid Rock. Hey, Kid Rock might not be too bad as Skip…

John Belushi could have played Woody.

I am having a real problem connecting the MC5 with Kid Rock.

Woody—Abraham Benrubi
Chris—Ryan Gosling
Skip—Robert Downey Jr. (or if he’s too old Joseph Gordon-Levitt from Killshot)
Ginger - Rachel McAdams (or if the budget permits—Naomi Watts)
Chris’ Dad—Brian Dennehy
Donnell—Mos Def
Robin - Sandra Oh (yeah, I know but the ethnic switch will be good ... ala Jackie Brown).

Im dreading this film already. The era change screws the whole thing up for me im afraid.
Ive just re-read FD after hearing about the time change idea and i just cant see it working.

While re-reading the actors below played the parts in my head:

Donnel: Samuel l Jackson
Woody: Norm from cheers.
Chris : christian slater.
Dad: jack nick
Ginger: A young Marilu Henner.
Skip: jeff bridges
Robin: ellen barkin
juicymouth: forrest whitaker
mark:george clooney.
booker: eddie murphy.

See? Easy money!

Lottery Loverat - 23 March 2007 07:32 AM

Im dreading this film already. The era change screws the whole thing up for me im afraid.
Ive just re-read FD after hearing about the time change idea and i just cant see it working.

Yeah, agreed. But then, that’s the movies. Once we get past that, though, there are an awful lot of things in the book that would still work really, really well. The characters, even a little younger and in the early 70’s, could still be great to watch.

It’s a longshot, but these days, movies always are.

As much as these things are subjective, the most commonly held opinion is that the three best Elmore Leonard adaptations are Out of Sight, Jackie Brown and Get Shorty.  It is also the opinion of the author himself - and he is not a man to sugar-coat his opinions regarding the success of others to adapt his books. 

I also share this opinion, and the belief that Jackie Brown is actually Tarantino’s best - if not most successful - film.

Two of these stories were adapted by very good directors, and the third, Get Shorty, was directed by someone who, despite showing increasing signs of becoming a career hack, had the good sense to use Scott Frank.  Frank also adapted Out of Sight, if i’m not mistaken.

So it would seem that the two criteria for a successful Elmore adaptation would be:

-A director capable of stylish, brilliant filmmaking being behind it

-Scott Frank doing the screen adaptation

As fas as I know, Charlie Matthau’s greatest claim to fame is his last name.  His director’s resume is, at best, spotty.  And I don’t believe Scott Frank did the adaptation, did he?

If not, I would not hold my breath in anticipation of this particular adaptation being something special.

djones - 10 March 2007 01:32 PM

What was the first bad film Quentin Tarantino made? Jackie Brown.

The Mutt - 25 March 2007 11:54 PM

I also share ... the belief that Jackie Brown is actually Tarantino’s best - if not most successful - film.

Gotta go with The Mutt on this one.  Jackie Brown is one of my all time favorite films.  Maybe it was the Delfonics.