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Elmore Leonard Website

Friday, December 28, 2007

The Guardian (London)
The Guide: film: If only… we could do some reshoots of 2007. John Patterson suggests a few retrospective improvements to make it a vintage movie year
BYLINE: John Patterson

When are they going to invent that time machine I need in order to make the year 2007 retroactively perfect? To hell with the Butterfly Effect and not tampering with the past because it buggers up the present, I need to rewrite some history, retouch some photos, destroy some reputations and settle some scores. Bring it on!

At some point I’d have to drop in and persuade Quentin Tarantino that he seems to be all washed up, notwithstanding the release this year of two movies - Smokin’ Aces and Shoot ‘Em Up - that still slavishly imitate QT a decade after he became passe. And even if, technically, they imitate his imitators, well, it’s still his fault. He couldn’t even persuade his sugardaddy Harvey Weinstein to give Grindhouse a decent release. Perhaps I could persuade him to film another Elmore Leonard novel, like the one good QT movie not entirely built out of other movies, Jackie Brown. Say, 3:10 To Yuma, which badly needed his subversive ministrations.