The Writing Wire for 12/12: Zombie icons, Ellroy on HBO and 'Che' potty breaks

Happy Friday, all. Let's roll.

• IO9 asks: Is sci fi getting too mainstream? Also -- and Zombie will appreciate this -- how would major cultural icons look if they were zombie-fied? Check out Ronnie Reagan above.

• Have you lied about reading a good book lately? It's OK if you have.

• The Underwire has the verdict on The Day The Earth Stood Still remake: Not so good.

• More importantly, when should you take a pee break during Steve Soderbergh's four-hour Che biopic?

• Topless Robot thinks Heroes might stop sucking soon. Did it ever not suck?

• Measure for Measure, the great songwriting blog from The New York Times discusses writing confessional songs.

• Could Gran Torino be Clint's best work in years?

• And, in the "Only King Suckerman Cares/Delay of Game" category, I just realized that HBO is working on a series adapting James Ellroy's "American Underworld" novels, American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand. Extra cool? It's by the team that did the critically-acclaimed John Adams mini.

What Are You Reading Week 8: Finishing up the "L.A. Quartet"

I know, I know. Where the hell have I been? No concrete excuses here, faithful reader. One thing I can say about my time away, though, I have been reading. Reading Ellroy. Can't you tell, from my stop-start sentence structure and use of words like "shitbird" and "feature this"? No? Fine.

Last time we chatted, I was midway through James Ellroy's "L.A. Quartet," a loosely-connected series of novels set in -- you guessed it! -- Los Angeles, starting around the time of WWII and ending at the dawn of the 1960s.

Specifically, I was about a third of the way through L.A. Confidential, which tells the tale of three cops: up-and-coming brown-noser Ed Exley, lovable bruiser Wendell "Bud" White and smooth operator Jack Vincennes. Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the film version, starring Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. While the movie is fairly faithful to the source material, if we've learned anything about Ellroy thusfar, it's that he packs his novels with so much information and so many characters, that oftentimes, you find yourself flipping backwards just to re-learn who some of these people are. Confidential, seemingly the longest of the four novels, is honestly, sometimes pretty hard to follow. Ellroy mixes in a slew of characters, newspaper-style vignettes and three different viewpoints. While it takes at least half the novel (or, it did for me, at least) to get into the groove Ellroy is belting out, once you start to feel it, you really become immersed in the world the author's created. Meticulously researched, from the historical facts surrounding the story (The "Bloody Christmas" and veiled Walt Disney parody) to the word choice and lingo of the characters from that time period, you close the book feeling like you just spent a month or two in Los Angeles, circa 1954.



Unlike The Big Nowhere, which seemed to be more of a mish-mash of viewpoints and facts swirling together with a Communist witch hunt and a serial killer backdrop, L.A. Confidential takes the three-character formula and synthesizes it into something more cohesive. Whereas Nowhere started with three characters, seemingly unrelated, working on their own cases/problems and then eventually gravitating toward each other, L.A. Confidential starts with the three main characters already close together and slightly overlapping and with a much stronger conflict -- specifically with the straight arrow Exley and the devil-with-a-heart White.

There were points while reading Nowhere that I pondered giving up, before hitting the final act which kicked the entire book into high gear. L.A. Confidential is smooth from the get-go, with a few slower chapters but overall a consistent and engaging pace. You begin to sympathize with all three of Ellroy's stars -- the duty-bound Exley, the brutish but loyal White and the slimeball with a soul, Vincennes. Whereas with Nowhere, you could argue that Mal Considine was really the only relatable character. The closeted Detective Upshaw and scurrilous Meeks were a little too far gone for this reader to really root for or appreciate. But I'll get to that a bit more later on, when we enter the final chapter of the Quartet, in Ellroy's White Jazz.

Plot-wise, like most of Ellroy's latter-day work, L.A. Confidential is ultra-detailed and at times confusing. But the style raises the substance more often than not, making the book an experience not to be missed, even if you're not really sure what just happened, exactly. Still, it's a literary work, and it elevates the crime genre beyond the staid trappings of private eye stories and serial killer adventures. While I have a soft-spot for the more linear and emotional stuff produced by Pelecanos and once produced by Lehane, Ellroy's a totally different -- and disturbing -- flavor that's worth trying.



White Jazz, which closes out the four-piece masterwork, goes back to Ellroy's roots. Specifically, the first-person narration of The Black Dahlia. This time, though, the viewpoint character is not nearly as likeable as young Bucky Bleichert was. Instead, we're handed Dave Klein, a corrupt cop who's part slumlord, part bagman and all rotten. Set a few months after the end of L.A. Confidential, we find Klein heading up the LA Administrative Vice division -- well, when he's not killing people for the mob or having strange, incestuous fantasies involving his younger sister. Yeah. Klein is not your typical lead.

Just as Klein takes on a side job trailing a wannabe movie starlet for mogul Howard Hughes, his world begins to crumble. The State's Attorney has begun a deep probe into corruption in the LAPD, former mob head honcho Mickey Cohen is becoming a parody of himself and Kein's been assigned to solve a home invasion that seems admittedly creepy but irrelevant, on the surface. I won't spoil the specifics here, but Jazz does resolve plot threads and character arcs from the last novel, in a much clearer and effective way than Confidential did for Nowhere (strangely enough, the movie version of L.A. Confidential finds a way to integrate Buzz Meeks into the main plot much more cohesively than Ellroy did, with a slapshod prologue). If you closed the book on L.A. Confidential wondering what happened to X and Y, White Jazz answers those questions for you.

But beyond just closing down plot threads and concluding stories for previously introduced characters, Jazz is a riveting and disturbing look at a totally corrupt and despicable individual. I found it hard to get few the first chapters of the book because I found Klein impossible to like. He was a liar, a cheat, a scumbag and a murderer. But once you keep reading you realize he's one of many, and, as was pointed out to me earlier today, why do you have to like the main character to like a book anyway? Maybe I just grew into the habit. After a while, I figured out what Ellroy was striving for, or, what I thought he was going for. He wants you to hate Klein. He wants you to find him to be a disturbing creature you'd never want to cross in real life. That's what makes his story so interesting -- this is a cop tale from the other side of the coin, where the "hero" isn't a stalwart white knight but a black knight in sheep's clothing. That's the crux of White Jazz, and everything else that injects Ellroy's fiction starting with his literary rebirth in the pages of The Black Dahlia. Even the way the sentences and thoughts are structured give the reader a glimpse into the frenzied, fractured mind of Klein.



There's an unconfirmed rumor that Ellroy turned in a 900-page first draft for Jazz. When his publisher balked, Ellroy cut the book down to size by excising most of the verbs, articles, adjectives and unnecessary words, pruning it down to a more manageable 350-or-so pages. Crazy, huh?

The final product is a benzadrine fueled sprint through the creepy underbelly of Los Angeles in the late 50s, before the dawn of Camelot, doused in piles of murder, greed, corruption, double-crosses and lies. And there's more.

"Well, fine. But do I have to read the entire four-novel series to enjoy the experience?"

Not really. I think each novel stands (and falls) on its own merits and failures. Do you get a better, more organic and overall complete story by reading all four? Yes. The perfect example is when you read L.A. Confidential and realize two of the most important characters in the book are left dangling after the main plot is resolved. Or, when you finish The Big Nowhere and you're not really sure what's going to happen to Buzz Meeks. If, like myself, you're already inherently inclined to enjoy serialized fiction, you'll want to read all four. There's also the geeky payoff, which Ellroy uses carefully, that comes when you see a character from an earlier book showing up later in the series, like The Black Dahlia's Russ Millard taking a more central role in L.A. Confidential.

While not perfect by any means, Ellroy's "L.A. Quartet" offers up a layered, organic and exhilarating picture of a city in different stages of evolution with real history as a backdrop you can sense and see, instead of just having it inserted to suit the needs of story. These characters could have easily existed in the times they've been placed, and the ones that did sound perfectly in tune with their real life doppelgangers. Highly reccommended.

What's next for me? More Ellroy. Specifically, part one of Ellroy's "American Underworld" trilogy, American Tabloid.

But enough of that. What are you reading?

SuckerFlix #4: Anything Else and Cop

Last week, we took a mini-tour of my TiVo Season Passes, but now we return to movieland. And, not to disappoint, I did watch a crime film. But it gets second billing to Anything Else, a latter-day Woody Allen joint starring Jason Biggs and the lovely Christina Ricci.

I have to preface this review by saying I'm a big Woody Allen fan -- who isn't, I guess? His characters, their dialogue and his sense of humor have made for more great movies than duds, especially Annie Hall, Manhattan and a few others. A lot of people slag on Allen's later works, but I've found most of them to be pleasant and wonderful at best, with Sweet and Lowdown and now Anything Else as prime examples.

Anything Else tells the story of Jerry Falk (Biggs), a neurotic young comedy writer with bigger, more literary aspirations. Jerry befriends David Dobel, an older and less successful writer with an interesting and slightly screwy world view. Jerry, you see, is head over heels in love with Amanda Chase (Ricci), a smart, funny and sharp actress who is at times emotionally charged and intense, and other times detached and direct.



The plot, while interesting and involving Jerry's quest for bigger writing opportunities, is secondary to the dynamic between Jerry and Amanda. As up and down as their conversations and scenes go, you quickly fall in love with Amanda along with Jerry, and you find yourself understanding why Jerry cherishes her company. Ricci does a great job of making Amanda believable and real -- sure, she can sometimes be tough on Jerry, but she is equally vulnerable and caring. The film presents the very normal and funny story of two people falling in love and trying hard to stay that way.

I can't say I was much of a Biggs fan going in, having really only seen him in the first two American Pie films, but he holds his own fairly well, sharing scenes with the veteran Ricci among others. He's not outstanding, but he is competent and believable as a guy who's deeply in love and dedicated to his partner. Ricci is the standout in the film, though, charming the viewer with her sense of humor and realistic, human moods. You find yourself rooting for Jerry and understanding Amanda's frustrations, all the while not really feeling like you're in the midst of a romantic comedy, but regular life.

Allen himself serves as the bulk of comic relief in the movie, as Jerry's pseudo-mentor Dobel, and does a fine job of letting his two young stars handle the majority of the movie's major movements. Stockard Channing also has a nice turn as Amanda's nutty but emotionally in tune mother, with a touching musical interlude in the film's final act.

If there was anything I didn't like about the film, it was the ending, only because after spending a few hours with the couple and their connection, you don't really want to leave. A

Cop: A fairly mediocre adaptation of one of neo-noir crime writer James Ellroy's lesser works, Cop stars the overrated James Woods as Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, a fearless and dedicated cop (get it?) chasing after a serial killer preying upon young women in 1980s Los Angeles. The movie chops up and moves around scenes and key plot points from the book, Blood on the Moon, not for the better. Instead of building toward a climax slowly, the movie starts hot and keeps going, allowing for very little time to get to know the characters, much less care for them. Lesley Anne Warren is also pretty unsettling as Woods love interest, but not in a positive way -- she just comes off as nervous and odd. A forgettable, passable and mostly predictable flick. C

What are you reading? Week 7: On the road to Nowhere

Last week, I gushed and gushed about James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia, praising the neo-noir tale's slimy portrait of post-WWII Los Angeles and its denizens. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to move on to the next part of Ellroy's "L.A. Quartet," The Big Nowhere.

I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet. I'm about 170 pages in and I'm still waiting for that great moment where you have to keep reading and can't put the book down. I was talking to Zombie about this last week, thinking I'd reached that moment with the book. But then I hit a few slower, less interesting chapters and I found myself not as motivated to pick up the book. Still, I remain optimistic, and Ellroy is far from an "easy" writer. You have to really dedicate yourself to the material. He doesn't mince words or ramble on, so you know every word, character and scene counts. Did I mention it's not easy?

The Big Nowhere kicks off by slowly introducing us to its three protagonists: Sheriff's Deputy Danny Upshaw, a young up-and-comer with promise and a textbook approach to detective work; Mal Considine, a divorced cop trying to keep custody of his immigrant stepson and Buzz Meeks, a corrupt ex-cop who's on the dole for Howard Hughes and local mob boss Mickey Cohen. Set during the red scare of the early fifties, the novel finds the three characters inching closer together amid a backdrop of labor disputes, Communist witch hunts and a series of grisly murders.



At first, the three characters seem distant and unrelated, but as the novel progresses, all three become involved with the same problem: weeding out Communists from the UAES, an actors' organization on strike and costing Hollywood bags of money. I'm not sure how much that interests me, to be honest, but there's also the case of the potential serial killer, which is Upshaw's thread as the story begins. And sometimes, after reading a great book by a great author, you allow the author some modicum of faith when reading a later, more complex work. That's what's going on here. I imagine that after a few more chapters the story will kick in and I won't be able to put it down. Until then, I'll push through and wait for that moment.

What are you reading? Week 6: Dancing with the Dahlia

Last week, we entered the world of Ross MacDonald and Lew Archer, and took a tentative step toward James Ellroy's visceral vision of 1940s Los Angeles. Specifically, the author's terrific neo-noir and fictionalized examination of the death of Elizabeth Short, otherwise known as the Black Dahlia.

In the book -- aptly titled The Black Dahlia, natch -- Ellroy introduces the readers to Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, two up-and-coming cops on the L.A. police force. When the two cops -- who also both boxed before they joined the force -- face off in the ring to help promote a voting proposition to increase funding for the department, a bond is formed. Soon, the two become partners for the department's elite "Warrants" division, and Bucky finds himself immersed in his partner's day-to-day life, which includes his ravishing live-in girlfriend, Kay Lake. The three become irrevocably linked, and a strange co-dependent bond is forged. Lee supports Kay, Kay is falling for Dwight and Dwight is torn by his loyalties to his partner and his growing lust for his partner's pseudo-wife.



The dynamic is blown to bits on January 15, when while on a routine investigation Bucky and Lee stumble upon Elizabeth Short's dead and gruesomely dismembered body. Soon, the scene becomes a flashpoint for media and cops, and the story of "The Black Dahlia" murder is the talk of the town. Why was this pretty New England girl so brutally murdered? And, more importantly, why are both Bucky and Lee inexorably driven to find her killer?

What follows is a slow and thoughtful dip into the seedier realms of the human psyche, echoed by Ellroy's perverse vision of Los Angeles right after the second World War. Initially, the Dahlia murder serves as a uniting force for the Bucky/Lee team, but it soon becomes a growing crack in their equally flawed trinity with Kay. Lee, haunted by memories of his younger sister -- who was killed in a similar fashion to the Dahlia -- becomes obsessed with the case. Fueled by uppers and a twisted desire to put his dead sister's ghost to rest, Lee abandons his home and eventually his city on a quest to solve the murder.

Bucky, meanwhile, is at first reticent and dismayed at his reassignment from Warrants to the Dahlia case. But upon meeting the mysterious and sexy Madeleine Sprague on a canvass of a few LA dive bars, Bucky finds himself in a passionate and disturbing romance with the Dahlia's clown face-scarred visage and her sad demise. Madeleine's uncanny resemblance to the deceased Ms. Short, along with her own slowly-revealed machinations send the young cop into a tailspin that will eventually ruin his career, romantic prospects and obliterate his self-respect.

The Black Dahlia is a tour de force and Ellroy at his finest. It's the kind of book that not only paints a believable picture of a time long past, but also makes you long to be a part of that world, no matter how dirge-like and frightening it may seem. Ellroy's characters jump to life, whether it's through their actions or their tight, believable dialogue and mannerisms. Ellroy's L.A. is a bloody, infected scratch of a town, littered with floozies, two-faces and sad, wretched people clinging to their very existence with a slurred and medicated desperation. You may not like any of the characters in the book, you may not like any of their actions and you may be scared and shocked by what you read, but you won't be able to put it down. This book cuts to the core of human nature, and it isn't a pretty picture.

The Black Dahlia is a tale of extreme, deadly obsession and sharply focused longings and desires, with a sinful metropolis as its dangerous and malignant backdrop.

I'd end my writing here, but there are a few more notes I want to touch on. Not nearly as exciting as the book itself, though.



As some of you might know, The Black Dahlia is the first part of what Ellroy later dubbed "The L.A. Quartet," which also includes The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz. Needless to say, I'll be picking up The Big Nowhere the next time I step into a bookstore (*cough*today*cough*), and proceeding from there.



Additionally, the novel was adapted by director Brian De Palma into a piss poor movie, starring doe-eyed Josh Hartnett and a stuffy Aaron Eckhart as Bucky and Lee, respectively. With the painfully numb and monotone Scarlett Johannsen dumbing down and neutering the Kay Lake role. The only highlight was Hillary Swank, who veered a little bit off her usual path of asexual tough girls by playing the vampy and over-sexed Madeleine. But Swank couldn't save the film, which ham-fistedly delivered the novel's more nuanced messaging and truncated the novel's thoughtful and effective ending to create something overwrought and lumbering at best, laughable at worst. I considered for a moment re-casting the film and making a blog post out of it, but in the end, it's best not to think of this adaptation at all, if one can help it.

One final note, this one a tad selfish -- I first went into reading Dahlia thinking it would offer little guidance in regards to my own work -- specifically Silent City -- thinking I'd mined the crime genre enough with Pelecanos' A Firing Offense and a few other books. But it really helped me determine a huge aspect of the book that had often bothered me -- why would Pete pursue Kathy's killer so diligently? What drives him? Needless to say, reading this book helped me figure that out for myself. An added bonus to an already great reading experience.

But, as usual, enough about me. What are you reading?

What are you reading? Week 5: Back on the crime fiction beat

Last week, we bid adieu to our friends Nick and Norah and took a tentative step back into crime fiction with the "comedic crime" of Carl Hiaasen. Specifically, his newspaper caper book, Basket Case.

I have to admit, while Basket Case was enjoyable, it lost a little steam toward the end. As I noted last time, the plot of the book appealed to me because the book was set in South Florida and also because the lead character was a journalist. Hiaasen did a great job of painting a newspaper scene, and I really learned a lot from reading the book in that regard. Unfortunately, while his scene-setting when it came to SoFla was decent, it didn't really make me feel like I was back home (I'm from FL, FYI), and a lot of the names used seemed fake and/or forced, which is exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to do with my book. Overall, the plot resolved itself too easily and neatly. I won't spoil the final plot twist, but it left me wanting. Additionally, the "unexpected" romance between protagonist Jack Tagger and his editor Emma came off as unnatural and predictable. Emma's initially painted as a nervous, antsy and neurotic shrew -- so why is the rebellious and cantankerous Jack suddenly drawn to her? Why does she kiss him randomly? It didn't feel right. Understandably, building a functional romantic dynamic is hard, especially when the characters start off as opposing forces. But there didn't seem to be enough time spent on the "Moonlighting"-style moments, where the two opposing characters are at each other's throats but still flirting somewhat. Overall, the book is what it set out to be: a breezy read for someone looking for something entertaining and slight between serious books.

Once I finished Basket Case, though, I was a little desperate. My to-read pile had dwindled to a stack of Ellroy books (more on that later) and Ross MacDonald's The Way Some People Die. The latter was given to me by a friend that works in publishing, but I'd read very little about MacDonald or any of his work. Well, I was pleasantly surprised.



I've gone on and on about my favorite contemporary crime authors -- Pelecanos, Lehane, Connelly, etc. But I've said little about my favorite old school, first generation crime writers. Obviously, Raymond Chandler is atop that list. For a long time after reading his entire output (gold stars next to Farewell, My Lovely, The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye), I was left wondering if there was a true and proper heir to the colorful, stylized and just plain cool detective novels Chandler created, starring the archetypal gumshoe, Philip Marlowe. For a time, I thought Michael Connelly was the guy, but after a few Bosch books (great as they were), I realized that Connelly was more about a tight, forceful plot and less about the atmospheric and literary strengths that Chandler reveals in his work. Well, Ross MacDonald is it.

Like Chandler, MacDonald chronicles the adventures of a sharp, do-right PI. In MacDonald's case, the guy's name is Lew Archer. Like Marlowe, Archer is a strong believer in right and wrong and finds himself in sticky situations that involve subterfuge, mistaken identities and murder. In The Way Some People Die, Archer is for all intents and purposes a Marlowe clone. But that's fine. And based on what little I've read about the series, I know he eventually evolves into something else. But for someone who was craving more Chandler, MacDonald provides the perfect fix.

While Chandler's work is more about painting a scene and colorful language, MacDonald is also equally about plot. So -- in crude terms -- not only does it read like something cool and interesting is going on, but you also can follow the story and understand who the characters are, a flaw I found in most of Chandler's work, but one I was willing to overlook because the ride was so much fun.

The Way Some People Die starts simply enough -- an aging mother begs detective Lew Archer to find her lovely twentysomething daughter Galatea (otherwise known as Galley), who hasn't been in touch for over two months. What follows is a tale of drug-smuggling, prostitution, murder and multiple double-crosses. It reads like a great, old movie, with the requisite femme fatale, gangster villains and surprising turncoats. If you like mysteries, this is a keeper.

Additionally, like most of Chandler's work, The Way Some People Die is a relatively quick read, clocking in at a little over 270 pages (coincidentally, right around where I'd like SILENT CITY to land, when I finish it. I managed to talk my friend to toss a few more MacDonald books my way, so I wouldn't be surprised to see me writing about him a lot more in this here space. Well, unless I go on an Ellroy tear.



Which is highly likely.

I've had an interesting relationship with the works of James Ellroy. I've always been a fan. My Dark Places (nonfiction) and Ellroy's Lloyd Hopkins trilogy of detective novels are books I think of often and remember really enjoying when I read them. But for whatever reason, I could never bring myself to dive into his more lauded work, namely the "L.A. Quartet" of books, which consist of The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz. I tried reading Dahlia a few years back and stalled about 20 pages in. I'm a big believer that if you can't get past the first 20-30 pages of a book, if you're not driven to keep reading it, you're better off just putting it down for a while and moving on to something else. The spark might just not be there. Recently, having finished The Way Some People Die and without another MacDonald book, I picked up Dahlia again. Why Dahlia, specifically? Well, I needed the material to be redeemed in some way. The Brian De Palma-directed movie based on the book was horrible, and I needed to wash that taste out of my mouth. Additionally, Dahlia kicks off the previously mentioned Quartet, so it seemed like as good a place as any to dive into Ellroy.

Great decision. Ellroy is in top form with Dahlia, shrugging off the slight awkwardness and stiff pacing of his earlier novels to create a book that is true neo-noir. As most should know, the book is a fictionalized account of the real Black Dahlia murder. I'm barely 100 pages in, but I've already reached that point where you can't put the book down and all you want to do is curl up and read until you're done. And then, ideally, have another book at the ready. I'll have more concrete thoughts on the book in the next installment, I'm sure, but suffice to say, Dahlia is a pleasure to read. I almost want to kick myself for not plowing through it years ago. It also made me want to "fix" the movie, so expect a post later this week which features me re-casting the entire thing. If I find the time, of course.

Enough about me, though. What are you reading?

SuckerFlix: Street Kings

In addition to reading a ton, I try to watch a lot of movies, too. Not remarkably unique, I know. But I figured it'd be fun to irregularly review those films I do see (thanks, NetFlix!) here on this blog. First up is Street Kings, starring Mr. Monotone himself, Keanu Reeves.

OK, the first thing you're probably asking is "Why the hell did you even put this on your NetFlix queue?" One reason: The screenplay was written by crime fiction legend James Ellroy. One of my personal favorites. His cinematic track record is a bit spotty, both as far as the adaptations of his novels go and his own, albeit limited forays into writing for the screen himself. Still, it was enough of a reason to check it out. I'm also a big fan of Forest Whitaker and find Keanu to be generally tolerable. He's not the best actor by any means, but I have to respect him for at least being eclectic when it comes to selecting roles.

Street Kings is the story of LA vice detective Tom Ludlow, an alcoholic widower who shoots first and fills out reports later. As his boss gets lauded and promoted, Ludlow discovers that his old partner, who is also under investigation by Internal Affairs, might be ratting him out. When his ex-partner turns up dead under mysterious circumstances, Ludlow is the target of the investigation -- but also the only person able to find the real killers.

The movie is fairly paint-by-numbers. Reeves' character is borderline cliche and he does little to add to the role that would make him stand out. Whitaker, who is usually pretty magnetic on screen, comes off flat and hammy. Every time his corrupt sergeant is on, the scenery-chewing doubles.

Not surprisingly, Reeves/Ludlow stumbles upon some details that lead him to (gasp) suspect his own people of orchestrating the death of his partner, and it inevitably points back to the LAPD. I guess I should put up a spoiler warning, but the details in the first few scenes of the film point to this so loudly it's no surprise when the plot actually meanders toward the revelation. None of the secondary characters are memorable, and if anything, some are grating, like Jay Mohr's irrelevant and smarmy corrupt detective. The highlight of the film is Hugh Laurie, who has made a name for himself on FOX's House. I've never watched the show, so I was impressed at how magnetic he was on camera, and found myself wishing he was the lead instead of the fairly wooden Reeves.

Still, the movie rolls along at a brisk pace. While painfully predictable and unremarkable, Street Kings falls into the "I'm just laying around the house on a Saturday morning and want to watch something" category. Not bad by any means, but not something you'd ever make a point of watching.

Ellroy peppers the script with many of the things that stand out in his early novels: corruption in the LAPD, racial tensions and a bleak, fatalistic look at modern society. Sadly, director David Ayer chooses to focus more on the MTV aspect, with cameos from rap stars Common and The Game thrown in to make the film more palatable to the hip hop crowd, and video game-style violence that while "cool" in the moment really detracts from the plot. I found myself wondering midway through the film how Ludlow has even managed to stay alive this long. The action becomes unrealistic and distracting. The camera work is also jerky and inconsistent, as if the viewer can't decipher which scenes are supposed to be violent, so the director has to scream to let them know.

Not surprisingly, Ayer also directed Training Day, which this movie echoes in many ways. I only realized this after checking the director's credits online, but saw many similarities while watching Kings. The newer film, though, really only comes off as a watered down version of Training Day, which was still riddled with flaws but had more momentum than this. If you're a fan of cops and robbers movies and don't find Reeves too brutal to watch, then there are worse ways to spend a few hours. Otherwise, I'd pass.

SuckerFlix Grade: C+
What's next: Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

What are you reading? Week 4: King Suckerman's Infinite Book List

Last week, I talked at length about David Carr's memoir, The Night of the Gun. I was still about 100 pages away from finishing, but the remaining chapters lived up to my expectations. The book is a jarring, frightening and at times disgusting look at the dark side of addiction. If the final chapters added anything of note, it was my realization that while Carr seemed at least intellectually aware of his plight as a recovering addict, there still seemed to be a strong disconnect between the man he now is and "That Guy," as he referred to his time as a junkie. There's a big reveal toward the end that crystallized this for me, and while I still found the book to be enormously compelling -- and well worth the read -- I can't say I was totally convinced Carr had really come to terms with his past. Then again, who has?



Since then, I continued my brief sabbatical from crime fiction with All Over But the Shouting, an oral history of legendary 80s rock band The Replacements. Now, I'm a huge music nerd, as Zombie can probably attest. The 'Mats are a favorite, but never really climbed the highest reaches for me. A solid B+, whereas bands like Talking Heads, Wilco and a few others were a few notches above. If there's anything I can thank this book for, it's reminding me just how good a band the Replacements were. Reading the history, which, as I'll explain a little further down left me a bit wanting, got me listening to the band again. At an ideal time, really, as Rhino recently reissued their entire catalog. They're an amazing, raw and energetic group, and their songs have more resonance with me today than when I first discovered them in college. In a weird way, they also make for a great SILENT CITY soundtrack. The aching melancholy of songs like "Within Your Reach," or the punch and fervor of the simplistic and almost dance-y "I Will Dare" are perfect complements to the stuff I'm trying to write. Interesting.

Anyway, back to the book itself -- the author, Jim Walsh, is a local Minneapolis journalist and has known the various Replacements both personally and professionally for decades -- or he at least tries to imply that he does. OK, cool. On first read, that would imply some level of access. Unfortunately, Walsh doesn't interview any of the remaining (founding guitarist Bob Stinson died in the mid-90s of natural causes) Replacements, and relies mainly on archival interviews when including comments from the band. Strike one. I hate, hate, hate music bios that don't have any direct, new material from the source. I mean, why else would I read it? I can very easily cobble together a list of great Paul Westerberg interviews, read a Wiki entry about the band and call it a night, right? Walsh tries admirably to gloss over this by talking to basically anyone and everyone that ever interacted with the band (some are stretches and clearly dropped in for name value, like Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Jakob Dylan). The strongest interviews are from, not surprisingly, the people that were most in the trenches with the band -- their former manager, the guitarist that replaced Stinson, etc. And while the book overall provides an interesting look at a band's rise and eventual self-destruction, as a reader I really felt like I was missing something, and found myself thinking "Wow, I'd really love to hear what Paul had to say about this, as opposed to what the former drummer of Babes in Toyland has to say for the umpteenth time." Harsh? Kind of. But I've found that as a rule, music bios are generally mediocre to hack jobs, so I have really high expectations when I actually commit some time to one.



Strike two is a format issue. I'm just not a fan or oral histories. I think they're a lazy way to tell a story, and you lose a lot of the narrative momentum that comes with a straight biography. There's no scene setting, no color and no context between the interview excerpts. It's the different between a Q&A and a feature story. This book really suffers from that, and also commits the cardinal sin of not identifying speakers on first mention, instead expecting the reader to flip to the index in the back of the book each time a new person starts talking about how much they liked Let It Be. Not gonna do it, man. I did, eventually, read the index, and was annoyed to find that I probably would have read some passages more closely had I known that, say, the lead singer of The Hold Steady was one of the people interviewed. The format expects the reader to either already know these people by name or be OK with flipping around a book every two seconds. Annoying.

There's no third strike, and I found that after I got over my initial misgivings, the book was a fairly informative, if at times bumpy read. The timing of the quotes were generally awkward -- you'd have a few quotes about the 'Mats first album and suddenly read something referring to lead singer/guitarist Westerberg's solo career. Again, I'd imagine you can't help these things when you don't have access to the major players, but it makes for a weakened reading experience.

On the plus side, the book does a great job of painting Minneapolis as a real hub of indie and punk music, and also shows what a strong influence the band had on not only music in general, but their local scene in particular. When it's hitting on all cylinders, the book really paints a picture of the band -- a ramshackle group of middle-income drunks who just want to rock and, also, have fun while doing so. I'd pass it on to anyone with a passing interest in the band, as it'll only help to whet their appetite for what matters: the music.



I finished the 'Mats book while on the train home last night, but I'd luckily tucked a "backup" book into my bag (OCD much?) -- the novel, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which the new movie is based on. I got the chance to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist this weekend, and enjoyed it. Probably more than I expected. If you're a fan of Juno's whimsical, angsty teen dramedy, this is one for you. Michael Cera basically plays the same character, which is welcome, as I really enjoyed him in Juno. The movie isn't your typical teen movie -- there aren't a series of cliche characters, and even the secondary players are written well enough that you get a sense of how they'd act outside the confines of this specific story. The romantic thread is interesting enough, and while you never doubt that the two will eventually get together, there are enough twists to make you at least consider the possibility that things will fall through. Which is enough for me when it comes to movies like this. The film also uses music very well. One of the major plot threads is the quest to see renowned indie group "Where's Fluffy?" performing a secret show. The directors wisely decided not to go with a pre-existing band, and, in fact, never show the band performing (SPOILER ALERT), which I think was a nice touch.

Some of the other Leaguers will probably rag on me for saying I enjoyed the film, but it is what it is. I have a soft spot for these kind of movies, especially when they're done well. Double points for the NYC scenery, which included a lot of my usual haunts.

So, as I finished the Replacements book, I reached for the N&N novel, which is pretty mature and much more adult than the film version -- at least in the first three chapters. Which is kind of a relief, I have to say. Since the book is a YA novel, I'd expected it to be somewhat tame, so I'm glad to know that teens will be able to read stuff above their heads as opposed to what people think teens should be reading. It's still way too early for me to formulate a verdict on the book -- it's fun and quick so far, and since the movie is so fresh in my mind, is making for an interesting reading experience. I don't really have issues with watching movie versions before I read the book or vice versa -- I find that looking out for the differences or embracing the method helps the entire process. The novel, so far, is very much in tune with the film, though, aside from general rating and content issues that the movie glosses over. If you like one, I'd imagine you'll like the other. If you're a hater, then, no.

Next week: More on N&N and possibly James Ellroy.