The site Beautiful Agony is the YouTube of masturbation — where hundreds of men and women have submitted their own videos of their faces as they jerk off. Despite the subject matter, there’s nothing explicit about the site. There’s no nudity whatsoever, just lots of moaning, squirming, grimacing and shrieking. It’s porn for people with vivid imaginations. The reason I’m mentioning this is because my old post about the site is getting a bunch of hits today. Why the renewed interest in, um, self-gratification?
Lee Goldberg
Bla Bla Bla
The second part of Chris Wells’ Q&A interview with me is now up at his site.
Mr. Monk and the Finished Manuscript
I’ve just emailed the finished manuscript for the fourth Monk novel, MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS, to my editor in New York. The book will be published in hardcover in July 2007. Here’s what the cover copy says (yes, the cover was completed before the book):
Only a special kind of person can keep up with Monk’s
brilliant, if idiosyncratic, methods. One such person is his former assistant,
Sharona. And now that her ne’er-do-well husband has been arrested for
murder, she’s back in San Francisco, ready to reclaim her place in Monk’s
extremely well-ordered life.His current assistant, Natalie, is not at all pleased
with this turn of events. As little as her job pays, she’s grown fond of
Monk and would rather not get fired.While Monk tries to maintain a delicate balance between the
two women, he discovers a few unsettling snags in the case against
Sharona’s husband. With bestselling crime novelist Ian Ludlow nosing
around, and other cases taking his attention, Monk may be up against a killer
who not only understands him, but is one step ahead….
Tie-Ins Rule
Publisher’s Weekly reports that the #2 bestselling trade paperback in the nation is HALO: GHOSTS OF THE ONYX by Eric Nylund…outselling Amy Tan, Lisa See, Paula Coelho, Nicholas Sparks, Clive Cussler, Jodi Picoult, Jan Karon and Elizabeth Kostova to name a few. The book is in its second printing with 180,000 copies in print so far. Not bad for a tie-in novel based on a video game. While critics may sneer at tie-ins, they are wildly popular with readers and publishers are increasingly depending on them to prop up their bottom-lines.
Battlestar Craptica
It happens on even the best shows and, on Friday night, it happened to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. They had a truly awful episode. Flat, obvious, speechy, boring and illogical. For those of you who saw it, I had one big question while I was watching the episode: how did Buckshot or the Cylons know where the
Galactica was? And if they knew, why didn’t they send three or four Basestars there to blast it out of space? Wouldn’t that have been a better plan?
The only nice bit was the implication that Balter is having a menage-a-trois with two Cylon women. I wish we could have seen that episode instead.
UPDATE: I’m not alone. TV Critic Alan Sepinwall agrees with me.
Okay, I’m starting to get just a little bit
concerned about the post-exodus portion of the season. The virus
two-parter had some interesting moments and ideas but never quite
clicked, and "Hero" felt like a mess from start to finish.
Give Us A Kiss
Variety reports that Anjelica Huston will direct a movie adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s GIVE US A KISS. Huston directed BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA and the screenplay will be written by Angus MacLachlan, who scripted JUNEBUG, so this could turn out very well for us Woodrell fans. I enjoyed RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, which was based on Woodrell’s WOE TO LIVE ON, and was done by the same production company as this project.
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.
Gold Medal Memories
Ed Gorman pointed me to this excellent and informative overview & history of Gold Medal books and the impact they had on American popular culture:
What if you could trace the French New Wave, Sam Peckinpah, cyberpunk,
"Pulp Fiction," "Mulholland Drive," and "Sin City" back to one business
gamble taken by a third-tier publisher in 1949? In fact, you can, and
without being guilty of too much overstatement. A little, sure, but not
that much.
While the author of the essay justifiably praises Hard Case Crime, he notes:
Excellent as it is, Hard Case Crime bears the same relationship to Gold Medal that Chris Isaak does to Elvis Presley.
That’s a great line…and not far off the mark.
The Name is Radio, National Public Radio
Many thanks to The Rap Sheet for tipping me off to this NPR piece on James Bond theme songs. David Arnold’s soundtrack album is now up on iTunes, but it doesn’t include the Chris Cornell theme song. The score is another tribute to John Barry, with lots of cues reminiscent of his classic Bond scores. That said, it doesn’t have the sheer energy or inventiveness of TOMORROW NEVER DIES or DIE ANOTHER DAY, by far Arnold’s best Bond scores. This one feels a tired and familiar, basically a a replay of his past scores, with Arnold resorting to old tricks and an over-reliance on the melody from Chris Cornell’s song. Arnold is the only composer besides John Barry to score more than one Bond film. But unlike Barry, who seemed to take a fresh approach with each film, Arnold is one-note. Compare John Barry’s GOLDFINGER with his score for, say, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. There’s a distinct character and sound to both films, even though they are both unmistakeably Barry scores. But now compare Arnold’s score for THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH with CASINO ROYALE. They might as well be the same film. I love how Arnold reinvigorated the Bond scores with TOMORROW NEVER DIES and evolved the Barry sound for a new generation…but perhaps it’s time to find a new composer. My vote goes to Michael Giacchino, composer of THE INCREDIBLES (the best Bond score ever for a non-Bond film), who did for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III what Arnold did for the Bond franchise.
UPDATE 11/17/06: Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m even less impressed with the music. The score disappoints even in context. If you’re going to do THE BOURNE IDENTITY, then go with that kind of edgier, less symphonic score. Arnold also makes the mistake of using "You Know My Name" as a substitute for the James Bond Theme throughout the movie — the conceit being that Bond doesn’t really become Bond until the end. It doesn’t work. I missed hearing a rousing version of the Bond theme during key moments in the film that seemed to cry out for it… and "You Know My Name" doesn’t come close.
As If You Don’t Get Enough Of Me Here Already…
There’s a two-part Q&A interview with me up on Chris Well’s Learning Curve blog. Here’s one of the questions…
WHEN CREATING A MYSTERY, DO YOU START WITH THE PUZZLE AND THEN WRAP THE CHARACTERS AROUND IT, OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND?
I
always start with the characters and the obstacles they are facing. I
ask myself what situation can I put these characters in that will
really test who they are? The mystery almost always organically comes
out of that question. If the characters have nothing at stake in the
mystery, if it doesn’t put them in conflict with others and with
themselves, then who is going to care whodunit?