The Brave by Gregory McDonald

 

(hb; 1991)

 

From the inside flap:

“Rafael’s world is a place where armed guards patrol a dump to prevent poor families from foraging through the garbage. With his family, Rafael lives on the edge of the refuse heap in a forgotten corner of America’s Southwest.

“Desperately poor, he is determined to give his family some respite from their dire poverty, even if it means trading his own life to do so.

“Rafael finds a man who says he will pay many thousands of dollars in exchange for his life:  so he agrees to ‘star’ in a snuff film.”

 

Review

Brave, with its stark language, grim-flat tone and likely doomed characters is a work of horrific beauty, with Rafael (a simple, largely illiterate young man) willing to sacrifice his life to improve those of his family and his also-impoverished community. No words wasted in this fast-moving, taut-emotions-between-the-lines (and relatively short) novel, its third chapter—which comes with a foreword/warning from Mcdonald—fairly (possibly) stomach-churning for those not used to bluntly stated inhumanity and potential horror (in a weird way, Brave put in the mindset of director/co-screenwriter John McNaughton’s 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). This is one of the best books I’ve ever read in any genre, up there with Robert Bloch’s Psycho (1959) and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962), and highly recommended for fans of Cormac McCarthy and Richard Stark’s twenty-four-book Parker series.

#

 

The resulting 1997 film, directed, co-scripted by and starring Johnny Depp, was not released stateside. Depp was upset by the negative reaction of U.S. film critics and refused to release it in that country. It debuted at Cannes Film Festival in May 1997 and was released in other countries throughout the remainder of that year. (Brave’s co-screenwriters also included Paul McCudden and D.P. Depp.)

Depp played Raphael (not spelled “Rafael” as it is in Mcdonald’s source novel). Marlon Brando played McCarthy, a snuff filmmaker who spells it out for Raphael. Marshall Bell played Larry, McCarthy’s shifty nephew.

Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman played Raphael’s “Papa.” Luis Guzmán played Luis, Raphael’s older brother. Pepe Serna played Alessando, Raphael’s other brother, who whines a lot and is an especially doomy do-nothing.

Frederic Forrest, Brando’s co-star in Apocalypse Now (1979), played Lou Sr. Clarence Williams III played Father Stratton. Max Perlich played Lou Jr. Iggy Pop played “Man Eating Bird Leg.”

On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers

(hb; 1987)

From the inside flap:

"Sailing unwittingly into this unsavory company comes one John Chandagnac, bookkeeper and puppeteer. He seems an unlikely candidate for piracy, or the machinations of dark sorcery. But christened Jack Shandy by a drunken pirate captain, he may turn out to be one of the greatest of them all. . .

"A hunt for unearthly spirits with the aid of a mummified two-headed dog. A journey through the Florida swamps in search of the Fountain of Youth. A battle at sea with the Royal English Navy. An encounter with sunken ships crewed by zombies. . ."

Review:

Jack Chandagnac is on his way to reclaim a stolen inheritance when pirates seize the ship he's on; he gets a choice: join the pirate crew, or die.

He chooses to join them, falling in love with another non-pirate passenger, Beth Hurwood, as he does so.

Problem is, he and Beth are caught up in the dark-magic schemings of Beth's father (Benjamin Hurwood), her father's toadlike companion (Leo Friend), and an equally dark rendezvous with Edward Thatch, more commonly called Blackbeard.

These three men (Hurwood, Friend, Blackbeard) seek the Fountain of Youth, located in the dangerous-strange swamps of Florida, toward various ends -- all of them involving the death of Chandagnac's love, Beth.

Engaging, exhilarating, and bursting at the seams with action and black magic, On Stranger Tides is a rollicking work that never lets up: it has zombies, pirates, ghosts, vodun, terrifying sea storms and soul-claiming, ick-inducing swamps.

Check this out.

On Stranger Tides is the source/plot-structural overlay novel for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Johnny Depp is scheduled to resume his role of Jack Sparrow. Geoffrey Rush is rumored to returning as Barbossa.

Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, who respectively played Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner in the first three Pirates films, have passed on taking part in the fourth Pirates film.

On a further disheartening note, Gore Verbinski who helmed the first three films, won't be directing the fourth. Rob Marshall, a director known for visual panache but little cinematic substance, will direct the upcoming film, which is scheduled for a May 20, 2011 stateside release.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl

(1964: prequel to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Illustrated by Quentin Blake.)

From the inside flap:

"Young Charlie Bucket can't believe his luck when he finds the very last of Mr. Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets inside his chocolate bar. He wins the trip of a lifetime -- a magical tour around Mr. Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory. once inside, Charlie and the four other winners -- Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee -- witness amazing wonders: rainbow drops, lickable wallpaper, and even a chocolate waterfall. But what happens when the children, one by one, disobey Mr. Wonka? In Roald Dahl's most popular story for children, the nasty are punished and the good are deliciously rewarded."

Review:

Whimsical, timeless, gently subversive morality work, this: by now most of us know the story, whether it's through the book, or the two movie versions.

One of my favorite all-time children's books.

#

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been filmed twice.

The first version, under the title Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starred Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Released stateside on June 30, 1971, it was directed by Mel Stuart, from a script by book author Roald Dahl, and an uncredited David Seltzer.

Peter Ostrum played Charlie Bucket. Jack Albertson played Grandpa Joe. Julie Dawn Cole played Veruca Salt. Roy Kinnear played Mr. Salt. Denise Nickerson played Violet Beauregarde. Leonard Stone played Mr. Beauregarde. Paris Themmen played Mike Teevee. Nora Denney, credited as Dodo Denney, played Mrs. Teevee. Michael Bollner played Augustus Gloop. Ursula Reit played Mrs. Gloop. Diane Sowle played Mrs. Bucket.

#

The second version, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was released stateside on July 15, 2005. John August scripted; Tim Burton directed.

Johnny Depp played Willy Wonka. Freddy Highmore played Charlie Bucket. David Kelly played Grandpa Joe. Helena Bonham Carter played Mrs. Bucket. Noah Taylor played Mr. Bucket. Christopher Lee played Dr. Wonka. Julia Winter played Veruca Salt. James Fox played Mr. Salt.

Chocolat, by Joanne Harris

(pb; 1999)

From the back cover:

"When beautiful, unmarried Vianne Rocher sweeps into the pinched little French town of Lansquenet on the heels of carnival and opens a gem of a chocolate shop across the square from the church, she begins to wreak havoc with the town's Lenten vows. Her uncanny ability to perceive her customers' private discontents and alleviate them with just the right concoction coaxes the villagers to abandon themselves to temptation and happiness, but enrages Pere Reynaud, the local priest. Certain only a witch could stir such sinful indulgences and devise such clever cures, Reynauld pits himself against Vianne and vows to block the chocolate festival she plans for Easter Sunday, and to run her out of town forever. Witch or not (she'll never tell), Vianne soon sparks a dramatic confrontation between those who prefer the cold comforts of church and those who revel in their newly discovered taste for pleasure."

Review:

This charmer of a novel seduces (in a non-sexual way) as easily as its protagonist, Vianne Rocher, a woman whose empathy, skill (with people and food) and practicality made me want to stay up and read it, though my eyes were drooping dangerously at four a.m..

Equally beguiling are Chocolat's supporting characters: Armande Voizin, the eighty-year old, "obstreperous" iconclast who bedevils the priest Reynaud, and her family by refusing to lay down and die; Luc Clairmont, Armande's teenage grandson, whose shy, stuttering manner conceals his love of Rimbaudian poetry and his grandmother; Josephine Muscat, the battered, quietly resilient wife of a local cafe owner and probable arsonist; Guillaume Duplessis, whose sadness over the impending death of his sickly dog, Charly, gives way to something better; Michel Roux, aka Roux, a man whose gypsy flair is grounded in goodhearted, honest work; and Anouk Rocher, Vianne's six-year old daughter, whose sense of wonder and magic proves to be enchanting as her mother's.

The villains of the novel are also unforgettable: Pere Reynaud, whose book- and guilt-based faith has rendered him brittle; Paul Muscat, Josephine's lecherous, abusive husband; Caroline Clairmont, Armande's daughter and Luc's mother, an airhead and part of Reynaud's "Bible brigade".

Chocolat touches on so many classic themes -- good v. evil, Christianity v. Paganism, Food equals Life/Passion -- in an ostensibly easy way that even though I'd seen the film that resulted from this book, I was still drawn in immediately, even found myself getting upset at the villains' malfeasance.

A wondrous ride, this. By all means check this -- and its resultant 2000 film -- out.

In the film, Juliette Binoche played Vianne Rocher. Alfred Molina played Comte Paul de Reynaud. Carrie-Anne Moss played Caroline Clairmont. Judi Dench played Armande Voizin. Johnny Depp played Roux. Lena Olin played Josephine Muscat. Peter Stormare played Serge Muscat, the cinematic counterpart to Paul Muscat. Lasse Halström directed.

Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life & Art of Edward D. Wood, by Rudolf Grey

(pb; 1992: biography)


From the back cover:

"This incredible, exhaustive biography of the cult movie auteur inspired the Tim Burton movie Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette and Martin Landau.

"Author Rudolf Grey unearths the remarkable stories behind such films as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda. Meet the 'Wood Spooks' -- Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Criswell and Tor Johnson, Nightmare of Ecstasy reveals the weird, wild and sordid aspects of the man the ignorant have called 'The worst filmmaker of all time.'"

Review:

This oral history, provided by those who knew (or claimed they knew) Wood, documents a different era in Hollywood, as seen from its cinematic underbelly. Colorful, kitschy tales about Wood, Lugosi and other Hollywood has-beens (or hopeful would-bes) regularly highlight this modest able effort, interlaced with the sad facts of Wood's later life (alcoholism, financial victimization), as well as Lugosi's (who was a junkie and a belligerent drunk).

Even if you've seen the Tim Burton film (which was "inspired" by this book), this is still a must-read, as it shows a different, less upbeat view of a Hollywood dreamer whose hackish visions took brief flight.

The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson

(hb; 1959, 1998)

From the inside flap:

“The Rum Diary was begun in 1959 by a then-twenty-two year old Hunter S. Thompson. It was his first novel, and he told his friend, the author William Kennedy, that The Rum Diary would 'in a twisted way... do for San Juan what Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises did for Paris.' In Paul Kemp, the novel's hero, there are echoes of young Thompson, who was himself honing his wildly musical writing style as one of the 'ill-tempered wandering rabble' on the staff at the San Juan Daily News at the time. 'I shared a dark suspicion,' Kemp says, 'that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles –a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other – that kept me going.'

“The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery and violent alcohol lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. 'It was a gold rush,' says the author. 'There were naked people everywhere and we had credit.'

“Puerto Rico was an unspoiled tropical paradise in those days – before Castro, before JFK, before civil rights and moonwalks and even before drugs – but the San Juan Daily News was a vortex and a snakepit of all the new corrupt schemes and plots and greedmongers who swarmed in...”

Review:

Paul Kemp, a thirty-two year-old, itinerant journalist, winds up in San Juan, a small island town, where there's little to do but get drunk, get laid, and find new ways to work within a commercially corrupt system.

The “gonzo” element – the chemical-fueled insane asides that would predominate Thompson's later writings – is subdued by the pervasive cynicism of most of the characters, all of them alcohol-, sex- or money-mad (or all three). It's bleakly amusing, at times a sorrowful novel, especially when Kemp looks back on what he views as his wasted life, careering in a futile career, while the world goes to exploitative hell.

Kemp is further unquieted by the presence of Chenault, a beautiful, nature-friendly Connecticut girl, who awakens unwanted desires within him, even as she cavorts (often half-naked) with one of his drinking buddies, Yeamon, a wild-tempered, fist-throwing fellow journalist.

Engaging novel, this. Reading this felt like spending a few months in a seedy island town with a charming if tired friend, as Thompson's images and language are indelible and delectable (in a black-funny way).

•

The film version is set to be released in 2011.

Johnny Depp is set to play Paul Kemp. Amber Heard is set to play Chenault. Aaron Eckhardt is set to play Sanderson. Richard Jenkins is set to play Lotterman. Michael Rispoli is set to play Bob Sala.

Bruce Robinson, who penned the film's script, is directing.