In 1978, William Peter Blatty published
The Ninth Configuration - his first novel since the blockbuster success of
The Exorcist. A reworking of his earlier
Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane, it told the story of a Marine psychiatrist providing unorthodox treatment to mentally wounded Vietnam veterans at a facility located in a castle in the Pacific Northwest. Two years later, Blatty's
film adaptation received Golden Globe nominations for Best Drama and Screenplay - winning the latter. Critic Mark Kermode described it as "a breathtaking cocktail of philosophy, eye-popping visuals, jaw-dropping pretentiousness, rib-tickling humour and
heart-stopping action. ... Blatty directs like a man with no understanding of, or interest in, the supposed limits of mainstream movie-making. The result is a work of matchless madness which divides audiences as spectacularly as the waves of the Red Sea, a cult classic that continues to provoke either apostolic devotion or baffled dismissal."
(previously)
posted by Joe Beese
on May 27, 2009 -
20 comments
"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page
Inherent Vice, is
described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read
an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch
a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow.
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 6, 2009 -
76 comments
