I'm usually a little skeptical about reading books by well-known actors (thank you, James Franco for writing the most pretentious drivel I've had the misfortune to read) but this one seemed so in the wheelhouse of the writer, I decided to give it a whirl. Plus, after spending 30+ years working in the film industry, I figured it would be kind of in my wheelhouse.
And it was!
It's kind of slow to start with and initially, I struggled to figure out how the various parts might fit together, but they did and it was all quite delightful. The historical sections reminded me a little of books by Fannie Flagg even if the characters here weren't quite as sharply hilarious as Fannie's always are. Maybe it's the small town setting and the time period...
Once we got through the history and into the making of the big, Marvel-type movie, things became more familiar. Enough so that the little footnotes about what things mean got irritating after a while. But that's a small criticism. So often books about filmmaking gloss over the actual filmmaking process to move on to the more glamorous parts of the business - premieres, press junkets, awards shows and the like. This book got right in there, with the assistants and assistants of assistants, with the make-up artists and bit players.
And who better to do this than Tom Hanks, who's spent so much of his life on sets with these people and knows exactly the rhythm and chaos of making a film? Some of my favorite moments were those chaotic ones when you know everything is spiraling out of control, yet somehow, you have to claw yourself back to safety, get back on track because very day over schedule you go is costing millions.
And as a bonus, this book has actual comic books built in!
Yes, there were parts that got a bit baggy and some of the characters were less characters than types, but in a book with enough characters to demand a 10-minute credit crawl, there were enough distinctive people in there to make up for the handful of sketched-in types. Some more editing could definitely have been done on this book to tighten it up, but overall, I enjoyed reading it very much.
But don't just listen to me. Here's the blurb:
From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.
Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.
Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.
Cue the cast: We meet the film's extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.
Bonus material: Interspersed throughout are three comic books that are featured in the story--all created by Tom Hanks himself--including the comic book that becomes the official tie-in to this novel's major motion picture masterpiece.
No comments:
Post a Comment