Popcorn: A Novel - Softcover

Elton, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312194722 ISBN 13: 9780312194727

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998

Synopsis

Bruce Delamitri makes movies about killers. Great movies, stylish movies. Bruce's movies are hip. Post-modern cinematic milestones, dripping with ironic juxtaposition. His killers are style icons. They walk cool; they talk cool. Getting shot by one of them would be a fashion statement.

Enter Wayne and Scout. Real killers. Appalling, demented maniacs who kill people they do not know.

Popcorn is an international success, prevailing at number one for five weeks on London's Sunday Times bestseller list. This taut and darkly funny novel also poses a serious question: In a society addicted to murder, is there anything such as a responsible person?

About this title

Review:

Controversial and past caring, equal parts cool and cruel, Bruce Delametri is Hollywood's hottest director. Tonight, he's at the apex of his career, with an Oscar cradled in one hand and Miss February in the other. But then he gets a visit from two special fans, and all hell (quite literally) breaks loose.

Popcorn, a novel from British sitcom writer Ben Elton (Blackadder, The Young Ones), is the satirical novel done 1990s style. It is a book about the movies that indicts the movies, and that has every chance of being made into a movie. It rings all the familiar changes on the theme of Hollywood vapidity, crassness, and decadence; however, Popcorn accomplishes this so deftly that you may not realize that you've heard it all before until you're finished with the book. Popcorn has little new to say about America and the culture for which it stands: talk-show hosts that are vacuous, movies that are violent, and audiences that are moronic. (The one benefit to shooting this particular fish in this particular barrel is that most readers will find it hard to disagree.) That said, the book generates an undeniable tension. Popcorn is a pleasing (if not always pleasant) page-turner, and the last 20 pages will definitely give you pause.

From the Publisher:

Praise for Popcorn:

"This may be the smartest, meanest, most violent, and cynical take on Hollywood (and the media that hypes it) since The Player." --Glamour

"With the high-wire irony and edgy narrative splicing of--you guessed it--Pulp Fiction, British writer Elton both brilliantly exploits and eviscerates his subject. He's a Nathanael West for 'young, thrusting, cool, cynical Hollywood.' A-" --Entertainment Weekly

"It's catchily written, postmodern in structure, brilliantly packaged." --New York Magazine

"With a lightning-quick pace, Elton sends up film directors Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone...entertaining and thought provoking...while making cogent points about taking responsibility for our society's fascination with violence." --Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0312194722
• ISBN 13: 9780312194727
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304