Okay, so I watch lots of shit. Sometimes worth a thread, and sometimes not. We have a sort of catchall apocalypse movie thread, and one for movies that we should hate, so this will be for the more or less middle-ground movies. Good, worth watching, but otherwise somewhat under the radar, and not really important enough to launch any sort of useful thread. Mainly, I want to cut down on no-reply threads clogging up this forum.
So we'll start with
In the Electric Mist, based on one of my favorite Dave Robicheaux novels. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, directed by the gifted Bertrand Tavernier, and written by family friend James Lee Burke. It's great stuff -- though has been troubled and delayed for a couple of years.
Robicheux has hit the screens before in
Heaven's Prisoners, with Alec Baldwin in the title role. Well worth checking it out...a good story, well done, and adequtely capturing the flavor of the novels. Though it died at the box office, as will this movie if and when it comes out.
Every once in a while, Burke takes Dave to a supernatural place.
In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead is the earliest instance of that, where the titular Confederate ghosts appear to guide and push the story along, only making a show during the finale when Dave is near death. The movie plays with all of that stuff a bit, and sort of removes the through-lines that link the novels and reference Dave's back story, and that's fine. Burke's writing is always poetic and beautiful, but he's been written Dave for 25 years now. The movies (this one more so than the Baldwin attempt) distill the best of the story. Tommy Lee Jones is amazing.
It's fascinating the Katrina thing. The book is pre-Katrina, but the movie is Katrina-centric. I guess there's no way to make a movie set in Louisiana without talking about Katrina, eh? Burke did put Dave into Katrina in
Tin Roof Blowdown, which is worth a read.
The links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lee_Burkehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Electric_Misthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_RobicheauxAnd, by the way, my favorite of the series:
Black Cherry Blues
In The Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead
Jolie Blon's Bounce
The full list is at the first wikipedia link for Jim Burke. You don't really have to read the series in order, despite the occasional reference to the backstory. So I highly recommend you get some in you.
