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Hell To Pay
The Book: Crime author George Pelecanos was an occasional writer on The Wire , and this story of the DC drug industry (and the repercussions that occur within it after a botched murder) is distinctly reminiscent of the superb TV drama.
Private Detective Derek Strange is the man charged with cutting through the mayhem to bring the killers to justice.
The Film: The book is actually the second Derek Strange story, but this one feels the most ripe for big-screen translation, what with its well-drawn characters (both amongst the authorities and the criminals) and rich central plotline.
As for who should play Derek Strange…well, we defy you to read the novel and not think of Denzel Washington throughout!
Sample Dialogue: “What you plan to do, then, be some kind of professional victim? Give up 'cause of all this white oppression you always going on about? So what, all these race-hatin' motherfuckers out here can point to a shiftless nigger like you and say they were right?"
The Watermelon King
The Book: Another quirky oddity from the pen of Daniel Wallace, The Watermelon King is set in a small town in Alabama, where the watermelon was once set to revive the locals’ fortunes until the intervention of Lucy Rider ruined their crops, and by proxy, their dreams.
When Thomas Rider returns to town many years later to explore his past, he learns that people aren’t quick to forget things in small-town America…
The Film: Wallace’s most famous work Big Fish was adapted for the big screen by Tim Burton, and Hollywood’s favourite oddball would probably be a sound choice to helm this bizarre story.
And sticking with the theme of oddballs, what better movie for Joaquin Phoenix to make his return to acting? He’d make a suitably bemused Thomas Rider, and fit right in with the general off-beam tone.
Sample Dialogue: “‘So,’ I said, ‘tell me again?’ ‘Tell you what?’ ‘Why I’m doing this?’ My mouth was dry and inside my head I could hear my heart beating. ‘Because it’s what a man does,’ she said.
‘He goes on a journey.’ ‘And why does he do that?’ ‘To find himself,” she said. ‘And I’m a man,’ I said. ‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘you’re a man.’”
The Cutting Room
The Book: Louise Welsh pens a bizarre little tale in which an unlikely hero in the form of Glaswegian auctioneer Rilke stumbles upon a collection of bizarre (and depraved) pornography when sorting out a dead man’s possessions.
In amongst the images is one of an underaged girl, who appears to be drugged or worse.
However, when Rilke starts poking around into the source of the images, he finds that the people involved aren’t too keen on their business being brought to light…
The Film: As thrillers go, this one is about as dark as they come, and it’d be nice to see Danny Boyle return to the kind of gritty subject matter with which he launched his career.
As for Rilke, he’s not exactly your average hero, being that he’s a dissolute, promiscuous homosexual. Could Ewan McGregor stretch to that? It’d be the perfect shot-in-the-arm for his career if so…
Sample Dialogue: “I’m twenty-five years at the auction house, forty-three years of age. They call me Rilke to my face, behind my back the Cadaver, Corpse, Walking Dead. Aye, well, I may be gaunt of face and long of limb but I don’t smell and I never expect anything.”
Case Histories
The Book: The first in Yorkshire author Kate Atkinson’s excellent series of detective novels featuring gruff private investigator Jackson Brodie.
Atkinson’s wry prose charts the investigation of three seemingly unconnected tragedies: a three-year-old’s disappearance, a husband’s axe-murder and the seemingly motiveless slaying of a solicitor’s daughter.
However, when Jackson starts to dig deeper, it turns out that the trio aren’t so unconnected after all…
The Film: The BBC are in the process of adapting Case Histories into a serial drama, but without intending any disrespect, BBC dramas tend to be a bit safe in general. Brodie is such a well-drawn, likeable character, we’d love to see him get a crack at a big-screen franchise.
Our pick for the role? Well, the Beeb have gone for Jason Isaacs, and we can’t really argue with that. Team him up with J. Blakeson (who did such a good job on The Disappearance Of Alice Creed ) and we could be onto a winner…
Sample Dialogue: “When you chopped logs with the axe and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas.
But when you split someone's head open it smelled like abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you'd cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already another life.”
The Blind Assassin
The Book: Margaret Atwood scooped the Booker Prize back in 2000 for this excellent family saga which begins with the suicide of novelist Laura Chase, and then uncovers her manifold motivations through the recollections of her sister Iris, and Laura’s novel-within-a-novel, also entitled The Blind Assassin . Do try to keep up…
The Film: The book-within-a-book framework might be challenging, but the story itself is the kind of sweeping tragedy that truly great screen epics are made of.
If Anthony Minghella were alive, he would be the perfect candidate to direct, but in his absence we’ll nominate Sam Mendes, with Carey Mulligan starring as the fragile, emotionally scarred character of Iris.
Sample Dialogue: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.
The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens.”
A Confederacy Of Dunces
The Book : John Kennedy Toole’s comic classic tells the story of Ignatius J. Reilly, a vastly intelligent but deeply lazy man, who lives at home with his mother until an enforced search for employment leads him into various comic episodes with a cast of weird and wonderful characters.
The Film: We don’t really need to speculate over the casting for this one as there was also a full production ready to go back in 2005.
With Steven Soderbergh having adapted the script, Will Ferrell was set to star as Ignatius, with Paul Rudd, Mos Def and Jesse Eisenberg pencilled in for the supporting cast.
However, Paramount stalled on the project to such an extent that the whole thing collapsed. You idiots! With that lineup, it could have been perfect…
Sample Dialogue: “‘You must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age,’ Ignatius said solemnly. ‘Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course.
Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too.
For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.... I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.’"
Life
The Book: Celebrity autobiographies are generally self-congratulatory snooze-fests, but Keith Richards’ colourful tome is the exception to the rule. Crammed full of anecdotes of the sex, drugs and rock and roll variety, it’s a fascinating document of life inside one of the world’s biggest bands.
The Movie: Do we need to wait until Keef finally snuffs it to get this one in motion? Not necessarily. And if they do it now, the man himself could even snaffle himself a cameo.
Casting-wise, Johnny Depp would have been the obvious choice, if people hadn’t started to tire of his Captain Keef routine years ago. Instead we’d give a slim-line Tom Hardy a go. He’s certainly cool enough…
Sample Dialogue: “Post-acid was the prevailing mood at Redlands on a cold February morning in 1967. Post-acid: everybody arrives back with their feet on the ground, so to speak, and you’ve been with them all day, doing all kinds of nuts things and laughing your head off; you’ve gone for walks on the beach and you’re freezing cold and you’re not wearing any shoes and you’re wondering why you’ve got frostbite.
The comedown hits everybody in a different way. Some people are going, ‘let’s do it again,’ and others are going, ‘enough already.’ And you can flash back into full acid drive at any moment.”
Wolf Hall
The Book: Set around the court of Henry VIII, Hilary Mantel’s work of historical fiction tells the tale of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the early 1500s.
The Booker Prize winner for 2009, the novel won a great deal of praise for its unconventional presentation of the oft-maligned Cromwell as a talented pragmatist.
The Movie: We haven’t had a really good costume drama in a while, and this could be just the story to remedy that. Shekhar Kapur showed an admirable flair for the genre with the two Elizabeth films, whilst in front of the camera, Benedict Cumberbatch would make an excellent Cromwell.
Sample Dialogue: “We know (Thomas More’s) reasons. All Europe knows them. He is against the divorce. He does not believe the King can be head of the Church. But will he say that? Not he. I know him.
Do you know what I hate? I hate to be part of this play, which is entirely devised by him. I hate the time it will take that could be better spent, I hate it that minds could be better employed, I hate to see our lives going by, because depend upon it, we will all be feeling our age before this pageant is played out.”
Juliet, Naked
The Book: Nick Hornby returns to some of his favourite topics in this story of reclusive singer/songwriter Tucker Crowe, who returns to England from a spell in America, only to find himself laid low by a heart attack and subsequently confronted by his five children and assorted ex-wives.
The Movie: Hornby’s novels always make for fairly engaging films, and we can’t see any reason why this one should be any different. Hornby’s collaboration with director Lone Scherfig was a big success on An Education , so we’ll have her in to direct again, with a rumpled Kevin Costner starring as Crowe.
Sample Dialogue: “He was now beginning to wonder whether the jigsaw was the correct metaphor for relationships between men and women after all. It didn't take account of the sheer stubbornness of human beings, their determination to affix themselves to another even if they didn't fit.”
Cum Laude
The Book: Less sniggering at the back please. This is the much-hyped “adult novel” from Gossip Girl author Cecily von Ziegesar, and tells the story of a group of friends during their first year of college, covering all the coming-of-age milestones that come bundled in with higher education.
The Movie: If this one doesn’t get made, we will eat our collective hat. Sexy, angsty and vicariously thrilling, this teen coming-of-age saga would be a guaranteed smash at the box-office, even it if it were only watched by Gossip Girl regulars.
Rope in Diablo Cody to up the hip-factor and cast some fresh-faced newcomers in the lead roles and what do you have? A license to print money!
Sample Dialogue: “‘Want some help?’ Two boys appeared at her sides, flashing eager, helpful smiles. ‘I’m Sebastian.’
The taller of the two reached for the duffel bag and then ducked into the car for another. ‘Everyone calls me Sea Bass.’ He tossed the second bag at his friend, whose dense thicket of hair could only be described as a Greek afro. ‘That’s Damascus.’”
