The Morning News

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Currently: TMN wishes you a very good weekend equipped with interesting things to read. Thank you, as always, for reading us. http://tmne.ws/h
about 18 hours ago

The New Pantheon • Elmore Leonard

Book Cover Octogenarian writer Elmore (“Dutch”) Leonard has published more than 40 books, mostly novels, and about half of which have been made into movies—none more credibly executed then Steven Soderbergh’s iteration of Out of Sight (1998) starring George Clooney as bank robber Jack Foley and Jennifer Lopez as U.S. Marshal Karen Cisco (and a great supporting cast including Ving Rhames and Don Cheadle).

The potent combination of Leonard’s original story/novel and the Soderbergh film makes Road Dogs (William Morrow) doubly potent. In this book, Foley (whose CV boasts robbing more U.S. banks than anyone in history), Cuban exile Cundo Rey from Leonard’s LaBrava (1983), and Cundo’s common-law wife, Dawn Navarro from 1995’s Riding the Rap, are thrown together in a psychic cage match that bends all the relationships at play: Jack and Cundo, former jailbirds who had each other’s back in prison; Cundo and Dawn, whose motives for waiting for the Cuban to serve his eight-year incarceration are not, uh, pure; and Jack and Dawn, based on what can be clinically labeled a primal attraction.

Among other things, Leonard’s writing has also spawned two TV series: one based on Judge Maximum Bob Gibbs (who makes something like a cameo in this new story) and Karen Cisco, who of course casts some shadows in Foley’s ongoing life. Both shows failed, but I’d love to see a third attempt, and Leonard certainly has proven Foley to be a character with ample reserve of charisma—though it could be problematic to cast a bank robber as the “hero” on TV. —Robert Birnbaum, Jun. 5, 2009
Discuss This • Tweet this • Post to Facebook • FILE UNDER: Elmore Leonard, Jack Foley, Karen Cisco, Steven Soderbergh, Television, The New Pantheon

Watching • Raising the Bar

Book Digest In the large, inchoate expanse of critical terrain best characterized by the question of “What were they thinking?” one must relegate the newest effort, Raising the Bar, by veteran TV producer Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and N.Y.P.D. Blue). The bombardment of promotion on TNT—which included Bochco remarking on the dysfunction of the legal system—didn’t feature one flash of dramatic substance, and instead relied on a bevy of bellicose pronouncements and suggestive quick edits. Suffice it to say, the low expectations suggested by the pre-broadcast campaign were not improved by the initial episode. Young, telegenic lawyers, prosecutors, and public defenders spar and wrangle over various legal subtleties during the day and sit around drinking and, ultimately, fornicating at night. In the central case of the first episode, the innocent black man wrongfully accused of rape is subjected to—as we are—a most a limp, lame closing argument by slinky blonde assistant D.A. Michelle Ernhardt, who (it turns out) is sleeping with (or at least using the shower) of her adversary defense attorney, Jerry Kellerman.

At the moment, the most interesting character is clerk bailiff Charlie Sagansky, who wields Svengali-like power over the villainous Judge Judy Kessler and very well may be bisexual. So far the most noteworthy features of Raising the Bar are the scene transitions, which employ a kind of action slowdown and gradual fill-in of the scene. Considering how low the bar was set for the series debut, one is left wondering if the show was produced by hobbits. —Robert Birnbaum, Sep. 10, 2008
Discuss This • Tweet this • Post to Facebook • FILE UNDER: Steven Bochco, Television
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