Z/Web

Author: Elmore Leonard

I’d never read an Elmore Leonard novel before, though I’d seen a number of films based on his books, so I was curious to see what he was like. As usual, this book is about confusion between semi-crooks and mobsters and a sum of money everybody is gunning for. It mostly deals with a guy pretending to be a priest, returning from five years in Rwanda, and orchestrating a scam to raise money for African orphans. Parts of this I found distastful, parts just boring, but Leonard does paint interesting and unusual characters. The ending’s pretty good, with the scammers being scammed, but overall the book’s so low-key one doesn’t really feel that much excitement one way or the other. Basically light fun, but nothing significant.

Author: Book by Jim Lehrer

Director: John Badham

This movie came out on Showtime a while back but somehow I missed it. Anyway, it turned out to be pretty good. I thought at first it was quite partisan, painting the Democratic candidate as perfect, but that’s resolved in the cool ending. Basically it’s a film about the media and a presidential race. Four journalists essentially sabotage the Republican candidate live on the air during a debate two weeks before the election, revealing scandalous information. This raises all sorts of ethical questions about the media’s role in politics and the power of the media. Eerie, considering the political situation facing the country right now. An interesting aspect of the film is that it uses several dozens real-life journalists and pundits in cameos, the same ones seen on all the news networks during this election crisis. Pretty cool.