Tag: Lem Dobbs

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Haywire

I’ll watch anything by Steven Soderbergh – and if it’s a genre piece, I’m quite likely to add it my library.  Copies of Traffic, The Limey, Solaris, Out of Sight, and Ocean’s Eleven have pride of place on the shelves.  (The absence of Erin Brockovich and the Ocean sequels is, I think, self-explanatory.)

When I heard Soderbergh was making an action film, my Pavlovian response was predictable.  An awesome roll call of actors.  The writer of The Limey.  Exotic locales.  Its arrival on these shores couldn’t happen quickly enough.

It skipped a theatrical release and went straight to DVD.  I watched it and kinda liked it.  I watched it again – this time with The Goddess – and liked it more.  And I think I’ll watch it again.

This excellent Editing Room abridged script both captures and highlights what I really enjoy about Haywire:  it upsets my expectations of an action thriller while still giving me an action thriller.  It’s no masterpiece.  It’s a genre exercise.  The story is familiar as all get out.  Lead Gina Carano‘s game acting is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast who get into the spirit of things rather than just slumming it.  Soderbergh’s crisp direction and Dobbs’ deft script provide 93 minutes of action, thrills and suspense.

I think it’s a keeper.

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Point & Click

A bit of a backlog of a collection, attributions for which I can’t remember, sorry – though a pretty good bet would be the sidebar, but.

    • There are such things as happy endings for screenwriters in Hollywood – just ask Robert Mark Kamen.
    • Thanks, I suspect, to Nick Grant of Onfilm, I have discovered The A.V. Club‘s excellent The New Cult Canon series, in particular this article about the commentary between The Limey’s writer Lem Dobbs and director Steven Soderbergh.
    • Another Kiwi screenwriting blog! Lyse Beck gives us Birds With Nuts. There’s a nice thread about Watchmen here.

And speaking of the Minutemen, after all my build–up, The Goddess and I went to see Watchmen a week or so ago. She enjoyed it; I hankered for some interpretation rather than faithful replication. Thanks to Mr Slevin I’ve read people who can say what I’m thinking much better than I could here, here and here. (And no one’s mentioned it’s been two whole decades since Tim Burton gave us Michael Keaton as Batman – didn’t that kickstart the mainstreaming of comic-book adaptations?)

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