Jim Thompson, "Bad Boy"
Yesterday was kind of a weird day. When I got out of class I went to go see Y Tu Mama Tambien, that film from Mexico that�s getting the rave reviews, even receiving four stars in the San Jose Mercury News.
I didn�t really like it. It was OK, but it certainly wasn�t a four-star movie. It dragged a lot, the audio cuts were amateurishly done, and most of the characters weren�t fleshed out much (though they spent a lot of time being naked, so in a sense they were ... Ouch, that pun even hurt me. Sorry.)
When I walked out of the movie, my friend asked me what I thought and I said the first thing that popped out of my mouth, a habit that I kind of need to work on. I told her that I had already seen the film. It was called Threesome. But Threesome was funnier.
Anyway, when I got home I found that I was bored. I was finished with all my schoolwork, I didn�t feel like reading anything and I was too tired to play video games or anything like that. I remembered that I had borrowed a copy of the Julia Roberts film Erin Brockovich from work that was supposed to be really good. I watched that, hoping it would counterbalance the film I saw earlier.
Well, I didn�t like that movie much either. Again, it was OK, but I couldn�t help but think that I�ve seen the "based on a true story" small-town poor lawyer takes on the EVIL OMNIPOTENT CORPORATION a dozen times before, and usually done much better.
I was actually troubled when I went to bed. Both of these were supposed to be great films and I thought they were slightly above mediocre, at best. Am I just totally jaded? Do I dismiss everything out of hand?
No, I don�t. And this book proves it, because it was great. I didn�t realize it when I first bought it, but this is an autobiography. I can�t say I�ve read a whole lot of autobiographies (Lenny Bruce, Malcolm X, Bruce Campbell and Nathan McCall are the only ones I can think of), so I�m not sure I can really compare how this stacks against others, but Thompson�s writing style makes this read just like one of his crime noir books.
The best thing about it is that as dark as this guy is, and as twisted as his stories are, he is actually really funny. I guess I shouldn�t be surprised � I�m a dark guy and I�m pretty funny myself.
But not "ha ha" funny.
You should read actual novels by him before reading this, and probably at least three of them. My suggestions: The Grifters; After Dark, My Sweet,; The Killer Inside Me; and A Hell of a Woman. In other words, everything that I�ve ever read by him.
