movies

The History of Literature #421 – HOL Goes to the Movies (A Best-of Episode with Brian Price, Meg Tilly, and Mike Palindrome)

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Summertime! The season for watching blockbuster movies in arctic conditions, heart-pounding suspense flicks that heat the blood, and cool-breeze dramas that stir the soul. In this best-of episode, Jacke celebrates the summer with portions of conversations with three previous guests, Brian Price, Meg Tilly, and Mike Palindrome.

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The History of Literature #338 – Finding Yourself in Hollywood (with Meg Tilly)

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Jacke talks to actress and novelist Meg Tilly about her unusual childhood, her life as a ballet dancer and Hollywood star, and her current life writing thrillers in the peaceful Pacific Northwest.

THE RUNAWAY HEIRESS is the pulse-pounding story of a brave woman who finds herself falling for a big-shot film director while trying to stay one step ahead of the man who will do anything to find her.

Meg Tilly may be best known for her acclaimed Golden Globe-winning performance in the movie Agnes of God. Other screen credits include The Big Chill, Valmont, and, more recently, Bomb Girls and the Netflix movie War Machine, starring Brad Pitt. After publishing six standout young adult and literary women’s fiction novels, the award-winning author/actress decided to write the kind of books she loves to read: romance novels. Tilly has three grown children and resides with her husband in the Pacific Northwest.

The History of Literature #135 – Aristotle Goes to the Movies (with Brian Price)

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Hollywood screenwriter and professional script doctor Brian Price, author of Classical Storytelling and Contemporary Screenwriting: Aristotle and the Modern Scriptwriter, found everything he needed to know about screenwriting in a 2,500-year-old text, Aristotle’s Poetics. Brian and Jacke talk about how Aristotle’s study of Greek tragedy has unlocked the buried secrets of storytelling – and how those examples can be used to understand the storytelling secrets in everything from Casablanca to Spider-Man and Black Panther.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. Learn more about the show at historyofliterature.com or facebook.com/historyofliterature. Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or @thejackewilson.

The History of Literature #106 – Literature Goes to the Movies Part Two – Flops, Bombs, and Stinkeroos

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Ah, the sweet smell of success… and the burning stench of failure. Continuing their two part conversation on literary adaptations, Jacke and Mike choose ten of the worst book-to-movie projects of all time. How could so many people, working so hard and with such great source material, go so wrong? And why is Gary Oldman screaming that he is in hell? We’ll find out!

Works discussed include The Dead, Battlefield Earth, Portnoy’s Complaint, the X-Men movies, The Golden Compass, The Human Stain, The Girl on the Train, Zardoz, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Enduring Love, Dune, Gone with the Wind, Beauty and the Beast, The Cat in the Hat, Anna Karenina, Alice in Wonderland, Bonfire of the Vanities, The Scarlet Letter, Watchmen, and Jules and Jim.

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The History of Literature #103 – Literature Goes to the Movies

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The lights dim, the audience hushes in expectation, and the light and magic begin. In some ways (the crowd, the sound) the experience of watching a movie could not be more different from reading a novel – and yet the two have some very important features in common. Novels and the cinema are intertwined, and both show the power of a cracking good story told through what John Gardner called a vivid, continuous dream. In this special episode, Jacke and Mike take a look at great films made out of great works of literature.

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The Restless Mind Show Episode 8 – My Inner Bleeping Bandit

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Testing the Burt Reynolds method for avoiding cliches! Author Jacke Wilson takes a break from the history of literature to consider language and masculinity.

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Steve Martin not wild, not crazy…

~ jackewilson ~ 3 Comments

Brilliant reader MFA commented on the Steve Martin reference:

My daughter and I still mist up at the Steve Martin backyard basketball scene in “Father of the Bride”. Not taking away from the Spencer Tracy Elizabeth Taylor version.

Here’s the clip:

Argh, this is heartbreaking. Was there really a version of me who would once have seen this as overly sentimental? Because now I can barely see the screen thanks to the dust that just flew into my eyes. Parenting…what saps it turns us into.

Watching the middle-aged Martin play this character is fascinating to contrast with the young-man joke I analyzed in Episode One of the Restless Mind Show. (You’ll have to listen to the episode to hear which Steve Martin bit it was.) In the clip here there’s no bluster, no bravado…just a very human guy. Playing a dad.

Steve Martin’s own relationship with his father is agonizing – that part of his memoir alone is worth a read if you haven’t heard about it before. I don’t think it takes psychiatrist’s license to think that Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy period was his way of blocking all that out. And when he set that persona aside and starting playing the teary-eyed dad, he must have had a deep well of longing to draw upon. A son’s wish for the father-son relationship he hadn’t had.

Powerful stuff coming from unexpected corners. Thanks for the tip, MFA!