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Be Cool |  |
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Be Cool | |
After one triumph and one flop, Mafia loanshark-turned-Hollywood producer Chili Palmer (last seen in Get Shorty) is desperate for another hit ... of the celluloid sort. And when a similarly relocated former mob associate takes a hit of the bullet-in-the-brain variety while they're power-lunching, Chili begins to see all kinds of story possibilities. The whacked recording company mogul's midday demise is leading Chili into the twisted world of rock stars, pop divas, and hip-hop gangstas, which is rife with drama, jealousy, betrayal, all the stuff that makes big box office. Tinsel Town had better take cover, because Chili Palmer's working on another movie. And that's when people tend to die.
Elmore Leonard has written more than three dozen critically acclaimed books during his highly successful career, including the bestsellers The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.
In the beginning of Be Cool, the sequel to the novel Get Shorty, readers are reminded that Chili Palmer--like his creator--scored a huge success with a gangster film (his was entitled Get Leo). But the sequel, Get Lost, was a predictable dud. Rather than follow that sordid story, however, Leonard takes Chili into a totally new direction. He places Chili on a murder investigation (in which he is a prime suspect) and then traces Chili's entry into the music business. Meanwhile, Leonard reveals a whole new cast of fresh, funny, and flaky characters to populate Chili's world, characters like Elliot the gigantic, gay, Samoan bodyguard who lives to be on the stage. Throughout, the voice of John Travolta rings in Chili's every speech (word has it that Travolta has already been cast to reprise the role) as Leonard pokes fun at the Hollywood apparatus and the task of a sequel writer.
Be Cool surpasses its original because it is so self-consciously a novel about sequels, about the sometimes cowardice that limits the creativity of the American film industry. It is hard to imagine how Leonard could top the multilayered satire/crime novel/exposé. One only hopes for a sequel. Fans of Be Cool might want to check out music from The Stone Coyotes, the band that served as Leonard's model in the book. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Chili Palmer, antihero from Get Shorty, is back. This time, Chili stumbles into and through the music business, tangling with Russian mobsters, gangsta rappers, two-bit promoters, and a feisty singer named Linda Moon. Along the way he manipulates events to watch them play out--plotting his new movie--to the consternation of others. Reader Jason Culp turns in an excellent performance, giving each character a distinct and fitting voice. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In Get Shorty (1990), Leonard skewered the film industry in a rollicking crime read that became not only a bestselling book but also a megahit movie. This razor-sharp sequel veers from the venality, egomania and basic bad taste of the movies with the similar attributes of the pop-music business. After one hit (Get Leo) and one flop (Get Lost), Chili Palmer, former loan shark and now movie producer, thinks the record industry is fertile ground for his next flick. He hasn't lost touch with his old Brooklyn friends, though, and while lunching with one he witnesses his pal's mob-style murder. As he's not a serious suspect, Chili becomes friendly with the investigating LAPD detective. He has also become interested in Texas-bred singer Linda Moon and her effort to break into the biz, which puts him on the wrong side of her inept but murderous manager, Raji. When a Russian gangster is found shot dead in Chili's house, matters complicate further as Chili wades through a rogues' gallery including more Russians, a mob hit man, seriously criminal gangsta rappers, Raji's giant gay Samoan bodyguard and assorted other denizens of La La Land. Chili remains a compulsively appealing character throughout, retaining his immaculate cool in lethal situations as those around him wallow in pretension and hypocrisy. Leonard's plotting is as propulsive as ever and his desert-dry wit continues to flare at high heat. Nearly every sentence of this novel reads as if it's dipped in gold. This is a knockout work from a master crime writer: be cool, and relish it. Major ad/promo; simultaneous BDD audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
专业书评 From Library Journal
Ex-loan-shark-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer needs a new hit. Get Lost, the sequel to his successful first film Get Leo, tanked at the box office. When a record producer he's power lunching with is gunned down in a Russian mob hit, Chili gets inspired: "You couldn't have the star get popped ten minutes into the picture...but it could be the way to open it. A movie about the music business." Despite being pursued by several assassins (he promises one a screen test), the always unflappable Chili uses his own life to develop his movie, manipulating the people he meets and staging events to see how they would fit in a screenplay. ("I love how you work," studio executive Elaine Levin dryly tells Chili.) Leonard incorporates his trademark black humor, sharp dialog, and eccentric characters into this hilarious follow-up to Get Shorty (Delacorte, 1990); this is one sequel that is as good as the original. One hopes that an expected film version (possibly with John Travolta again) will uphold the high standards set by its cinematic predecessor.
-?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times Book Review, Kinky Friedman
There is a fine line between fiction and nonfiction, and Leonard ... has no doubt spent much of his literary life erasing it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Wall Street Journal, Tom Nolan
Mr. Leonard is famous for writing brilliantly about Detroit and Miami, but Hollywood--where the novelist has spent many a season turning his books into screenplays--brings out his comic best. This eminently satisfying sequel to Get Shorty may well become a film, but don't wait for the movie. Be cool now. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
...thoroughly entertaining.... What's impressive about Be Cool is the number of plot complications Leonard juggles so wittily. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From AudioFile
In this sequel to Leonard's hugely popular GET SHORTY, Chili Palmer becomes a moviemaker with one hit and one flop to his credit. BE COOL is the movie of his life--imagined as he lives it. The supporting cast includes the Russian mafia; gangsta rappers; rip-off elements of the record industry; Chili's new friend, Darryl, who is a detective working organized crime; and other fascinating riffraff too numerous to mention. Campbell Scott seems made to read Elmore Leonard, or perhaps Leonard writes to be read by Scott. Either way, Scott's Chili is a perfectly irreverent full-speed-ahead kind of guy. The rappers are take-nothing-from-no-one dudes. The Russians are archetypal Hollywood Slavs. And Darryl sounds about as square as anyone in a Leonard novel ever gets. Scott also does women's voices well, and his regional accents convince. R.E.K. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From Booklist
In Get Shorty (1990), Chili Palmer was a Miami loan shark who ventured to the strange land of Los Angeles and stumbled into the movie business. Now, with two movies under his belt, he's looking for another big hit. Both Chili Palmer novels are stories about a guy who converts events in his own life into feature-film fodder, sort of writing a movie as he goes, turning fact into fiction. As good as Get Shorty was--and it was very good--its sequel is better. Chili's new quest for a box-office smash, which involves a beautiful young singer, several shady music-business insiders, and an assortment of villains, reaches a level of comic surrealism that its predecessor only approached. This time, Chili knows from the beginning that he's going to turn his life into a movie. The loan shark turned producer becomes a kind of puppet master, staging real-life events to see how they'd work in a screenplay, orchestrating scenes, manipulating people as though they were big-screen characters. He knows there are folks who want to kill him, but what a movie it will all make--if only he can survive to the fade-out. This is a funnier novel than Get Shorty, too, chock-full of entertainment-industry in-jokes, and with a liberal supply of Leonard's always engaging characters and music-to-the-ears dialogue. With the master's name on it, Be Cool will immediately pole-vault toward the top of most best-seller lists. This one deserves its success. David Pitt --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
