Read any good movies lately?

Reviews by Pat H. Broeske

The story behind one of Hollywood's hottest screenplays is so far-fetched that it reads like a screenplay. Here's how it goes: handsome young Harvard student pens a 50-page short story about a working class South Boston youth. He later shows the story to his best friend, and they team to write a script about the character. Two years later, when their script is completed, the duo -- who've each racked up acting credits -- shop their script, audaciously insisting that if their movie gets made, they must also be the stars.

If you go to the movies, or pay any attention to Hollywood headlines, you're doubtless familiar with Good Will Hunting. In a year of high-profile, star-laden, mega-budgeted extravaganzas, it became the little film that could -- and its twentysomething writer-stars became Hollywood's hottest young "discoveries."

Matt Damon, who originated the project, and his longtime buddy Ben Affleck, have cruised the talk shows (winning over hosts ranging from Oprah to Dave), the magazine covers ("Matt Damon Rocks," proclaimed Vanity Fair), and the awards shows. Audiences, meanwhile, have cruised theaters. In just nine weeks, the modestly budgeted movie about a misunderstood young genius and his relationship with his friends, girlfriend, and psychologist, earned a startling $60 million.

What is it that made moviegoers react so strongly? "It comes from a soulful place," surmises the film's director, Gus Van Sant, in the introduction to Good Will Hunting: A Screenplay. Adds Van Sant: "It's surprising that two boys their ages [24 and 26] can speak so wisely about the human condition."

From wise ruminations to glitzy and goofy revelations, movie tie-in books currently abound on the shelves. There are detailed accounts about the "making of" certain films, special editions of novels that have been adapted for the screen, and screenplays galore.

Veteran actor -- and Oscar winner -- Robert Duvall authored the original screenplay for the latest acclaimed movie in which he stars. As he explains in the forward to The Apostle, the project had its roots in his first visit to a Pentecostal church. Duvall wrote the portrait of a preacher man -- who sometimes strays too close to the devil -- in just six weeks, and then spent 13 years trying to get it made. (He wound up financing it himself.)

The Quentin Tarantino screenplay, Jackie Brown, is adapted from the Elmore Leonard novel, Rum Punch. Unfortunately, no author's notes accompany the script. We can only guess at Tarantino's challenges, and his intentions, in regard to the follow-up film to his much-ballyhooed Pulp Fiction.

By contrast, L.A. Confidential: The Screenplay, attempts to explain the complexities of bringing the dark, downbeat James Ellroy novel -- which intertwines real life and fictional characters -- to the screen. "Naturally it started with the book," writes filmmaker Curtis Hanson. One of the year's most acclaimed (as in award-winning) scripts, this edition finds Hanson and collaborator Brian Helgeland confessing that they were initially nervous about submitting their screenplay draft to Ellroy.

Turns out they needn't have worried. Though Ellroy typically espouses a cynical, detached view of books-turned-movies, he gave their adaptation a thumbs-up. In an introduction peppered with the gritty language of his pulp novels, Ellroy calls the script "the blueprint for a definite visual novel of 'L.A. Confidential' -- the novel as a film." Of course, there's also the pre-cinematic version -- that is, Ellroy's 1990 novel, L.A. Confidential.

The often uneasy relationship between novels and the screen is at the heart of a hefty new research work. The Encyclopedia of Novels into Film utilizes more than 100 photos and drawings to enhance the 300-plus entries, which run the gamut from the classics to popular picks -- like Valley of the Dolls. Though it's intended as a reference work, this is much livelier than the usual scholarly study.

There's no telling what Charles Dickens would think of the novelization of the movie, Great Expectations. But scholars may do a double take -- since Dickens must share writing credit with Deborah Chiel, whose name appears first! But then, this is a much Hollywoodized, contemporized retelling of the Dickens classic, in which the title character of Pip has become Finn (a decidedly cooler name, as befitting the film's heartthrob-star Ethan Hawke), and the locale of the rags-to-riches story has shifted to the Florida panhandle, and on to Manhattan's tony art world. Oh, and the cover art features a sexy Gwyneth Paltrow, who stars as the beguiling Estella, object of Finn's desire.

Purists take heart: traditional versions of Dickens's absorbing morality tale, which was first published in book form in 1861, are plentiful -- and include a just-out 544-page edition.

Star-crossed lovers are at the heart of Oscar and Lucinda, a novel that depicts the sumptuously detailed period romance between a defrocked Anglican minister and an heiress, whose purchase of a glassworks factory symbolizes her feminist spirit. Set in 19th-century England and Australia, this portrait of impetuous souls who defy convention, earned author Peter Carey the prestigious Booker Prize (in 1988).

Oscar and Lucinda is also available as a screenplay -- one that could have benefitted from notes by author Laura Jones. Then there is the book's audio version. The classically-trained British actor Ralph Fiennes -- who stars as Oscar on screen -- is an apt, show-stopping choice to narrate (Random House, $24, 0679460985).

Along with esteemed actors, Britain is known for its musical exports -- including the quintet comprised of Baby, Scary, Posh, Sporty, and Ginger, aka the Spice Girls. Spice World: The Movie -- The Official Book of the Film, breathlessly recounts the making of the group's first film, which, we're told, is "packed with music, energy, laughter, chaos and Girl Power." As proof, we're treated to more than 150 color photos, details about the specially-equipped Spice Bus, as well as a "who's who" chapter on the girls. For instance, Scary is the one with the pierced tongue and the penchant for zebra-striped outfits.

Sometimes, real life is stranger than anything Hollywood -- or a novelist -- can concoct.


Biographer Pat H. Broeske co-authored Howard Hughes: The Untold Story (Dutton), which is now in development as a feature film.

©1998, ProMotion, inc.

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