Jail Time

Just finished reading Midnight Express, Billy Hayes' acount of his imprisonment in a Turkish jail for trying to smuggle a wee bit of hash out of the country. I shouldn't be spending any time reading at the moment, what with deadlines and all, but this book was so compelling that I read the whole thing in a week (that's fast for a slow reader like me, who likes to linger over every word like a foot fetishist cruising a shoe store).

I checked out the book because I wanted to see how Oliver Stone had adapted it as a screenplay (filmed by Alan Parker in the '70s). It's very different. Who could have imagined back then that Stone would twist the truth in his quest to tell an entertaining cinematic story?

I also say Stone's student film, Last Year in Viet Nam. It's grubby and mistake-laden enough to keep me hopeful about my own endeavors. No, I'm not going to remake JFK, but I wouldn't mind taking a crack at The Hand - Stone's early directorial effort starring Michael Caine and a crawling, bodiless killer mitt.

Why not, with all the horror retreads that are around these days? (I still haven't the stomach to watch John Carpenter remakes - I love the original versions of The Fog and Assault on Precinct 13 too much).