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The story concerns a hot-shot film director, famed for his violent movies, who finds himself taken hostage in his own home by a young ‘trailer-trash’ couple who have been travelling around America killing for fun.
The book opens up the debate of how acceptable violence (especially gratuitous violence) is in films, when, in reality it’s not that entertaining, especially when it’s happening to you.
I was quite shocked at the brutality in the book but it is saturated with irony and is laced with Ben Elton’s observant humour.
Be warned though: the ending is grim and if you like nice tidy conclusions then this may not be the book for you. However, if you’re after something thought-provoking and enjoy being unnerved by an uncomfortable combination of humour and violence, give it a go.
Rating: 4 / 5
If your experience of Ben Elton the novelist is through “Past Mortem”, “Dead Famous”, “Inconceivable ” and others, you may be forgiven for thinking that he is a very British novelist, concerned with british themes, concerns, and media phenomena. “Popcorn” blows that idea out of the water. Its set exclusively in the USA, mostly in Hollywood, and its sharp, streetwise, shocking and funny.
I tend to think of Ben Elton as an issue-concerned novelist , and the issue at the heart of “Popcorn” is gratuitous violence in films, and whether it breeds violent behaviour in the audience for such films. The main character, Bruce Delamitri, is the director of a film called “Ordinary Americans” who seems a certainty for the oscar for best director. The events unfold throughout the day of the actual Oscar presentation, and the hours following it.
I took longer to get into “Popcorn” than into his other whodunits – “Past Mortem” and “Dead Famous”. This isn’t because its not as good – in some ways its better – but because it’s a very different novel to the other two. Predictably, Elton depicts a Hollywood full of neurotic, shallow, self obsessed people whom nobody would ever want to pass the time of day with if they were not famous. Yet the world and the characters which he depicts are compelling not in spite of their awfulness, but because of it. The pace of the narrative accelerates to a remarkable climax, remarkable in as much as you continue reading even though you don’t really care what happens to any of the protagonists. Except possibly the murderers.
One thing you can’t help doing is matching up the fictional celebrities to their real life counterparts. If I was, lets say, Quentin Tarantino, I’d be pretty angry with this book, and I’d love to know what his reaction was to it.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is one of the most balanced books I have ever read. Not only does Popcorn have a genuinely fixating plot with a brilliant storyline, it also has some fantastic humor with dry sarcasm in some places and blatant comedy in others. But the book’s by far most impressive aspect is its social commentary. Elton casts an eye over the daytime chat show media and reproduces it in a totally believably, yet intrinsically funny, way.
Of course, however, the most important aspect is the aspect on the ‘film violence’ debate. Elton presents the views of Bruce Delamitri in such a way that even the most hardened antagonist of violent imagery would surely be drawn about to his views. The minds of two killers are concisely portrayed to the point that their plight, and solution to it, is completely reasonable. This book, then, is a true masterpiece of readability and debate.
Rating: 5 / 5
As a huge blackadder fan and someone who admires Ben Eltons comic writing I simply had to read at least one of his books. I chose Popcorn by reputation and was not dissappointed. Ben Elton manages to craft a novel which makes you live the whole issue of violence on TV and enters you into an impossible dillema. I’ve been so impressed with this book that I have now read all of Eltons work.. I love his work and can’t wait for the next installment.
Rating: 5 / 5
Insightful, scathing, sarcastic, witty, urbane, relevant. All this and more. I can’t recall having read a book recently that gripped me like this did. The Americanisation of the world continues unabated with only books like this put it all into context. ‘Straight’ books rarely make their point as well as satire and this book says what it has to say incredibly well. The terse plotting and triumphant ending should be up there with Orwell in my mind – this is to Hollywood what 1984 was to Socialism. And the ultimate irony – Hollywood want to make a film about it. Elton continues to get better and better (The Thin Blue Line excepted). All the better for hearing a surreal interview with Mary Whitehouse in which she came down on the same side as Mr. Elton. Now that was one thing I though I’d never hear. Buy it. Read it. Think about it.
Rating: 5 / 5