Pat's back from vacation, so here comes a glut

Summer reading! Gang, given the glut of theatre folk on this blog, I gotta say, if you can read The Devil's Candy, you really ought to. A fascinating, incredibly detailed look at the rambling catastrophe that is the making of a film, as Julie Salamon tracks Brian DePalma's film adaptation of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. I don't know whether I prefer this to the book it makes reference to (the existence of Charlotte Simmons unfortunately mutes a lot of my original enthusiasm for Bonfire and Wolfe comes off as a bit of an opportunist here) but it's a rip-snorting fun and fascinating read. You'll see the predictable studio-bigwigs-ruining-everything narratives, but you'll also see the best depiction of batshit insane actors (Melanie Griffith gets a heaping extra bowlful of kudos on that count; Tom Hanks comes off pretty nice, but clearly is not wild about the people around him) that you can find, directorial hubris, and a generalized sense that making a movie is perhaps the hardest thing anyone could do, ever, and only a madman would do it for the crazily dumb people at the top of the chain. Guys, it's great! If only to read scenes that oh-so-subtly show you Melanie Griffith trying to jump Tom Hanks, and him gingerly trying to sidestep her come-ons. Awesome!