With over $1 billion in ticket sales, it’s safe to say that “Skyfall” satisfied longtime fans of 007 and brought a few new people into the fold. And you can count James Ellroy among them.
The famed author recently sat down with Shortlist to talk about “Perfidia,” the first installment of his new quartet of novels. But the conversation soon veered into movies and TV, and dude has some strong opinions, staring with “Skyfall” which he says had some influence on his upcoming book. “…the book takes a theme I first got hip to thanks to ‘Skyfall.’ It’s f*cking brilliant and it’s the only profound James Bond movie,” he said. “They’re usually boring and overlong; the books are boring and racist. The stories are shoddy and sloppily plotted. But ‘Skyfall’ is about the defence of the West, and that’s what the series is about.”
Turning to television, Ellroy somewhat surprisingly reveals he likes the format — just not the popular TV shows everyone loves. “I like the form, in fact I love the form. I watch TV shows at a friend’s house most Friday nights. I think ‘Deadwood‘ and ‘Mad Men‘ were intermittently quite wonderful, but often shoddy and veered into incoherence. I saw one or two episodes of ‘The Wire‘ and thought it was bullsh*t. Bad writing. And I have no sympathy for the underclass,” Ellroy said. Charming.
In case you’re wondering, that “L.A. Confidential” sequel series that Ellroy was trying to shop around last spring “didn’t sell” while FX “dumped” his show based on “Shakedown“ though “we have an actor attached now and we’re putting the script out again.”
We’re sure you have comments, so leave them below. And you can read the rest of Ellory’s interview at Shortlist with more interesting nuggets including his belief that Barack Obama is “the face of cancerous socialism under the guise of benevolence.”
