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Finished reading Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard. A story of what if lower-rung mobsters happen their way into Hollywood film production? By the time of its 1990 publication, Leonard was an established screenwriter, and the novel’s dialogue driven scenes reflect this. Get Shorty effortlessly adapts to its more familiar screen version.

We begin with Chili Palmer, a loan shark loosely connected to the Miami underworld, heading west to chase down the overdue debts of a delinquent client. Once reaching Hollywood, he encounters a low-budget film producer who finds the details of Chili’s pursuits an intriguing movie pitch. With his alliance, Chili gradually finds himself evaluating scripts and pitching his own ideas to studio executives. And because show business is new business for the loan shark, the reader learns the ropes right alongside Chili:

“…tell him I’m willing to option the script.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You pay a certain amount to own the property for a year, take it off the market. It’s an option to buy. I paid five hundred against twenty-five thousand if I exercise the option, then another twenty-five at the start of principal photography.”

Though several of Chili’s trailing mob associates try to take charge of his time in Hollywood by muscling in on his debt collections, the mob subplot is kept in check, and Get Shorty lasts as captivating inside look at the film industry.

Haven't read or watched.

 @CatsbyAZ was it good? I didn't want to read too much into your review lest there's be spoilers... 

Sold. Just delivered to my Kindle...

Apparently it's book 1 of 2 in a series... Have you read Be Cool? 

Sold. Just delivered to my Kindle...

Apparently it's book 1 of 2 in a series... Have you read Be Cool?

Not yet - haven't read or got around to its 2005 film. My next Elmore Leonard novel will be Rum Punch, which I might've mentioned was made into the film Jackie Brown by Quentin Tarantino, who learned, in part, to write his famously elaborate, conversational style of dialogue from avidly reading Leonard’s novels.

Tarantino is even quoted as admitting: “I have been reading Leonard since I was 14 and got caught stealing his novel The Switch from K-Mart.”

I bring up the Tarantino connection not because I’m a fan of his films (not at all), but because it’s intriguing for me to trace industry trends to their originating influences. The trend in this case is dialogue. Tarantino and Joss Whedon are the two screenwriters most responsible for how Hollywood dialogue has come to be written with more conversational banter, and with a more self-aware, “meta” tone where characters, in postmodern fashion, go so far as to acknowledge they are speaking dialogue within a movie.

Quite often, overly self-aware characters are tedious, but with Tarantino’s (and Whedon's) screenwriting influence still felt (for better or worse), I find it worth coming across the sources of who/what informed his successful styles and executions.

To bring this full circle: 1) Pulp Fiction’s famous dialogue was influenced by how Elmore Leonard wrote and emphasized dialogue, 2) the success of Pulp Fiction (1994) spurred Leonard’s Get Shorty being filmed and released the followed year (1995), 3) Be Cool (2005), the sequel to Get Shorty, pays several homages to Pulp Fiction’s more famous scenes, most notably the scene of Travolta and Thurman's characters dancing, who both star in both films (with Travolta also staring in Get Shorty). So, in reverse "meta"-ness, the influencer (Leonard) pays homage to whom he's influenced (Tarantino).

Is that complete composition yours? Like a professionally written critique and review by the top guys at all the chic and in vogue rags at the the time.

Yes, my analysis after thinking too much about this stuff…