E.L. Doctorow

'Cause he'd seen "St. Elmo's Fire," and knew that one was even worse?

But seriously, E. L. Doctorow has had pretty bad luck with movies made from his novels. "Daniel" was flat and uninspired. "Ragtime" wasn't all that much better. Of the ones I've seen, only "Billy Bathgate" shows signs of real creative genius. But "Welcome to Hard Times" is just a train wreck. The book was a real page-turner. This movie, on the other hand, just makes you shake your head sadly and wish you'd never heard of it.

"I don't deduce, I observe."

If you read his novel you'll understand.

Wonder what he meant by that? Generally, it's a solid number with a rather curious/unusual ending for a western... in a way sort of even predating the wave of subversive westerns to follow shortly, perhaps. And Ragtime, although no masterpiece, is a really good one, too. Anyways, one shouldn't always take the writer's opinions about their films that terribly seriously - for the best example, of course, Stephen King had precisely zero clue as to what Kubrick had done with The Shining.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan