Assassination of a High School President, Brett Simon's dark, weird and funny debut, is out on DVD this week. You all need to watch it immediately.Sure, I'm a bit biased, since Brett and I have adapted my novel Severance Package, and someday soon (hopefully) Brett will be directing the thing. But Assassination is the reason I teamed up with Brett in the first place. I was sent a top-secret screener about a year and a half ago, and I knew right away Brett was a sick fuck, and I needed to team up with him as soon as possible. Assassination is about a high school journalist named Bobby Funke (pronounced "funky") who's dead set on breaking an S.A.T. scandal, only to be blindsided, betrayed, and -- in that great James Ellroy tradition -- tied, dyed and swept to the side. Like all great noirs, there's a femme fatale (Mischa Barton). There's a hard-ass, possibly psychotic authority figure (Bruce Willis). There's sex. Violence. Plenty of cursing. In other words, everything that made high school so memorable.
And in a weird bit of synchronicity, Senseless, the debut of director Simon Hynd, was released on the very same day. Hynd is the director who is adapting my novel The Wheelman, along with Allan "Sunshine" Guthrie. I watched a top-secret screener of Senseless... well, also about a year and a half ago (hey, what can I say, a year and a half ago I was privvy to all kinds of cool shit) and it made me squirm like you wouldn't believe. This is a good thing. Movies almost never make me squirm.Mr. Hynd is a lovely man. I've dined with him. I've gotten drunk with him. I've met his lovely wife. And yet, I can say, without hestiation, that he is a sick, sick fuck. I mean, look at the cover. Look at the eyeball on the spoon. Though, to be fair, some of the blame rests with novelist Stona Fitch, who wrote the original novel, which is just as sick as the movie. Mr. Fitch is also a warm, lovely gentleman, so much so that he loaned my wife his coat on a cold night as we were headed off in search of another bar on a cold night in Manhattan. But still: he is a sick fuck. Just like Mr. Hynd. And that Guthrie guy... well, it goes without saying that he's a sick fuck, too.
Definitely put these two in your Blockbuster queue, or your Netflix thingy, or better yet, buy copies to own, especially if you're curious about the minds who will someday be putting The Wheelman and Severance Package to film.
Sick, sick fucks.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
