Product Description

Bruce shoots movies. Wayne and Scout shoot to kill. In a single night they find out the hard way what's real and what's not, who's the hero and the villain. A nation watches in awe as Bruce and Wayne resolve the serious questions. Does art imitate life? And does Bruce use erection cream?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37295 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Douglas Adams
‘One of the most brilliantly sustained and focused pieces of satire I’ve ever read’

The Sunday Times
‘Killer prose…a viciously funny satire that also works as a tongue-in-cheek thriller’

Daily Telegraph
‘An absolute coup of black comedy’

Customer Reviews

Popcorn
The story concerns a hot-shot film director, famed for his violent movies, who finds himself taken hostage in his own home by a young 'trailer-trash' couple who have been travelling around America killing for fun.

The book opens up the debate of how acceptable violence (especially gratuitous violence) is in films, when, in reality it's not that entertaining, especially when it's happening to you.

I was quite shocked at the brutality in the book but it is saturated with irony and is laced with Ben Elton's observant humour.

Be warned though: the ending is grim and if you like nice tidy conclusions then this may not be the book for you. However, if you're after something thought-provoking and enjoy being unnerved by an uncomfortable combination of humour and violence, give it a go.

Elton takes on Hollywood - and wins
If your experience of Ben Elton the novelist is through "Past Mortem", "Dead Famous", "Inconceivable " and others, you may be forgiven for thinking that he is a very British novelist, concerned with british themes, concerns, and media phenomena. "Popcorn" blows that idea out of the water. Its set exclusively in the USA, mostly in Hollywood, and its sharp, streetwise, shocking and funny.

I tend to think of Ben Elton as an issue-concerned novelist , and the issue at the heart of "Popcorn" is gratuitous violence in films, and whether it breeds violent behaviour in the audience for such films. The main character, Bruce Delamitri, is the director of a film called "Ordinary Americans" who seems a certainty for the oscar for best director. The events unfold throughout the day of the actual Oscar presentation, and the hours following it.

I took longer to get into "Popcorn" than into his other whodunits - "Past Mortem" and "Dead Famous". This isn't because its not as good - in some ways its better - but because it's a very different novel to the other two. Predictably, Elton depicts a Hollywood full of neurotic, shallow, self obsessed people whom nobody would ever want to pass the time of day with if they were not famous. Yet the world and the characters which he depicts are compelling not in spite of their awfulness, but because of it. The pace of the narrative accelerates to a remarkable climax, remarkable in as much as you continue reading even though you don't really care what happens to any of the protagonists. Except possibly the murderers.

One thing you can't help doing is matching up the fictional celebrities to their real life counterparts. If I was, lets say, Quentin Tarantino, I'd be pretty angry with this book, and I'd love to know what his reaction was to it.

Popcorn - A Wonderful Satire
'Popcorn' first published in 1996 has to be one of Ben Elton's best novels so far; and it manages to blend suspense, action and a really exciting plot into one book. The main plot is basically about a Hollywood director, who on the night of the infamous 'Oscars' is taken hostage along with his ex-wife, daughter, agent and girlfriend. The people that take him hostage are collectively known as 'The Mall Murderers' and they claim that the reason they've been driven to kill is because they have been heavily influed by the gore and violence of Bruce's film 'Ordinary Americans'.

Ben Elton's structures the narrative in a very clever way indeed - because part of the story is made up of prose, whilst some sections are written like a film script; thus giving the impression how close film and art come to real life, which is a clever device and turns the book into a satirical thriller, that basically asks the question: 'Does art imitate life, or vise versa?'. Its a subject handled with unique style and commitment and 'Popcorn' would be a book I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys crime thrillers, humour (because some sections are laugh out loud funny) or a light piece of fiction.