In Contention

Tag: Disclosure

  • Remembering Michael Crichton at year’s end

    Michael CrichtonOne of my wish list items that happened to be under the tree this Christmas was Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear,” an anti-global warming thriller that is likely to both infuriate (given the politics) and keep me turning the page (given Crichton’s story-telling skill).

    It’s been a while since I flipped through a Crichton book, but I’ve been in a somewhat nostalgic mood for his work ever since the author’s untimely death last month.  I’ve always found myself sharing an opinion of him similar to New York Times writer Charles McGrath’s, who noted in his obituary, “As a writer he was a kind of cyborg, tirelessly turning out novels that were intricately engineered entertainment systems. No one — except possibly Mr. Crichton himself — ever confused them with great literature, but very few readers who started a Crichton novel ever put it down.”

    As we move closer and closer to the end of the year, In Memoriam installments will fly fast and furious for the entertainers we lost in 2008.  With that in mind, Rachel Abramowitz has penned an appreciation in the Los Angeles Times for the departed scribe: “Michael Crichton’s Hollywood legacy.”  She opens the 11-page photo gallery with the following words of remembrance:

    It’s hard to imagine modern-day Hollywood without provocative potboiler author Michael Crichton, the Harvard-trained doctor whose fertile imagination fused science and fear in heart-stopping fashion, launching upon unsuspecting moviegoers extraterrestrial killer micro-organisms (“The Andromeda Strain”), the black-market trade in organs (“Coma”), an amusement park full of fantasy-fulfilling androids (“Westworld”), Adrenalin-junkie tornado chasers (“Twister”) and of course, genetically recreated dinosaurs running amok (“The Jurassic Park” franchise).

    In his spare time, the 6-foot-9 author who could churn out 10,000 words a day, tackled the murky politics of sexual harassment (“Disclosure”), questionable Japanese business practices (“Rising Sun”), and created “ER”, one of the most popular television series of all time. He’s probably the only person in America ever to have a No. 1 book, No. 1 movie and No. 1 TV show all at the same time.

    Take a trip down memory lane here.  And here’s one of Crichton’s last in-depth interviews, an hour-long discussion with Charlie Rose last year as he was making the publicity rounds on “Next,” including maybe a 20-minute chunk on Crichton’s controversial views on global warming:

  • Michael Crichton, author of ‘Jurassic Park,’ dies at 66

    Michael CrichtonI truthfully wasn’t even aware that Crichton was struggling with cancer.  But apparently, the awful disease has taken him from us.

    I remember being charged on Crichton’s work after seeing “Jurassic Park” in 1993.  Sure, he already had fans from the days of “The Andromeda Strain,” “The Great Train Robbery” and, later on, “Disclosure,” but the dinosaurs that caught the film-going world’s imagination first drew me to the author’s work.

    I picked up “Sphere” (which blew my mind), “Congo” and “The Lost World” immediately.  It was painful to see his works ravaged by the film industry, but he made his mark on the small screen with “ER” (one of the most successul shows of all time) and the original treatment that became “Twister” (part of a mid-90s glden age for action movies).

    The last time I was really entranced by a Crichton novel was “Airframe” in the late-90s, a project that has failed to make the move to the big screen to date, despite attracting talent like Richard Donner and Sigourney Weaver over the years.  I never picked up “Timeline” (though I saw Donner’s awful film) or “Prey” (though it proved to be a constant airport temptation).  Perhaps his work on an old script, “Westworld,” will still make it to the screen with the help of “Shattered Glass” scribe and helmer Billy Ray.

    The last Crichton novel published was 2006’s “Next,” a genetic research thriller that, like so much of his work, didn’t seem satisfied merely telling a story.  Crichton was always more interested in the cautionary aspects of his yarns and how they might be better capture the zeitgeist.

    For me, a one-time fan and perhaps likely to dive back in with this sad news, Crichton will be missed.