Be Cool

Amazon.com Review The film was a success on many fronts. It introduced a new style of hip gangster that revised the stereotype of the series. It also helped relaunch the career of John Travolta. And it brought Elmore Leonard's impressive body of fiction to larger public attention. In Hollywood, such a triumph usually spawns a sequel--a film that rehashes the great jokes and cool scenes of the first film, but with none of the panache that initially inspired audiences. In the beginning of Be Cool , the sequel to the novel __, readers are reminded that Chili Palmer--like his creator--scored a huge success with a gangster film (his was entitled Get Leo ). But the sequel, Get Lost , was a predictable dud. Rather than follow that sordid story, however, Leonard takes Chili into a totally new direction. He places Chili on a murder investigation (in which he is a prime suspect) and then traces Chili's entry into the music business. Meanwhile, Leonard reveals a whole new cast of fresh, funny, and flaky characters to populate Chili's world, characters like Elliot the gigantic, gay, Samoan bodyguard who lives to be on the stage. Throughout, the voice of John Travolta rings in Chili's every speech (word has it that Travolta has already been cast to reprise the role) as Leonard pokes fun at the Hollywood apparatus and the task of a sequel writer. Be Cool surpasses its original because it is so self-consciously a novel about sequels, about the sometimes cowardice that limits the creativity of the American film industry. It is hard to imagine how Leonard could top the multilayered satire/crime novel/expos?. One only hopes for a sequel. Fans of Be Cool might want to check out music from --Patrick O'Kelley From Publishers Weekly Despite the title and the cover shot of John Travolta and Uma Thurman, who star in the MGM film based on Leonard's follow-up to Get Shorty , this production is curiously lacking in ''cool.'' A few bars of funky music kick off the story, which follows shylock–turned–movie producer Chili Palmer as he outmaneuvers mobsters, crooked music business execs and some menacing rappers to make a CD—and possibly another movie. Narrator Scott, who starred in the film Dying Young , attempts a low-key, laid-back performance, but the result sounds sedate rather than coolly casual. He gives Chili an inflectionless tone that's hardly reminiscent of the character's Italian roots, and all of his female voices sound virtually the same. Though Scott lends a few secondary characters more definition—a spot-on Brooklyn accent for Chili's friend, Tommy, and a self-consciously tough tone for a murderous music manager—this production largely succeeds in rendering Leonard's lively text listless. Based on the Delacorte hardcover (Forecasts, Nov. 16, 1998). (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "Chili Palmer's follow-up to his smash hit film 'Get Leo' bombed, and in Hollywood, you're considered only as hot as your last project. Once again outside the system, Chili is exploring an idea for his third film by lunching with a former 'associate' from his Brooklyn days who's now a record label executive. When lunch begins with iced tea and ends in a mob hit, Chili soon finds himself in an unlikely alliance with one of the LAPD's finest, Detective Darryl Holmes, and the very likely next target of Russian gangsters. With a hit man on his trail, Chili tries to pull together his next movie, the story of Linda Moon, a real-life singer with dreams that go further than her current gig with Chicks International, just doing Spice Girls songs. She's desperate to tear loose from her current manager, an erstwhile pimp named Raji. Orchestrating his movie as he goes along, Chili wrests the reins of Linda's singing career away from Raji, basing the plot of his new film on the action that unfolds as a result. As he fakes his way to success in the music business with his trademark aplomb, Chili manipulates his adversaries and advances his friends, showing all how to be cool when the heat's on." -- Provided by publisher After one triumph and one flop, Mafia loan-shark-turned-Hollywood producer Chili Palmer is desperate for another hit... of the celluloid sort. When a similarly relocated former mob associate takes a hit of the bullet-in-the-brain variety while they're power-lunching, Chili begins to see all kinds of story possibilities. The whacked recording company mogul's midday demise is leading Chili into the twisted world of rock stars, pop divas, and hip-hop gangstas, which is rife with drama, jealousy, and betrayal -- all the stuff that makes big box office. Tinsel Town had better take cover, because Chili Palmer's working on another movie. And that's when people tend to die. Leonard's sequel to the highly successful *Get Shorty*.

the new York Times Bestselling Author Elmore Leonard Is Back, And He's Brought Get Shorty's Chili Palmer Along For The Ride. be Cool Is An Unforgettable, Hilarious And Dead-on Insider's Look At Hollywood As Only Leonard Could Write It.

wall Street Journal

hollywood Brings Out [leonard's] Comic Best. This Eminently Satisfying Sequel May Become A Film, But Don't Wait. Be Cool Now.

The author of the New York Times best-seller Pagan Babies plunges Mafia loanshark-turned-film producer Chili Palmer, the erstwhile hero of his hit novel, Get Shorty, into the seediest, most dangerous corners of Hollywood's music business. Reissue. (An MGM film, directed by F. Gary Gray, releasing February 2005, starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Danny DeVito, & James Gandolfini) (Suspense) The adventures of a small-time mobster in his new profession as a Hollywood film producer. He is Chili Palmer, a former loan shark, and the novel is the story of him making a film while avoiding getting killed. By the author of Get Shorty.