VARIETY said about the film, "HUBERT SELBY JR: IT/LL BE BETTER TOMORROW" -"A compelling crash course in the life and work of a seminal American writer, "Hubert Selby Jr.: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow" gives an impressive cross-section of talking heads a sharply edited forum in which to celebrate a talent whose prose and persona continue to reverberate worldwide..."-- LISA NESSELSON, VARIETY 9/19/05 - Reviewed at The Deauville Film Festival, Deauville, France.
fRINGE Underground magazine. The Best of New York Underground issue (June 2006)Best Documentary About A New York Writer Who Survived TB:HUBERT SELBY JR: IT/LL BE BETTER TOMORROWNicknamed Cubby since childhood, Selbythe late Brooklyn-born author of the literary masterpieces Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Room and Requiem for a Dreamis thoughtfully examined in the independent film IT/LL BE BETTER TOMORROW. The documentary (whose title includes Selbys signature slashes instead of apostrophes writing style that aided the stream-of-consciousness-minded author in his quest for uninterrupted typing) focuses on the life, work, addictions and influence of Cubby as told by an impressive and eclectic cadre including Lou Reed, Amiri Baraka, Jerry Stahl, Uli Edel, Richard Price, Darren Aronofsky and (...ahem) Susan Anton.One of the most important writers The Big Apple has produced, Selbys love for, as he put it, the music of the speech in New York, found its way into every word he wrote. During a younger Selbys bed-ridden recuperation from various tuberculosis-related surgeriesin which doctors removed one and a half lungs and ten of his ribs, forcing him to live with so much pain that he later became addicted to, at first, painkillers and then herointhe author found an incentive to write. After every doctor assured a teenage Selby (who lived to 75) that he hadat besta year to live, Selby decided that writing fiction might be his one chance to ensure that he wouldnt waste what little life lay ahead of him. As this perfectly crafted film lovingly illustrates, Cubby succeeded.Hollis James
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Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Wayne Shorter, Frankie Valli, Lou Reed, The Doors to name a few favorites. Friends Jimmie Wood, Imperial Crowns and Martyn Lenoble contributed great music to the film.
Last Exit To Brooklyn, Requiem For A Dream, Fear X.
"Very addictive..."
Hubert "Cubby" Selby, Jr. (July 23, 1928 - April 26, 2004) was the author of Last Exit To Brooklyn, The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree, Waiting Period, and a book of short stories, Song of the Silent Snow. ********************************************
LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN
"Last Exit to Brooklyn should explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years." - Allen Ginsberg
"An extraordinary achievement, a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside." - The New York Times Book Review
THE ROOM
"Selby's place is in the front rank of American novelists, to understand his work is to understand the anguish of America." - The New York Times Book Review
THE DEMON
"The Demon is a freight train of a novel with a climax like a kick in the stomach." - William S. Burroughs
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
"Selbys style is the most arrestingly original since Naked Lunch. Also, Selby has a classic sense of the absurd, a foolproof ear and a great heart." - Terry Southern
"A major American author of a stature with William Burroughs and Joseph Heller." - Los Angeles Times
SONG OF THE SILENT SNOW
"Like Dante, Selby deploys street slang, common speech, argot and scatology to create high poetic art, it seems to derive from the greatest American poetry, Whitman, Pound, Williams, Olson." - The Nation
THE WILLOW TREE
"...his prose seems like verbal jazz riffs." - Library Journal
WAITING PERIOD
"No serious reader can possibly dismiss Selby. He brings a scorching light to a limited area of human existence, which most people know of, but do not know." - Newsweek
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