Tis the scary season, and I have a problem: as a boy, I loved a good horror movie, but as a curmudgeonly man, I have become fear-averse. More specifically, I have become viscera-averse! All the hacking, stabbing, piercing, gouging, rending, tearing, slicing and dicing have done me in (er, emotionally!) I have such distaste for … Continue reading HAVE A HOLLY GIALLI HALLOWEEN
Films
A HAUNTING IN VENICE: La terza volta è il fascino!
Recently, the publisher William Morrow released a paperback tie-in to Kenneth Branagh’s latest Agatha Christie-inspired film that has this cover: The book’s original title can be found waaaayyy down at the bottom in smaller letters. It took me back to 1965 when I found the paperback tie-in to George Pollock’s film Ten Little Indians and purchased my … Continue reading A HAUNTING IN VENICE: La terza volta è il fascino!
IN DEVELOPMENT: What I Wish Was Coming Up in the Christie-Verse
In about two weeks, I’m going to drop a review here for Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice, the latest film adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel. This time, it’s not set on the Nile or the Orient Express; instead, we have a lesser-known (and less liked) late novel, Hallowe’en Party – you remember, the one set in Italy … Continue reading IN DEVELOPMENT: What I Wish Was Coming Up in the Christie-Verse
BARBENHEIMER AND ME
All my life I’ve loved going to the movies. I grew up in that awkward era between the movie palaces and the multiplexes, but I have to say that growing up in San Francisco meant I had lots of options. There were a few grand old theatres still around, like the Castro on Castro Street … Continue reading BARBENHEIMER AND ME
KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! The Mini-Mega Hitchcock Draft, Home Edition
Screen Drafts is a podcast that helped me survive the pandemic and, along the way, captured my heart through the sense of camaraderie that permeated each conversation. Since I first wrote about it nearly seven months ago, I have caught up with all the publicly posted episodes, and I have joined the Patreon group and dabbled … Continue reading KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! The Mini-Mega Hitchcock Draft, Home Edition
AIM (NOT SO) STRAIGHT AND TRUE: My Resolutions for 2023
A few weeks ago, my pal (and Book Club Arch Nemesis!) the Puzzle Doctor reached his 2000th post on In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel. Not bad for a man who’s only been blogging since 1954. I hit my 500th post last August (it was a dreary review of a dreary book, Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Documents in … Continue reading AIM (NOT SO) STRAIGHT AND TRUE: My Resolutions for 2023
PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
“There is no Frigate like a Book to take us Lands away . . . “ These words by Emily Dickenson were emblazoned on the bookplates my grandparents gave me when, at an early age, I declared my love for reading. I pasted them into every volume I owned and used up my stock long ago. … Continue reading PAT ON THE BACK: Meeting (Some of) My 2022 Goals
THE (OTHER) HITCHCOCK WOMAN
Saturday is my mom’s birthday. She always hated that her birthday was on Christmas Eve, and not because she’s a nice Jewish Bronx-born girl. She envied the idea of a person’s birthday being months away from Christmas or Hanukkah, of the celebration of your life – along with gifts - being upstaged by a major … Continue reading THE (OTHER) HITCHCOCK WOMAN
GIVING THANKS FOR GLASS ONION
You’ll excuse a guy for grousing about the good ol’ days of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when actors were treated like chattel and had to grind out film after film in order to earn those Beverly Hills mansions. Between 1931 and 1939, Bette Davis made 41 movies, Jimmy Cagney made 30, and Joan Crawford 22. Humphrey … Continue reading GIVING THANKS FOR GLASS ONION
Angela Lansbury
It’s a tale as old as time: the young girl who loses her father at an early age and retreats into make-believe and roleplay; who, after seeing a great performance onstage dreams of performing herself. I write a lot about Agatha Christie, and this describes her to a t – except she never became the … Continue reading Angela Lansbury
Ah Sweet Mystery! 