I have a couple of new projects coming up on the blog - – one for viewing and the other for reading - with which I hope you’ll all get involved. Today’s all about movies – we’ll talk about the reading in two days. Fresh off our Distaff Columbo Draft, the Three Amigos – Sergio Angelini, Nick … Continue reading NOIR ’44 – The Draft Is Coming!
Films
NOW YOU SEE ME . . . NOW YOU DON’T
Recently, I had the opportunity to rewatch the 1997 film Agatha when it appeared on Turner Classic Movies as part of a mini-festival of films about people who have disappeared. Directed by Michael Apted and based on a novel by the film’s screenwriter, Kathleen Tynan, Agatha provides a wholly fictional account of what happened to … Continue reading NOW YOU SEE ME . . . NOW YOU DON’T
FROM KING’S RANSOM TO 天国と地獄 (HIGH AND LOW)
“The city in these pages is imaginary. The people, the places are all fictitious. Only the police routine is based on established investigatory technique.” I’ll take my inspiration anywhere I can get it. This one came about from two different sources. The first was my own crazy head: I was sitting around, recovering from a … Continue reading FROM KING’S RANSOM TO 天国と地獄 (HIGH AND LOW)
CRY WOLF NO MORE: The Window (1949)
Stupid head cold! It came on me on Tuesday, and so far it has made me miss a haircut, a massage, a night at the theatre, and forty bucks for COVID tests. (Fortunately, I have tested negative – twice!) I hate being sick! I hate NyQuil, and daily bowls of chicken soup, and drowning my … Continue reading CRY WOLF NO MORE: The Window (1949)
POLITICS AS USUAL: The Hollywood Blacklist (1947-1958)
I talk to my mother every night on the phone, and invariably, we get around to the news of the day. It wears my mother down, and she moans, “What a world, what a world we live in today!” That’s when I have to remind her, ever so gently, that the world isn’t so very … Continue reading POLITICS AS USUAL: The Hollywood Blacklist (1947-1958)
THE RATHBONE/BRUCE SHERLOCK HOLMES SUPER DRAFT
I can count three days among my favorites of 2023. There was April 23, when my buddies Nick Cardillo and Sergio Angelini competitively collaborated with me to put together our list of The Thirteen Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies of all time. Nobody came to blows – it helps to put several thousand miles between you … Continue reading THE RATHBONE/BRUCE SHERLOCK HOLMES SUPER DRAFT
HAVE A HOLLY GIALLI HALLOWEEN
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
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
Ah Sweet Mystery! 