Don’t you love these films that want you to know how smart they are by constantly telling you. I admit, Bullet Train (2022) is a handful, requiring you to pay attention because you get a shit-ton of character exposition in flashbacks and winks to the audience. Along the way, you piece together who these characters … More Bullet Train (film review)
The gravely voiced, balladeer of stories from skid row or as one writer said, the urban dispossessed, “stories of the barnacles on the underbelly of society.” Tom Waits is almost beyond description, his jazz-soaked poetry-stories, ever-eclectic musical mishmash of genres, he is of course an acquired taste. Maybe you are more familiar with his film … More Tom Waits: The First Ten Years
Peter Lorre is remembered mainly for his odd, quirky movie roles in crime dramas and horror films. He enjoyed a long career and was featured in many film roles, but I think most people remember him for the villainous and sniveling sidekick characters he played, and are unfamiliar with his more nuanced performances. Lorre, a … More Peter Lorre (Actor)
Popular mystery writer David Baldacci is a writing machine. Like Janet Evanovich and Alexander McCall Smith, another two of my favorite fiction writers, he drops a new book at least yearly, and has several different series going at the same time. Baldacci has written 45 adult books (he also writes for children) and sold over … More David Baldacci: Character Series Books
The other day I wanted to watch a movie, but I was too tired. My eyelids were heavy as barbells. I wasn’t really sleepy, just too tired to focus on a movie. I put the movie on and got comfortable, closing my eyes. Yes, film is a visual media, but it is also a sound … More Listening to the Movies
I am a fan of film credits/opening sequences. In film history, they served to give the audience information and set the story, often in a very creative way. Three of my favorite opening sequence designers are Saul Bass (Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger), Maurice Binder (James Bond) and Pablo Ferro (Stanley Kubrick, Steve McQueen). Film title … More Film Titles: Classics
Some of the best stories are of a flawed protagonist who exhibits complexity of personality and reveals himself (or herself) to have a pivotal moment(s) where their character undergoes an unexpected action, yet they remain true to their basic moral fabric. What this is not: a fairytale moment of metamorphosis of The Grinch suddenly growing … More Good Guy/Bad Guy
Reimagining a few old classics with the downbeat 1970s vibe… If Cary Grant had romanced Grace Kelly and really stolen her jewels and broken her heart, but escaped to live a tortured life – it would have been a 1970s version of To Catch a Thief. If Humphrey Bogart had been shot and killed while … More Film Romance in the 1970s
The Goodbye Coast is a new novel by Joe Ide, author of several other books of mystery. Here, he takes gumshoe Philip Marlowe and moves him from the 1940s to present day. Ide made a deal with the Raymond Chandler Estate, owner of the Marlowe character to write him as a suavy and hip private … More Noir: Philip Marlowe Reimagined (The Goodbye Coast)
I had never heard of Red Stone, a crime thriller, released at the end of 2021. Every film director of tough-guy films hopes to be tagged as noir; you know, the stuff dreams are made of. Red Stone is a gritty, violent film that weaves two stories together. Usually when that happens in an action … More Modern Film Noir: Red Stone
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