Ed Gorman's Blog, page 229

Albert Zugsmith on making TOUCH OF EVIL with Orson Welles

Ed here: In the late fifties and early sixties Albert Zugsmith produced such films as Sex Kittens Go To College, Platinum High School, High School Confidential, and The Beat Generation. Nothing that would make Fellini insecure about his place in motion picture history. But Zugsmith had previously produced some excellent film such as The Tarnished Angels (Faulkner's Pylon), Written on The Wind and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Oh--and one other--Touch of Evil. Here's an excerpt from a long e...

a/k/a James Reasoner

Ed here: My buddy James Reasoner posted a piece today about all the pseudonymous writing he's done over the years, particularly that of "house name" work where many writers (ala "Jake Logan") share the same name on a series. Someday somebody will write a book and/or a novel about this (as Westlake and Block have about the soft core world) because there are a lot of great tales to be told on the subject as James indicates here. Some very famous writers did a lot of work in these series but fe...

Villains (from May 23, 2009)

Villains
In the Guardian (UK) Michael Hann responds to David Thomson's piece about movie villains. The major and minor ones of different types.

"David Thomson thinks it's Robert Shaw – even when, as in Jaws, he's on the side of the angels, David believes Shaw to have the been the scariest man to stride across the cinema screens. So who are the greatest villains in cinema history? They must be characters who compel us to watch, people who make us wonder: what happened to make them that way?

"So t...

Forthcoming Books: The Night of The Living Dead by Joe Kane

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Forthcoming Books: The Night of The Living Dead by Joe Kane (Kensington/Citadel)

-They-re coming to get you, Barbara-- These five words unleashed a terrifying movie classic on an unsuspecting public in 1968, stunning audiences with endless nightmares. George A. Romero-s Night of the Living Dead raised the bar for onscreen violence. Moviegoers were bludgeoned with horrific scenes of zombies blood-feasting on human body parts. Nothing was taboo. A six-year-old child nibbling on her daddy-s arm! ...

Christopher Hitchens - human again

Ed here: I'd really recommend going on the Vanity Fair website and reading Christopher Hitchens' essay on how he's dealing with what may be a lethal cancer. Powerful stuff. Here's a reaction to that piece from Salon. For what it's worth I pretty much agree with writer Mary Elizabeth Williams. I too have hated Hitchens from time to time. Wanted to hit him in is booze-sweaty face. But he's such a brilliant thinker and writer I've never stopped reading him. As someone dealing with incurable canc...

How a brutal rape and a lifelong burden of guilt fuelled Girl with the Dragon Tattoo writer Stieg Larsson

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Ed here: The Daily Mail online (UK) published not one but two long articles about Stieg Larsson. Well worth reading.

How a brutal rape and a lifelong burden of guilt fuelled Girl with the Dragon Tattoo writer Stieg Larsson
By KURDO BASKI

The chapel in southern Stockholm was packed on that icy December day in 2004. We filed past the coffin to pay our respects, whispering final messages to Stieg Larsson.

The Stieg we were mourning was a tireless hero in the fight against neo-Nazism, but the man ...

Forthcoming Books Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop

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AN INTERVIEW WITH OTTO PENZLER

Each year, for the past seventeen years, Otto Penzler, owner of the legendary Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, has commissioned an original story by a leading mystery writer. The requirements were that it be a mystery/ crime/suspense story, that it be set during the Christmas season, and that at least some of the action must take place in The Mysterious Bookshop. These stories were then produced as pamphlets, 1,000...

COMMUTABILITY; Top Actresses Takes A Thief

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COMMUTABILITY: STORIES ABOUT THE JOURNEY FROM HERE TO THERE
edited by David Jack Bell and Molly McCaffrey
A 2010 MSR Short Fiction Anthology
Edited by David Jack Bell and Molly McCaffrey
ISBN 13: 978-1-59948-243-9, cover price $14.95

The stories in this anthology cut across genre lines and introduce readers to a variety of experiences: Goats being used as shark bait. Skydiving. Stealing a boat during a zombie apocalypse. A farm where women--not cows--produce the milk. An awkward young man's fantas...

Forthcoming Books: Quarry's Ex

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There are few thing more difficult in writing mysteries than keeping a series interesting to both reader and writer. Max Allan Collins' first wave of Quarry novels, published way back in the distant Seventies, were some of the best hardboiled fiction I've ever read. They were what made me a fan of his work initially.

Even more remarkable is the quality of the new Quarry novels Collins has written the past few years for Hard Case Crime. These new books are even richer and darker than the origi...

Lazy actors, distracting actors

Ed here: On the A.V. Club there's a discussion about actors who are either a) always the same no matter what role they're playing and/or b) so distracting that their mere appearance takes you out of the movie. The most interesting comment came from a woman named Tasha Robinson. I think she articulates the problem very well. for the full discussion go here:
http://www.avclub.com/

Tasha Robinson

"I recently pitched an Inventory on once-talented-and-diverse actors who have fallen into a rut and jus...