Ed Gorman's Blog, page 251

Hitchens versus Vidal

I usually read Spencer Ackerman's blog posts because he's witty and wise. Today he linked to a Christopher Hitchens piece on H's former friend Gore Vidal. Hard to imagine egos of their size fitting into any public facility short of a football stadium. For a time I admired Vidal's courage but soon enough I came to see him as a singularly arrogant elitist, much like his arch enemy Wm Buckley, whose portentous verbal mannerisms covered up a trite and inane mind. I also once liked Hitchens for hi...

Robert Vaughn--Psychic

Thanks to a link in Cinema Retro I found an interesting article from the UK Daily Record on Robert Vaughan, a guy who's always seemed interesting to me. But a psychic he ain't.

"Take The Magnificent Seven. With the exception of Yul Brynner who had already won an Oscar for The King And I, the rest of us, who included James Coburn, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, were convinced we were going to be in a big flop picture.

"There had been a writers' strike and we started filming the picture with...

Coming your way and not coming your way

Ed here: Fred Blosser brings us up to date on what is and isn't available on various types of home video selections. Thanks, Fred for all the work. BTW The Outfit--This is the real Parker here and I think Don Westlake felt that way, too. Duvall is sensational and true to Parker's real nature. Westlake also liked all the B-movie icons who appear in it.

From Fred Blosser:

Ed, this may be of interest to the blog gang ... In the NY Times last week, Dave Kehr offered his thoughts specifically about ...

MONK IN TROUBLE

Monk in an old west-style gold town named Trouble? The same town where a relative of his named Artemis Monk was assayer back in the late 1800s? The same man who suffered many of the same afflictions as Monk plus shared his detecting skills? And missing gold from a train robbery dating back to 1962? And dozens if not hundreds of people streaming in and out of Trouble over the years looking for the missing gold?

This all sounds crazy. And like a great good time. And it is.

A former San Francisc...

NBC Shakeup -- Jay Leno Comes Out on Top

I don't usually do show biz news here but this story is pretty damned amazing. Here's TMZ:

NBC Shakeup -- Jay Leno Comes Out on Top
Posted Jan 7th 2010 3:50PM by TMZ Staff
Jay Leno is going back to his 11:30 PM time slot, and it's looking like Conan O'Brien is the odd man out ... sources tell TMZ.

We've learned Jay's 10:00 PM show will go on hiatus February 1. After the Olympics, Jay will take back his 11:30 PM time slot. What has not been decided -- whether Jay's show will be a half hour, follow...

Iceman

I watched the 1973 John Frankenheimer production of The Iceman Cometh last night and thought once again that the two great American plays for me are Iceman and Death of Salesman with the A Streetcar Named Desire close behind.

The times I've seen Iceman on stage I've always watched to see how the character Larry Slade was played. He's the only one who doesn't live on "pipe dreams." Former Anarchist and fallen Catholic, he lives in the saloon listening to the drunken pipe dreams of his fellows....

Forgotten Books: Scratch Fever

With all the well-deserved kudos being paid to his Quarry series--Quarry in The Middle is not only Max Allan Collins' best Quarry but also one of his finest novels period--I thought I'd pick up one of my favorite entries in one of his other series, the Nolan series.

Nolan is a mostly retired ex-thief who is forced to learn the hard way that the past is never past. Om Scratch Fever, however, the lead character is Jon, Quarry's unlikely but steadfast crime partner, a twenty-something comic book ...

Brian Keene on self-publishing and surviving as a full-time writer

Brian Keene is one of the finest horror/dark suspense writers around. He's also one of the finest commentators on various aspects of publishing I know of. His blog almost always gets your juices flowing. Today he filed his tour-de-force. He touches on several key issues that effect writers and readers alike. This is a must-read. And be sure to read the comments, too. Lots of good ones.

Brian on self-publishing:

3. They're all gonna laugh at you: Yes, self-publishing has become more commonplace,...

Christopher Fowler

Christopher Fowler is probably best known in the U.S. for his Bryant and May series, which the Fowler interviewer for Bookreporter.com describes this way:

"Bryant & May are a pair of elderly, argumentative detectives who work in London's Peculiar Crimes Unit. The names Bryant and May are instantly recognisable to many who remember boxes of Bryant & May matches. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is a police division founded during the Second World War to investigate cases that could cause public unrest....

William Faulkner and Film Noir

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Ed here: I've been reading a collection of Faulkner's short stories and decided to see what I could find about him on line. Even when I was reading him back in my high school days I felt that he had a kinship with crime writers. Hard to get much darker than Faulkner at times. I mean Sanctuary alone would win would him Top Five Standing in the Existential Misanthropic Society. I came across this excellent piece on the Bright Lights Film Journal site.

Faulkner and Film Noir

"Some good picture...