Thursday, February 01, 2024

2024 So Far at Cocktails and Crime


The main thing you need to know: Noir City Seattle is coming back from February 16—22, and I’ll be serving as your host for the final four nights. Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve written about so far this year at Cocktails & Crime.

Amazon made a show starring an Academy Award winner and didn’t tell anyone, but I watched it anyway. Also, multiple movie recommendations.

Good stuff from people I know: books by Duane Swierczynski and Kate Alice Marshall, and music by Ethan Iverson.

More details on Noir City, a report from the celebration of life held for Murray Stenson, and killer cats.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Farewell 2023 and December at Cocktails and Crime

Is there ever going to be a year I’m sorry to see end? I seem to remember that happening. In any event, bring on 2024.


2023 did turn out to be when I returned to blog-style writing. It just happened to be at Substack, that’s all. Here’s what happened at Cocktails and Crime this month.

It’s a Shane Black Christmas made its debut over there.

I started doing the program outlined in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which meant dealing with the terrors of reading deprivation week. I also reviewed Sam Wasson’s The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story.

I decided to start taking financial advice from movie directors, a choice that I’m sure will not backfire.

25 years of Zero Effect, the great private eye movie featuring a final terrific turn from the late Ryan O’Neal.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

November at Cocktails and Crime

Hey, Substack is pivoting to video! I’m sure that bodes well for the future.


I understand how the game is played. Platforms evolve to the point where they eventually stop doing what you want them to do. Case in point: the now non-functioning Twitter (to hell with that X nonsense) widget to your left. Maybe Substack is the answer, maybe it isn’t. The numbers indicate that it’s working for me right now. Still, I’m keeping my shingle up here even if it’s only to recap what I’m doing there, like the following.

A look at three new books on the big-screen comedies Airplane!, The Blues Brothers, and Anchorman.

Somehow I connect the icy, cerebral thriller Anatomy of a Fall with the raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings. Plus a history of Siskel & Ebert and a martini variation from Phil Ward.

My social media report card, along with Kliph Nesteroff’s new history of the culture wars and Scott Eyman’s Charlie Chaplin vs. America.

Jesse David Fox’s survey of contemporary comedy, documentaries on Albert Brooks and John le CarrĂ©, and a cocktail from the glory days of New York’s Amor y Amargo.

The latest spy novel from Mick Herron, plus Nyad and a documentary on the design studio responsible for some iconic album covers.