Miscellaneous: Halfway Home

It’s something of an annual tradition around July 4th for me to recap the best of what I’ve seen and read in the year so far. But it’s taken me all weekend to gear up for it.

That’s because I feel like I’ve been slacking off in 2006. Particularly in terms of movies. Believe me, I know how odd that sounds to a normal person. But I’ve skipped a lot of films, large and small, that I would have seen in years past. I’ll split the difference and name four movies that have stayed with me:

Brick
Lady Vengeance
A Prairie Home Companion
The Proposition

Apparently, there are now Rocky-Horror style sing-along screenings of A Prairie Home Companion. Still none for The Proposition, though. Love those Australian folk anthems.

Special mention must be made of Rialto Pictures’ new prints of The Fallen Idol and Classe Tous Risques, both still in circulation. I’d thrown AMC’s Broken Trail if it hadn’t been made for TV.

My reading habits have also been skewed these past six months. I can unreservedly recommend one 2006 title, Paul Malmont’s The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.

Skewed toward what, you may ask? Lots of research reading, but also the classics. You know, for Shame-Faced. What’s Shame-Faced? Why not stop by and find out?

Website Update: Links

Hey, I have a links page! Where three more fine blogs have been added to an already sterling roster:

Tribe’s Blog, from the impresario behind Flashing in the Gutters. For the next few days, he’ll also have all your World Cup bases covered. (And yes, I am well aware that metaphor mixes two sports.)

Secret Dead Blog, home of Philadelphia crime writer Duane Swierczynski.

Faust Fatale. Because there are certain subjects – novelizing Snakes on a Plane, attending fetish dinners, being fitted for corsets – that Christa Faust covers a little bit better than I do.

All good people. Check ‘em out – and some of the others, while you’re at it.