Movies: Noir City 5

Great article on Eddie Muller and the fifth Noir City Film Festival, kicking off tomorrow in San Francisco. I vow to get to it one of these years.

The line-up includes salutes to tough guy Charles McGraw and screenwriter William Bowers, a man equally at home on the mean streets and the open range. Just the other day I watched his terrific underrated western The Sheepman, with Glenn Ford.

The Bowers tribute includes a screening of 1951’s Cry Danger, which stars Dick Powell and Rhonda Fleming. The film also features a fantastic unheralded turn by character actor Richard Erdman. Erdman plays a one-legged ex-Marine marinating in booze and jovial cynicism. (“Occasionally, I always drink too much.”) He perfectly captures the post-war feeling of disaffection from society that would lead to biker gangs, beatniks, and ultimately the entire counterculture. Fifty-some years later, his performance still feels jarringly new.

Now 81 years old, Erdman will be in attendance at Saturday’s screening doing a Q&A. What I wouldn’t give to be there.

Miscellaneous: Links

From Reason: the politics of zombies. And reaction, mostly negative, to a list of the ten best business novels.

Miscellaneous: First Impressions

The New Yorker on Rich Little’s selection as the headliner at the upcoming White House Correspondents Dinner. The official line is that Little is not a safe choice in the wake of last year’s controversial Stephen Colbert appearance, but it’s clear that writer Jeffrey Goldberg ain’t buying it.

The piece seems a touch mean-spirited to me, but then Little doesn’t do himself any favors. When you’re asked to name your favorite young comedian, do not say “Robin Williams.” And never follow up your own jokes with the observation that they’re funny. Particularly when they’re not.

After reading the article, I then spent twenty minutes exploring Little’s website and listening to some of his 163 impressions. If he didn’t identify the person beforehand (always with the same phrase, “Well, this is ... INSERT NAME HERE”), I’m not sure I could tell you who he was doing. I doubt there’s much call for imitations of Edgar Buchanan, Jack Hawkins and Stewart Granger these days, but considering the age of some of the members of the Senate he’ll be performing in front of, his act will probably play like gangbusters. He may even get requests. (“And now, for Senator Robert Byrd, here’s ... Hugh Herbert!”) I will say that Little’s Rod Steiger is still damn good.

As for those naysayers who claimed that Colbert bombed last year: twelve months later people are still talking about his appearance. He must have done something right.

Movies: Golden Boy

A few quick thoughts on this morning’s Academy Award nominations.

It’s always nice to see some dark horses score, and this year quite a few did: Ryan Gosling (who in a just world would have been acknowledged several years ago for his performance in The Believer), Jackie Earle Haley, Paul Greengrass.

I saw Letters from Iwo Jima over the weekend, and it’s Best Picture inclusion doesn’t surprise me. It’s a solidly crafted, traditional war movie. Then every few minutes, the realization hit me anew: this is about the Japanese, fighting the Americans. Forging that level of identification is an amazing accomplishment.

I have no idea who the Best Picture favorite is. Going in, I assumed it would be The Departed, and it still may be. But with Leo getting the nod for Blood Diamond and no nomination for Jack, I’m not sure. When in doubt, I always go with the Jack Warner Gambit: saturation in the major categories. The only movie up for picture, director, script and lead performance is The Queen.

Marty vs. Clint is the new Manning vs. Brady. And we all know how that turned out this year.

Six nods for Pan’s Labyrinth. Amazing.

Once again, the writers show their stuff. They gave Borat its only recognition and are the sole above-the-line branch to single out Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth.

Also worth noting: two of the writers who worked with Steve Coogan on the various Alan Partridge series are represented, Peter Baynham (Borat) and Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal).

I love that the cinematographers vote solely to honor their craft. Their nominees: The Black Dahlia, Children of Men, The Illusionist, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Prestige.

The best performance I saw this year was sadly snubbed, and that’s Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in The Queen. On degree of difficulty alone he deserved a nod: playing not just a well-known public figure but a currently serving world leader. As miraculous as Helen Mirren is in the title role, the movie is in many respects a two-hander. Without Sheen, it wouldn’t work nearly as well as it does.

Finally, it’s great to see Mark Wahlberg get some love for his work in The Departed. I’ve been parroting his dialogue for months. He warrants the nod just for the way he delivers the line of the year, written by William Monahan, when a guy he’s berating asks who he is: “I’m the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.”

Movie: This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1966)

So I watched that other Coffin Joe movie. In the interest of thoroughness, I offer some follow-up:

Wow. OK. Jesus.

Again with the long-winded introduction. Then a title sequence, the hand-drawn letters squirming as if they’re trying to escape the frame. A card appears, informing us that the movie begins where At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul left off. The closing sequence from that film begins to play.

Me: How is he going to do this? Joe was obviously dead at the end of the last movie.

Character onscreen, subtitled, pointing at Joe: He’s still alive!

Rosemarie: That’s how.

The success of Midnight meant that José Mojica Marins had more money in this go-round. He was able to shoot outdoors, during the day. He also has a hunchback for a sidekick. Way too much yammering about the “immortality of blood” as Joe tries to find the perfect woman to give birth to his child.

But it’s worth sitting through for the journey to hell described below. It’s genuinely disturbing, a vision of the underworld that’s depraved but informed by a religious sensibility. (Coffin Joe, you will not be surprised to learn, repents at the end of this movie before dying. Again. I wonder how he comes back in the next installment.) The unabashed luridness of the sequence calls to mind what I’d heard about the old tent revival shows: they concentrated so much on damnation that you were more concerned about not going to hell than reaching heaven. Same difference, I suppose.

Coffin Joe’s jaunt to Hades is on YouTube, natch, but it’s not subtitled, so odds are you won’t be able to understand the screams of the tormented. And I’m not linking to it, because I think it’s better appreciated in context. So here’s the video for the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Hell.” I don’t want to be a tease.



Next week, Coffin Joe returns in Awakening of the Beast!

Miscellaneous: Why I Don’t Blog About Sports Often

Me, approximately three months ago, speaking to my brother, whose lovely wife is from the Indianapolis area:

“Sorry, dude. Not only are the Colts not going to the Super Bowl, they’re not even going to the AFC title game.”

Miscellaneous: Spreadin’ The Good News

Some familiar faces are among the 2007 Edgar Award nominees. Bill Crider received a nod in the Best Short Story category for the down-n-dirty “Cranked,” featured in the anthology Damn Near Dead. And Contemporary Nomad Olen Steinhauer made the Best Novel short list with Liberation Movements. Congratulations to both on their well-deserved honors. I was also happy to see Massimo Carlotto’s The Goodbye Kiss singled out in the Best Paperback Original category. I’m fairly certain that my rave review in Mystery*File put him over the top.

What else have I accomplished recently? Glad you asked. I’m pleased to announce that yours truly is now a footnote in Wikipedia. I will be remembered for all eternity as one of sixteen people who observed that the young actress Gage Golightly looks a bit like Drew Barrymore. Factor in my recent citation in an Australian academic text and it’s clear that my plan to become a world-renowned expert on popular culture is proceeding incrementally apace.

Movie: The Descent (U.S., 2006)

Here’s how scary Neil Marshall’s movie is. It held me rapt even though the scenario – bad doings on a spelunking trip – would never happen to me. The only way I’d end up deep in a cave is if something far worse occurred on the surface. Say, an atomic holocaust unleashing rampaging hordes of zombified bears. In which case, better to make the movie about that. (You don’t want to be near me during a film about terrors I actually might encounter, like cannibals in the subway.)

The sense of claustrophobia that Marshall creates would have been even more intense in the dark, so I’m sorry I missed The Descent in theaters. But I’m happy to have seen it in its original form. The U.S. theatrical release cut the final ninety seconds – a single, beautifully executed closing shot – in order to end the movie on a more hopeful note. What babies we are.

Movie: At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1963)

In college, as in prison, you want to land a job in the library. I spent most of my years in the Microfilm Department poring over film reference books I couldn’t afford, like the horror volume of the Overlook Film Encyclopedia.

In particular I read and reread the entries on the movies of José Mojica Marins and his character Zé do Caixão, or Coffin Joe. Joe, played by Marins, is an undertaker who scorns both religion and the supernatural. He’s taken self-interest to its logical endpoint: he does whatever he wants to whomever he wants, and his neighbors live in fear of him. (An interview with Marins is available here.)

At the time the films were almost impossible to see outside of Marins’ native Brazil. Their obscure status, combined with author Phil Hardy’s meticulous descriptions of every act of mayhem and sacrilege, made them loom large in my mind. These films, I thought, were like the ones that occasionally turned up in horror novels, where simply watching a few frames could ... drive men mad.

Some of Marins’ movies were eventually distributed on video. I didn’t seek them out; I suppose I didn’t really want to see them. I knew they couldn’t live up to the unholy spectacles I imagined them to be.

Last Friday, as we were about to settle in and watch a DVD, I noticed that IFC was only minutes away from showing Coffin Joe’s debut At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul as part of its Grindhouse series. I’d never heard of a Marins film airing on TV before. I wasn’t about to miss my chance.

There’s no plot. After not one but two Ed Wood-style introductions delivered straight to the camera, Joe begins humiliating and murdering people. He horsewhips a guy, sics a tarantula on his wife, and uses the crown of thorns from a bust of Christ as a weapon. He also proves that my mother was right: you can take someone’s eyes out by imitating the Three Stooges.

The film looks like it was shot on the sets for a Brazilian kids’ show after hours. One of Joe’s victims has pennants hanging in his room. I wanted them explained – “This one’s for the Sao Paulo Rams, and that one is for Lucifer” – but before that could happen Joe knocked the man unconscious, dragged him into the bathtub and drowned him. Joe’s a busy man with a lot of folks to kill.

Midnight is not a good movie. It’s actually kind of boring. But after a while it began exerting a peculiar fascination. Unlike many horror films, it has the courage of its convictions: Marins is determined to shatter as many taboos as possible. The low production values only enhance the movie’s power. When Joe is haunted by a vision of his dead victims carrying him in an open casket, Marins simply shows the scene in negative. The result is genuinely disturbing, as are a number of other bargain-basement effects.

This Friday, January 19, at midnight Eastern, IFC is showing the second Coffin Joe film, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse. (I’ll say this for Marins: the man knew from a good title.) According to The Psychotronic Video Guide by Michael Weldon, a reference book I can afford, the sequel is “Marins’s ultimate movie,” including a full-color sequence set in an ice-cold Hell with moving body parts embedded in the walls. This is followed next week by Awakening of the Beast, which is part documentary about the drug culture of the 1960s and part Coffin Joe schlockfest.

Based on my experience with Midnight, I can’t recommend these movies. But you know I’m going to be watching them.

Miscellaneous: No Business Like Snow Business

It snowed in Seattle again last night. Not a whole lot, just enough to throw the town into a tizzy. I’ve lived here for years, and days like this force me to admit I don’t understand this place. How can a city surrounded by mountains and peopled by skiers lose its collective head whenever the white stuff hits the ground? Winters back east have warped my expectations. In Boston, snow plows are on the streets around the clock. Even in August.

The adverse conditions haven’t affected me much, although I did scrap my plans to stop by Seattle Mystery Books and meet Charlie Huston. Today, that lunchtime jaunt would consume the entire afternoon.

What annoys me is that Seattleites don’t even take routine precautions like, say, clearing off their sidewalks. We got a light dusting on Saturday, sufficient to cover the slick patches that lingered from the midweek snow. I discovered one while strolling up to the supermarket. My Doc Martens were no help. Ass, meet pavement. Icy, rock hard pavement. My only thought as my second foot slid out from under me was, Man, I haven’t fallen down in years.

Since then, I have been liberally self-medicating with ibuprofen and Irish whiskey. At least my mishap didn’t ruin the weekend. We’d already been to see Pan’s Labyrinth. (Quick take: get thee to a theater at once.) And my pain had subsided enough by Monday so that we could see Notes on a Scandal. (Quick take: great nasty fun. Comparisons to Patricia Highsmith are apt.)

You’d think a quieting blanket of white would facilitate my getting some work done. But the snow didn’t keep the valiant crew renovating the apartment upstairs from their appointed rounds. No, they’re here, prying the hardwood floors up one board at a time. Good thing I’ve got plenty of that whiskey on hand.

Movie: Crank (2006)

How does Bill Crider always know my viewing habits in advance? Am I under surveillance, or simply that predictable?

In this non-stop action movie, a professional killer with the indisputably great name Chev Chelios* awakens to discover that he has been injected with a lethal fast-acting poison. The only way to stave off its effect is adrenaline, and lots of it. This circumstance thus paves the way for drug abuse, public lovemaking and multiple car chases.

In other words, it’s Speed with Jason Statham in the role of the bus. It’s A.D.D.O.A. The movie is shot like a video game and edited with a machete. It’s completely ridiculous, deeply implausible, and thoroughly disreputable. And as such, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Extra points for the ending and an excellent ironic soundtrack.

* I would pledge to christen my firstborn Chev Chelios Keenan regardless of gender, but I’m already committed to Ernst Stavro Keenan.

Book: Chourmo, by Jean-Claude Izzo (1996, U.S. 2006)

I’ve had the second volume in Izzo’s Marseilles Trilogy on hand for a while now. I’ve been anticipating it since I finished the first installment, Total Chaos, several months ago. But I didn’t want to read it right away. There are some books you keep in a kind of glass case, to be used in the event of an emergency. For when you need to be inspired, when you want something to savor.

And savor Chourmo I did. The voice Izzo has created for his protagonist Fabio Montale – again beautifully translated by Howard Curtis – is singular. Rich, evocative, eternally alive to the pleasures of music, food, life. Izzo’s work bears parallels to that of George Pelecanos, but where Pelecanos’ books possess a reserve, a coolness that’s distinctly American, Izzo’s are charged with passion. His descriptions of Marseilles, “the first city of the Third World,” are so vivid that I feel as if I could find my way around its streets in the dark.

I’m not entirely certain that I followed the plot, which embroils gangsters, crooked cops and Islamic fundamentalists in Montale’s search for his missing nephew. And I didn’t care. Chourmo – the title comes from a French word meaning rowers in a galley, people “trying to get out ... together” – is primarily a tribute to a vanishing way of life, what Montale calls “the art of living, Marseilles style:”

Those were the days when people still knew how to talk to each other, when they still had things to say to each other. Of course, it made you thirsty. And it took time. But time didn’t matter. Nobody was in a hurry. Everything could wait a few more minutes. Those days were no better and no worse than now. But it was a time when you could share your joys and your sorrows. You didn’t hold back. You could even tell people you were poor. You were never alone ... And whatever problems kept you awake at night vanished in a haze of pastis.

Miscellaneous: Links

I’d always heard about Club 33, the secret and exclusive restaurant hidden away at Disneyland. Now, via Nikki Finke, comes a website that takes you behind the scenes.

Two smart guys, Craig Mazin and John Rogers, weigh in on what all the changes in media really mean.

The Onion A.V. Club on the genius of one of my favorite albums, Elvis Costello’s King of America.

Movie: Idiocracy (2006)

Mike Judge’s satire met a bizarre fate last year. Numerous delays in its release date, followed by a truncated theatrical run in a half-dozen markets with no promotion of any kind. Yesterday’s home video debut – slated for right after the holidays, when nobody’s paying much attention – was my first chance to see the movie. I jumped on it at once. If Idiocracy turns out to be another cult smash like Judge’s last movie, the justly-revered Office Space, I want in on the ground floor.

Judge had me at the premise. A soldier scientifically proven to be the most average man in the U.S. Army (Luke Wilson) is drafted to be the guinea pig in a short-term hibernation experiment. He awakens in 2505 to discover that society has become so dumbed-down that he is the smartest person on Earth. By, like, a lot. In Judge’s future, justice is meted out by monster trucks, the President is an ultimate fighting champ/porn star, and a doctor renders his diagnosis of Wilson’s character thusly: “Your shit’s all retarded.”

At least one critic has called Idiocracy “easily the most potent political film of the year, and the most stirring defense of traditional values since Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.” I wouldn’t go that far. Considering that Burke’s scathing indictment of the abstract foundations of the Revolution was later used to condemn any form of socialist government, I think it’s fair to suggest that Burke’s shit was all retarded, too.

Idiocracy’s skimpy plot makes Office Space look like Chinatown. But its vision of tomorrow – this dystopia brought to you by NASCAR – is every bit as meticulously conceived and terrifying as the one in Children of Men; if anything it’s more plausible. I laughed myself stupid, which only makes me part of the problem.

Miscellaneous: Shutterbug



Another of my new year’s resolutions is to take more photographs. My first subject: the suitably Brontësque skies over Seattle as a storm rolls in. More here.

Movie: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Bill Crider expects my reaction to this movie to turn up here. And I’m not about to let Bill down.

1. I liked it. Quite a bit.

2. Bill described it as ‘goofy.’ I’ll second that.

3. The movie is jam-packed with characters, and Will Ferrell and co-writer/director Adam McKay are willing to let each of them have their moment in the sun. Everybody gets a chance to be funny.

4. For all the comic actors on display, it’s Gary Cole who walks off with the movie as Ricky’s ne’er-do-well dad Reese. His performance is just an angstrom away from being completely straight, which only amps up the hilarity.

5. Elvis Costello does a cameo! How could I speak ill of it?

6. I will never look at Days of Thunder the same way again. And John C. Reilly is in both.

Miscellaneous: Links

Forget the botched Tony Romo snap that sent the Seahawks deeper into the playoffs. The best thing I saw during a weekend of football? Bruce Campbell as Old Spice pitchman.

Movie City News asks: creepiest trailer ever? I’m gonna go ahead and say yes.

Book: Dead Horse, by Walter Satterthwait (2006)

It’s always nice to have the first novel of the year be a winner. But it’s hard to go wrong with Walter Satterthwait, whose Phil Beaumont/Jane Turner books are an unalloyed treat.

Dead Horse is about Raoul Whitfield, the Black Mask veteran who was the highest-paid mystery writer of the late 1920s. His second wife, Emily, was a socialite who made their lavish life on the desert ranch of the title possible. Then Emily committed suicide – or so it would appear. The question of what really happened to her that night is only one of the mysteries raised in Walter’s evocative book.

My experience with Whitfield is limited to his 1930 novel Green Ice. I’d been told that it and Paul Cain’s Fast One were the most hard-boiled books ever published. I still haven’t tracked the Cain down, but I did dig up a copy of Green Ice. Hard-boiled it is, so much so that parts of it are indigestible. But Walter’s book has me ready to take another crack at it.

A.I. Bezzerides, RIP

What a remarkable 98 years the man had. He wrote the novels Long Haul (filmed as They Drive by Night) and Thieves’ Market (which became Thieves’ Highway). He penned the screenplays for On Dangerous Ground and the great Kiss Me Deadly. And in his spare time he created TV’s The Big Valley. Two documentaries were made about him in 2005. I’d be happy to see either one.

Miscellaneous: Vamping

Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there.

Apparently I’m in the midst of a blogging sabbatical. Thinking about whether the ol’ Internet homestead needs a new coat of paint or maybe more substantial changes.

In the interim, I can relay the following:

Mystery*File is back, now in easy-to-use blog form!

Children of Men opens in more theaters this weekend. Go see it.

I had my first Chicago-style hot dog yesterday. Why aren’t sport peppers served with everything from breakfast cereal to ice cream?

The Good Stuff: Life

Normally I don’t go in for New Year’s Resolutions. Imagine my surprise to discover that I made three of them on January 1, 2006. Let’s see how I did. Timpani!

1. Spend less time in the blogosphere.

Done. I also scaled back my posting here, believe it or not. Only post when you’ve got something to say, that’s my motto.

2. Broaden my reading range.

Done again. I’ve even got the spin-off blog to prove it. Granted, I haven’t updated it much lately, but that will change.

3. Order more obscure cocktails in bars.

Here I exceeded even my wildest expectations. In 2006 I became a regular at the Zig Zag Café, a bar specializing in obscure cocktails and convivial atmosphere. I’ve had conversations with offbeat characters from all over the world, received peerless recommendations on where to drink in Manhattan, and sampled libations like the Seelbach, favored by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Corpse Reviver #2.

My resolutions for 2007? Same again.

2006 was a groundwork year. I laid the foundations for several projects that, with any luck, will come to fruition in the coming months. It’s going to take a lot more hard work, though, and I’m looking forward to it. I have to confess I’m always happy when the holidays end. I’m eager to roll up my sleeves and dive back into the fray.

With that, I give you a favorite memory from the year now ending.

It’s October. We’re in New York. Rosemarie and I head to Rockefeller Center. Look, here’s a picture. We get there to discover that the Fire Department is conducting an event, with equipment and personnel all over the plaza. Rosemarie notices that copies of the FDNY Calendar are on sale, filled with photos of buff, shirtless firefighters. Rosemarie thinks this will make the perfect gift for our gracious, generous hosts Barry and Buzz.

“Trust me,” she says. “They’ll get a kick out of it.”

After buying the calendar, she sees a long table behind which sit a dozen good-looking men. The models, autographing copies of the calendar. “I’ll get them to sign it,” Rosemarie says. “That makes it even better.”

Fine, I say. I’m going to go look at fire trucks.

I do that for a while, but Rosemarie’s still not finished. I cross the concourse to wait for her. After a few minutes she finally hoves into view, beet-red and giggling like a schoolgirl as she makes her way along the table chatting with the firefighters. After a few more minutes, she finally finishes and tracks me down.

Me: They didn’t sign it to Barry and Buzz, did they?

Rosemarie: No. We’re getting them wine.

Naturally, the calendar can’t hang in her office. She’s a professional, after all. So as I sit at my desk beneath the gleaming chest of Michael from Marine Unit One (“Thanks for your beautiful smile!”), I wish you a few such unexpected moments in 2007. Thanks for stopping by this year. Come on back.

The Good Stuff: Movies

Updated 12/31/06!

Standard provisos apply. There are plenty of year-end films I haven’t seen yet – yes, Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men and Letters from Iwo Jima, I mean you – and I’m not stopping at ten.

The best movie of 2006? Easy. Jean-Pierre Melville’s French Resistance drama Army of Shadows was made in 1969 but never played in the U.S. until this year, so it counts. Alone among the movies I saw it had me holding my breath, afraid I would break its spell. It takes the title going away. It reopens at New York's Film Forum on Friday and will be playing around the country into early 2007.

You want the best new movie of 2006? Fine. Fabien Bielinsky’s El Aura bewitched me when I saw it and haunts me still. A heist film, a character study, a brilliantly directed exploration of isolation mental and physical, self-imposed and otherwise. It’s one of a kind.

That’s what I loved. I saw plenty more that I enjoyed the hell out of. Here are the ones that truly popped, in the order I saw them, with minimal commentary.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. In some circles this is regarded as a 2005 release. Just in case, I’m including it here.

Brick. Hammett in high school.

The Proposition. A tough-minded Australian western, featuring the best performance by flies.

A Prairie Home Companion. Maybe it is minor Altman, but it’s perfectly in tune.

Lady Vengeance. Chilling in its elegance.

Invincible. My orphan pick. A sports movie that nails every note. And I don’t even like the Philadelphia Eagles. But it speaks to the working-class Northeast football fan in me. It helps that the crazy dreamer’s name is Vince. And hey, Elizabeth Banks is in it!

Hollywoodland. The flip side of Invincible. Achieving your dreams is no guarantee of happiness. My faith in Ben Affleck is vindicated.

The Queen. The best written movie of 2006 is also the most politically astute, and moves like a thriller.

Slither. Delivering the gruesome goods counts for something around here. And hey, Elizabeth Banks is in it!

Borat. For the naked wrestling alone.

Casino Royale. Because the degree of difficulty involved was enormous.

Volver. Almodovar. Can he do any wrong?

Children of Men. Added 12/31/06. Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian vision is packed with sociopolitical ideas I haven’t yet processed. But taken purely as an action film, filled with extended, unbroken scenes of chaos and motion, it deserves a place on this list.

The film story of 2006 has to be the continuing changes in the way movies, particularly smaller ones, are distributed. I saw El Aura, my #2 choice, on TV because it debuted on IFC On Demand at the same time it opened in New York. Steven Soderbergh’s intriguing Bubble hit theaters and home video on the same day. The adaptation of David Mamet’s play Edmond, as dark and demanding a film as I saw this year, might as well have gone straight to DVD for the limited release it received. Technology makes these movies more accessible – you could be watching El Aura right now instead of reading this – but the downside is the audience doesn’t know they exist. And I doubt the advent of the downloadable premiere, which you know is coming, will change things.

The Good Stuff: Books

In the order read, with minimal commentary.

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, by Paul Malmont. Nothing topped it for pure escapism.

Hit Parade, by Lawrence Block.

King Dork, by Frank Portman. My lone foray into YA fiction yielded the best-plotted mystery of the year. (Aside: is there really this much oral sex in contemporary high schools? Because ... damn. When I was in high school, oral sex was like the Loch Ness monster. We all wanted to believe in it, and there was a rich body of anecdotal evidence, but not much in the way of hard data. Go ahead, snicker at ‘hard.’ Juveniles.)

The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos.

The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood, by Joe Eszterhas. A non-fiction selection. Weirdly, crazily inspiring. I’m still agitating for that Jade Special Edition DVD.

The Zero, by Jess Walter. A divisive book, and my personal favorite.

Death’s Dark Abyss, by Massimo Carlotto. A 2004 title receiving its first U.S. publication courtesy of Europa Editions. I pause here to acknowledge the overall fine work of Europa and Hard Case Crime this year.

World War Z, by Max Brooks. Man alive, do I hate zombies.

A Dangerous Man, by Charlie Huston.

Ask The Parrot, by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake). The last book I read in 2006 was also one of the finest.

What do you know, ten on the nose. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.

The Good Stuff: TV

Believe it or not, I don’t watch much TV. I thought this year might be different. I’d sample some new shows, catch up with touted ones like Battlestar Galactica on DVD. Never happened. (Update: 2007 is another story.)

Most of what I liked is held over from last year. I’ve talked about The Wire enough, so I’ll simply say that season four is a staggering accomplishment. The Christmas party episode of The Office, directed by Harold Ramis, may have been that series’ finest hour. Right now the most complete universe on television is the bizarre parallel one that can be entered through the vortex of The Colbert Report. Just look at 2006’s final show, scattered across the website, in which the fake “Stephen Colbert” squared off against actual band the Decembrists in a guitar duel that ultimately involved Peter Frampton, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, New York governor-elect Eliot Spitzer and Dr. Henry Kissinger. Blasphemy alert: Colbert is now funnier and more consistent than its progenitor The Daily Show.

Other, newer highlights:

Broken Trail. This AMC western directed by Walter Hill was one of the best movies I saw this year on any screen large or small.

When The Levees Broke. Spike Lee’s mammoth, indispensable HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The Thick of It. The hilarious send-up of office politics and actual politics debuted on BBC America.

30 Rock. Because Alec Baldwin kills in every scene. Because Tracy Morgan’s perfect storm of narcissism and ADD still produces pearls or wisdom. (“Live every week like it’s Shark Week.”) Because of the supporting cast, namely Kenny the intern. Because Tina Fey is secretly using the show to explore the extra pressures faced by women in positions of authority. Because I can watch episodes for free online. But mainly because of Baldwin.

The Good Stuff: Music

It’s that time of year, when a man feels compelled to draft best-of lists, for a week ...

The ground rules are simple: I don’t limit myself to ten, and only 2006 titles are eligible. Which makes it difficult, considering that most of what I read, watch and listen to tends to be older. But what better way to ring in the new than by ringing in the new?

I’m starting with music because I have almost nothing to say. 2006 was the year I made a concerted effort to turn myself into a full-fledged jazzbo, so I leaned heavily on vintage stuff in an effort to, ahem, plug the holes in a spotty education. My musical highlight was at long last visiting New York’s legendary Village Vanguard to hear the Brad Mehldau trio. Look, here’s a picture.

I can recommend three excellent albums from this year if that iTunes gift card is burning a hole in your pocket:

1. Elvis Costello Live With The Metropole Orkest, My Flame Burns Blue. Which is basically a jazz record.

2. Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down Quartet, Duper Sessions. Jazz-inflected pop. Whaddaya know about that?

3. KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope. No jazz. This just rocks.

Miscellaneous: ‘Tis The Season

First, some last-minute on the road to the in-laws shopping help. Slate provides a slideshow of the finest gifts available at drug stores. Don’t say your Uncle Vince never did anything for you.

Next, to set the mood, I give you the only Christmas song worth a damn.



To quote the only Christmas movie worth a damn, “Isn’t that a lovely Noel? It’s been swell.”