Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
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You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
book: The Iron Gates (1945) by Margaret Millar
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 30, 2018
Sixteen years ago, Mildred Morrow set out late at night to walk home across a lonely park from the house of the neighbor, Lucille, with whom she’d spent the evening. But she never got there. The next morning she was found dead in the park, her skull stoved in by a mighty ax blow. And, thanks read more
book: Spirit of Steamboat (2013) by Craig Johnson
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 29, 2018
A couple of months ago I encountered Craig Johnson’s Longmire series in the form of Junkyard Dogs , and was much taken by what I read — enough, anyway, to resolve to read more in the series. The next that came to hand was this one. However, where I’d expected another laff-packed read more
Fuchi ni Tatsu (2016)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 29, 2018
vt Harmonium Japan / 120 minutes / color / Comme des Cinémas, Nagoya Broadcasting Network, MAM, Aeon, Elephant House, Asahi Shimbun, Cinémas du Monde, Mountaingate Dir & Scr: Kôji Fukada Pr: Hiroshi Niimura, Yoshito Ohyama, Masa Sawada, Tsuyoshi Toyama Cine: Ken’ichi Negishi Cast: Mariko Tsutsui read more
book: Such Small Hands (2008; trans 2017 Lisa Dillman) by Andrés Barba
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 28, 2018
A strange little book, more like a longish novelette than even a novella. I’m still undecided as to whether I like it or not. Aged seven, Marina survives the car crash that kills her mom and dad, and, after extensive surgery, is shipped off to an orphanage: “My father died instantly, and then read more
book: Newcomer (2001; trans 2018 Giles Murray) by Keigo Higashino
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 27, 2018
Earlier this year I was blown away by Higashino’s novels Malice and especially Under the Midnight Sun, so I came to Newcomer with high expectations — perhaps unreasonably high expectations. I found the novel to be rather like Yuengling’s lager: very pleasant on the palate but so read more
Compliments of the Season (1930)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 26, 2018
US / 13 minutes / bw / Warner Bros., Vitaphone Dir: Arthur Hurley Scr: Paul Girard Smith, E.K. Nadel Cine: Ed DuPar Cast: Eric Dressler, Lenita Lane, Weldon Heyburn, Pat O’Brien. A short movie with some protonoirish overtones and, as the title suggests, a great deal of seasonal interest. Eric Dress read more
book: Wall of Eyes (1943) by Margaret Millar
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 26, 2018
Golly. Where to begin? I read this novel as #4 in the fairly recently published five-novel omnibus The First Detectives, the opening volume of a hugely ambitious project from Soho Press, reprinting the entirety of Millar’s work in a matching set of six omnibuses and a memoir. (The print̵ read more
o/t: news on Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 25, 2018
Bill DeSmedt, whose near-future technothriller Singularity (2004) I gave a rave review at the infinityplus website when the book was first released — I still think the novel should have had at the least a Hugo nom — has been in touch: Full disclosure. After the review appeared, Bi read more
Get Santa (2014)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 24, 2018
UK, US, Sweden / 103 minutes / color / Scott Free, Ingenious, BFI, Altitude, Screen Yorkshire, Chimney, Lipsync, Film i Väst, Warner Bros. Dir & Scr: Christopher Smith Pr: Liza Marshall Cine: Christopher Ross Cast: Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall, Kit Connor, Ewen Bremner, Warwick Davis, Stephen Graha read more
P2 (2007)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 23, 2018
US / 98 minutes / color / P2 Productions, Aja–Levasseur, Summit Dir: Franck Khalfoun Pr: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Patrick Wachsberger, Erik Feig Scr: Franck Khalfoun, Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur Story: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur Cine: Maxime Alexandre Cast: Wes Bentley, Rachel read more
Strings (2011)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 22, 2018
US / 98 minutes / color with some bw / Pad Thai, Sperry, The Orchard Dir & Pr: Mark Dennis, Ben Foster Scr: Mark Dennis Cine: Mike Simpson Cast: Billy Harvey, Chris Potter, Elle LaMont, Karl Anderson, Jack Lee, Olivia Draguicevich, Daniel Dasent, Phillip Yeager, Gary Chason, Larry Dodson, Jenny read more
book: The Devil Loves Me (1942) by Margaret Millar
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 22, 2018
The third and last of Millar’s three Paul Prye detective novels and the first of her three Inspector Sands novels, this has an opening chapter of which Ellery Queen in his/their pomp would have been mighty proud . . . of which any GAD novelist would have been proud. In Toronto, Prye and his t read more
book: The Weak-Eyed Bat (1942) by Margaret Millar
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 20, 2018
The second of Margaret Millar’s early trio of novels about consulting psychologist and amateur detective Paul Prye, and in my opinion a huge improvement over the first, The Invisible Worm. Gone are Prye’s most irritating characteristics, notably including his propensity for quoting scr read more
snapshot: The China Lake Murders (1990 TVM)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 19, 2018
US / 89 minutes / color / Papazian-Hirsch, MTE Dir: Alan Metzger Pr: William Beaudine Jr Scr: N.D. Schreiner Cine: Geoff Schaaf Cast: Tom Skerritt, Michael Parks, Nancy Everhard, Lauren Tewes, Bill McKinney, Lonny Chapman, J.C. Quinn, David Crowley, Doug Mears, Gary McGurk, Mary Maldonado, Jack Kehl read more
book: The Malted Falcon (2003) by Bruce Hale
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 18, 2018
Chet Gecko, the rumpled PI of Emerson Hicky Elementary, solves a case involving a lost Valentine card and a stolen lottery ticket — the prize in question being a weekly serving of the Malted Falcon, the gooiest, biggest, stickiest dessert ever. With his trusty sidekick Natalie Attired in tow, read more
book: The Invisible Worm (1941) by Margaret Millar
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 18, 2018
Margaret Millar’s first published novel — and the opening salvo of her three-novel Paul Prye series — is a traditional mystery of the Agatha Christie/Ngaio Marsh variety, set in what’s to all intents and purposes a country house whose guests form a neatly constrained group o read more
book: I’d Know You Anywhere (2010) by Laura Lippman
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 16, 2018
I’ve been pretty lucky with my reading during 2018, taking things overall, so it’s a surprise that, halfway through December, I’ve encountered what may be my book of the year. I’m normally unhappy with genre pigeonholing except as a guiltily deployed shorthand, and all the w read more
The Decision of Christopher Blake (1948)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 15, 2018
US / 75 minutes / bw / Warner Bros. Dir: Peter Godfrey Pr & Scr: Ranald MacDougall Story: Christopher Blake (1946 play) by Moss Hart Cine: Karl Freund Cast: Alexis Smith, Robert Douglas, Cecil Kellaway, Ted Donaldson, John Hoyt, Harry Davenport, Mary Wickes, Art Baker, Lois Maxwell, Peter Godfre read more
book: The Madman Theory (1966) by Jack Vance, writing as Ellery Queen
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 12, 2018
Well, it was short. Five men go for a backpacking trek in General Grant National Park, California. A couple of days out, one of them has his head blown off by a double shotgun blast from the bushes. When the rest pluck up the courage to investigate, they find the shotgun has vanished — read more
snapshot: Proud Mary (2018)
Noirish Posted by John Grant on Dec 12, 2018
US / 89 minutes / color / Screen Gems Dir: Babak Najafi Pr: Tai Duncan, Mark Anthony Little, Paul Schiff Scr: John Stuart Newman, Christian Swegal, Steven Antin Story: John Stuart Newman, Christian Swegal Cine: Dan Laustsen Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover, Xan read more