crime
The Pigeon Tunnel, the New Film About John le Carré, is Intimate and Illuminating
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John le Carré (born David Cornwell) hated giving interviews. “First you invent yourself, then you believe the invention”, he wrote in his autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel. Despite these reservations, Le Carré/Cornwell ended up participating in a documentary about his life. Surprisingly, the resulting film—also called The Pigeon Tunnel, and directed by Errol Morris, feels so…
Ruins in Rain City: Trouble in Mind and the Career of Alan Rudolph
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Filmmaker Alan Rudolph has been working in the movie business for most of his life. Coming from a Hollywood family where his dad Oscar was also a director, Rudolph began his career as an assistant director on various projects including the Jim Brown/Gene Hackman flick Riot (1969), eleven episodes of The Brady Bunch and a…
How Scarface Became a “Foundational Influence for Hip Hop”
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It’s hard to think of a $21 million dollar motion picture as a “cult movie” but that’s what Brian DePalma’s 1983 Scarface almost became until it was saved by an audience that the filmmakers never had in mind. A cult movie is nothing to be ashamed of; The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Donnie Darko, and…
The New Season of “Lupin” Is Extravagant, Spectacular, and Occasionally Hard to Believe
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Two things jumped out at me back when I started watching the first season of Lupin, Netflix’s wildly successful show about a ‘gentleman thief’ in Paris who spends his days plotting heists and piecing together a scheme for righteous revenge. One, the show had some far-fetched moments, starting with the idea of a ‘gentleman thief.’…
Finding Inspiration for Mystery Fiction in Soap Operas
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What JR, Alexis, and Domingue Taught this Mystery Writer One of the best compliments I’ve received from readers about the Lady Mystery series is that each mystery unfolds like an episode of television. The vivid nature of the storytelling, the feeling that you’re in the room watching the events happen, is high praise for a…
Crime and the City: Las Vegas
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Let’s go to Las Vegas with one of the great kings of the American hard-boiled Charles Willeford in his novel Wicked Wives (1956): ‘Once the sun comes up in the desert it rises fast. It hung on the horizon like a solid neon pumpkin, beaming through our windshield. It grew warmer all the time. The…