VWOP giveaway: Parker DVD

 

Update: The drawing has been held and lucky reader Sean is the winner!

I haven’t been posting or updating as much I’d like lately, so to keep you on your toes so you’ll keep checking in, here’s a giveaway.

I’ve got a used DVD copy of the 2013 Jason Statham/Jennifer “J-Lo” Lopez movie, […]

Movie review: Parker

Update: My opinion isn’t the only one. I’m adding links to thoughts from fellow Parker fans (often quite different from mine) at the bottom of the post.

Parker is terrible.

Almost everything about it is awful. It opens well enough, with a heist set at the Ohio State Fair, which […]

Parker Progress Report: Flashfire (2000)

NB: A version of this post also appears on Existential Ennui.

With Backflash (1998), the second entry in the second run of Donald E. “Richard Stark” Westlake’s Parker novels, Westlake was firmly back in the Parker groove. It was a classic Parker heist tale: an intriguing target (a casino riverboat); a familiar […]

A letter from producer Les Alexander about the Parker movie

Les Alexander was Donald Westlake’s friend for 35 years and is a producer on the Parker film. He sent this e-mail to reader Dave, who posted it to the comments. Dave and I both thought it was worth a post of its it own.

Les has been kind enough to engage us hardcore Parker […]

Parker movie tie-in book cover revealed

Here is the cover for the University of Chicago Press’ upcoming reprint of Flashfire to coincide with the film based on it. I like that they kept it simple, and I’m thrilled that they put the original title on the cover.

I think I wrote in a previous post or comment that this would […]

Guest slot: The Wolf Man, by Christopher Lyons

Let’s keep the introductions to a minimum this time: the first part of Chris’s two-part guest essay, “The Man Who Doesn’t Wink,” can be found here, so go read that (if you haven’t already) to get yourself up to speed. As before, we welcome your comments, even more so now that […]

More Parker e-book deals, and some other stuff

I haven’t had time for much posting lately, alas, so this is just a quick grab-bag post.

First, many thanks to my new co-blogger Nick for picking up some of my slack. When things are a little slow around here, remember you can always go to his site, […]

U of C Parker bookmark, and some movie thoughts

Promo bookmark from the University of Chicago press. The line is from Firebreak, the last reprint to date. There’s not much to say about a bookmark beyond “Hey! Pretty cool bookmark!” (which it is), so I’ll use it as an excuse to ramble on about other things.

I relearned a lesson in the past […]

U of C reprints: Flashfire

Flashfire hits bookstores just as the movie based on it commences filming. The introduction for this and Firebreak are by critic and biographer Terry Teachout, who has been promoting the Parker novels for as long as I can remember. I’m hoping he’ll decide to do a Donald Westlake biography one of these days.

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Movie news and the future of Parker

Good news! I have it from a reliable source that the possibly upcoming Parker flick will neither be an original nor another take on The Hunter, but will instead be based on Flashfire. I’ve also learned that the filmmakers are committed to making an actual Parker movie, with a main character as […]