Not Quite Parker?: Trouble Man (1972)

Note: For those of you who are new here, the “Not Quite Parker” category is where I look at pastiches of, homages to, references to, and rip-offs of the Parker novels.

Mild spoilers, but this is a pretty typical crime and blaxploitation flick, so nothing in it is all that unpredictable.

Robert Hooks […]

Movie review: The Silent Partner (1978)

Yesterday, Christopher Plummer, whose career spanned nearly 70 years and included films as diverse as The Sound of Music, Murder by Decree, An American Tail, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Knives Out, passed away at 91. In remembrance, here is a look at a film that you may not be familiar with […]

Movie review: The Untouchables

Note: I learned of the death of the legendary Sean Connery from my wife when I woke up this morning. In tribute to the great man, here is a review I wrote at another venue of The Untouchables, for which he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Jim Malone, an honest cop in […]

Movie review: Ordo (2004), based on “Ordo” by Donald Westlake

Note: This is the fourth of four posts on Donald Westlake’s 1977 collection of two novellas, Enough, reprinted by Hard Case Crime as Double Feature. The series covers the novellas and the movies based on them. Links to the other entries in the series are at the bottom of this post.

In 2004, a […]

Movie review: The Nice Guys

I knew I should have written this up right after I saw the movie, or at the very least, the next day.

But I didn’t, and now it’s been almost a week since I’ve seen it, and I really wish it were completely fresh in my head because I don’t think I’m going to […]

Movies reviews: John Wick and Maniac Cop (plus open thread)

I’ve been taking a needed break from crime fiction as of late–it’s about 90% of the fiction I’ve read since I revived this site a few years back, and I simply had to broaden my horizons a bit for awhile. It’s still my favorite, so don’t you worry–crime fiction coverage will resume.

I have […]

Movie review: Taken 3

It ends here? Let’s hope so.

 

I’m not sure which I feel worse about–that I’ve been away for so long, or that this is my return to the site.

I put some thoughts down on the original Taken in this post. I wrote about how it’s one of my favorite action flicks, […]

Movie review: A Walk Among the Tombstones

Cover of the Hard Case Crime movie tie-in edition

A Walk Among the Tombstones, as many of you no doubt already know, is based on the novel by Lawrence Block, the tenth in his series about alcoholic/recovering alcoholic (depending on what book) private investigator Matthew Scudder. Scudder is unlicensed, occasionally doing “favors” for […]

Review: Death Wish by Brian Garfield, basis for the 1974 movie

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

This week, over on Existential Ennui, I’ve been blogging about books which begat perhaps more famous films. Thus far I’ve covered two movies: Where Eagles Dare and Jaws, both of which are at least the equal of their source texts, and […]

Movie review: Drive (2011)

We lovers of noir don’t get a whole lot of bones thrown our way at the theater these days, so when Drive came out last fall to quite good reviews, I was excited. Unfortunately, its release coincided with the beginning of football season and the time of year in which I notoriously don’t do […]