ELLE's Isabelle Huppert

We saw the last of the 2017 movies on our list, ELLE, yesterday. It was not an easy movie to watch. However, Isabelle Huppert gives the best female performance I saw this year. She is fearless in playing a women who's raped and reacts surprisingly to it. And her rape is not the worst thing she has had to face. I am sure she will not win the Oscar but she deserves it. I have seen many of her films over the years and she has never failed to knock me out. It's too bad that American actresses in their sixties don't get this sort of material to work with. If you look at her last dozen movies and compare them to Meryl Streep's, you will see the difference. Hppert is still playing complex, sexy, strong women. Meryl just gets to play for laughs. Too bad.

Monday Night Music: TELL HIM

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

1. That the Mary Tyler Moore Show is available on Sundance Channel every Thursday.

2. A terrific production we saw of IN THE HEIGHTS, the first musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It truly is unbelievable how much local talent there is in Detroit. The huge cast, orchestra, sets, direction was terrific and it cost $25. They must have worked for almost nothing.

3. That the neighborhood I now live in is such a welcoming place. I don't think I ever realized how alienated I was in the 40 years I spent in Grosse Pointe. A Democrat in a Republican stronghold just never feels comfortable.

4. Flannel sheets. I think the first half of my life was spent without them. In Michigan, they are necessary.

5. Seeing the protestors show up at international airports within hours of Trump's latest indignities. And seeing the lawyers, working pro bono, there too. We are not the people Trump makes us look to be. The last time I protested I was a teenager and most of the people protesting with me were in their twenties. We were protesting about something that mainly affected us. This time the protesters are 3 to 93 and they are protesting the dissolution of our democracy. They are protesting for other people's rights as well as their own. I am proud to be an American when I see those scenes from airports and from city streets.In capitol buildings, in the Mall. Fight on!
 

What about you? What made you happy this week? I know it is hard to find things right now.

2017 Best Song Nominee

2017 Best Song Nominee

Scrambling to Survive: Interview with Scott Montgomery at Mystery People

https://mysterypeople.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/scrambling-to-survive-mysterypeople-qa-with-patricia-abbott/

Fridays Forgotten Books, January 27, 2017

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

A few weeks back, I think it was Paul Auster on BY THE BOOKS in the NYT, named James Baldwin as one of the most talented American writers. Asked to name the books on his nightstand: Just two — the Library of America editions of James Baldwin’s “Collected Essays” and “Early Novels and Stories.” Here's what Auster said. "Until recently, I hadn’t read any Baldwin since high school (a long time ago, given that I graduated in 1965), and because the novel I was working on was mostly set in the ’50s and ’60s, I dutifully plunged in to have another look. Duty quickly turned into pleasure, awe, and admiration. Baldwin is a remarkable writer on both fronts, fiction and nonfiction, and I would rank him among America’s 20th-century greats. Not just for his boldness and courage, not just for his enormous emotional range (from boiling anger to the most exquisite tenderness), but for the quality of the writing itself, the chiseled grace of his sentences. Baldwin’s prose is what I would call “classical American,” in the same sense that Thoreau is classical, and at his best I believe Baldwin is fully equal to Thoreau at his best. Oddly enough, I finished reading the two books more than a year ago, but they’re still on my night stand. I can’t say why — I just like having them there. They comfort me.

And this is a terrific synopsis of what I found in my first Baldwin novel, Giovanni's Room. It is the story of a young man who's fighting off his natural inclination to accept himself as gay. He has a girl he has been treating quite badly because he has no desire for her. And he also has a boy, Giovanni, who he is also treating badly because he doesn't want to desire him.  This book looks at a few weeks he spends in Paris, mostly in Giovanni's room. Giovanni is a bartender whose heart is breaking at the narrator's hand. 
This was an easy book to read because the writing is so gorgeous, but a hard book to read when you remember what being gay was like in 1958. In the end, this book seems to be about shame. When society makes something natural a shameful thing, it does us a great injustice. I hope we are not returning to this. But I fear we are.

Sergio Angelini, FROZEN CHARLOTTE, Alex Bell
Yvette Banek, ESCAPE, Philip Macdonald
Joe Barone, THE WOMAN WALKED INTO THE SEA, Mark Douglas Home
Les Blatt, KEEPER OF THE KEYS, Earl Der Biggers
Brian Busby, THE DUSTY BOOKCASE
Bill Crider, FILE ON A MISSING REDHEAD, Lou Cameron
Martin Edwards, WHO'S CALLING? Helen McCloy
Richard Horton, CHAMPION'S CHOICE, John R. Tunis
Jerry House, MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! Harry Harrison
George Kelley, COLLECTED MILLAR 
Margot Kinberg, WHAT REMAINS BEHIND, Dorothy Fowler 
Rob Kitchin, TALKING TO THE DEAD, Harry Bingham 
Kate Laity, PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ON THE DOOR, Patricia Highsmith
B.V. Lawson, SHROUD OF CANVAS, Isobel Mary Lambot
Evan Lewis,  KING KONG V. TARZAN, Will Murray 
Steve Lewis, PERISH TWICE, Robert Parker
Todd Mason, THE DEVIL HIS DUE edited by Douglas Hill, UNTHREATENED BY THE MORNING LIGHT by Karl Edward Wagner

J.F. Norris, THE GREENSONE GRIFFINS, Glaydy Mitchell
Matthew Paust. EMOTION AS MEANING, Keith M. Opdahl
James Reasoner, KI-GOR AND THE SECRET LEGIONS OF SIMBA,  John Peter Drummond
Gerard Saylor, CRIMINAL: LAWLESS, Brubaker and Phillips
Kerrie Smith, A CALAMITOUS CHINESE KILLING, Shamini Flint 
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, TRIAL BY FURY, Craig Rice
TomCat, THE BLONDE DIED DANCING, Kelly Roos
TracyK, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, Philip K. Dick 

2017 Academy Nominee for Best Song

Welll this just about sums up the first month of 2017

2017 Academy Award Nominee for Best Song

Forgotten Movies: Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

This is a doc based on Truffaut's book about Hitchcock from 1966. It is fairly new (2015) but since the movies it looks at are old, I felt it apt. Despite the 30 year difference in age, the two men died only three years apart. Such a shame. Hitchcock expresses a regret near the end that he didn't put more into character development in his movies. A small flaw perhaps in a great career.
What's you favorite Hitchcock. Mine is REAR WINDOW. VERTIGO is a bit too witchy for my taste.
And my favorie Truffaut: Perhaps SMALL CHANGE. 

Things That Make Me Happy

I listen to a podcast from NRP called Pop Culture Happy Hour on Friday that always ends with the panelists listing a few things that make them happy that week and I decided that since I am a person that tends to gravitate toward negativity, I was going to do this too. Every Monday. And please add something on here that has made you happy of late.

1. I am happy that the Million Women March went so well both in terms of numbers and in terms of there being few if any violence incidents. The one in Detroit was a love fest and Megan tells me the one in DC was transformational and one of the greatest events in her life.

2. I am happy that I saw a play by a friend's son called SMART LOVE and it was sensational. It was about A.I. and it was surprising, touching, thought-provoking. Keep the name Brian Letscher in mind. (He is on SCANDAL if the name rings a bell).

3. I am happy the film HIDDEN FIGURES is doing well. When's the last time a serious movie about the success of black women did well at the box office.

4. I am happy that Phil's C-T scans have been very good. He may only need 2 radiation shots and the last six chemo sessions.

5. I am happy to be nominated for an Edgar award. I never thought I would write a book much less have it get some love. And to be going with my daughter--well, wow!

So how about you? What are you happy about this week?

COLOR of the DAY Colorstrology by Michele Bernhardt

JANUARY 23 DISTINCTIVE INTRIGUING STYLISH PANTONE® 17-3919 Purple Impression

Anniversary Waltz: THE STORY OF US

On the 21st, Phil and I will have been married 50 years. As is often the case, in a way it seems like forever, but in other ways it seems like yesterday. We had known only each other a year and half. We got married between semesters of graduate school for Phil at Rutgers. I had just turned 19. He was 22. After spending the first weekend together at our new apartment in New Brunswick, I returned home to work for Bell of PA until I could get a transfer to New Jersey. It didn't seem as odd at the time as it does now. I was still a child in most senses of the word.

We had met in the summer of 1965 in New Hope, his hometown. His parents owned a luncheonette/newsstand there. I had worked in New Hope the summer before but that summer I just happened to be visiting the friend I had roomed with in '64. It looked to be a summer romance for both of us. And nearly was. I think we both went off to college believing that. But after a time, it became clear it was more.

Crystal Palace where we both worked in '66 and I worked in '64

A warm January in Philly. Phil's brother, Billy, is missing from this picture. That's my brother, Jeff, on the left.

Phil finished his Ph.D in 1970, the year our son, Josh, was born. We moved to Michigan where Phil got a tenure track job teaching political science. A year later, Megan came along. Fifty years, wow.

Today I will be marching in the Million Women Parade in Detroit. Then we will drive to Chelsea MI and see a play and spend the night. Tomorrow we will have brunch with the Agnews in Ann Arbor (Aunt Agatha's Bookstore) A nice day.

I Am Woman

Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, January 20, 2017

Thanks for all the congratulations. You are the people whose opinion I most value.

Don't forget our special edition on dangerous children in a few weeks.

As suggested by the forces for good in the world, I am staying offline as much as possible today so FFBs not posted early in the day might not be posted until a lunchitime check. My TV is tuned to H& G all day. Hope I got it right.

Mute Witness – Robert L. Pike (from the archive of Randy Johnson)

MUTE WITNESS is the novel upon which the Steve McQueen film BULLITT was based. One of my all time favorite McQueen vehicles(yes, I said that), if not his best, I lost count long ago how many times I’ve watched it.

It’s been quite a few years since I read this one, the first novel, of three, that featured Lt. Clancy, the only name in the novel. In looking around for this post, I learned it was originally intended that Spencer Tracy was to play the role and play it pretty much straight from the novel. When he passed away, McQueen moved into the role and the changes began.
They pretty much stuck with the plot of the film. A mobster is murdered while being guarded by the cops. The officious D.A.(played by Robert Vaughn) is miffed when the cop hides the body, allowing everyone to believe he’s still alive as he hunts for the killer.
The differences:
As I mentioned earlier, Lt. Clancy(no other name) is the name of the cop instead of the McQueen’s Frank Bullitt. The action is moved from New York to San Francisco for the movie. There’s one subplot dropped for the movie. Clancy is pretty much a loner in the novel and Jacqueline Bisset plays the invented girl friend in the movie.
And there’s no car chase in the novel. That was to ham up the movie and was used as the way to deal with the killers which was in the subplot dropped from the novel.
This was more of a mystery than an action piece. The book seems to be out of print and copies are hard to find and expensive. There are copies of the British movie edition(retitled Bullitt) reasonably priced for a used copy. The best deal though is here for the Kindle.
The editing of the car chase scene is a fantastic piece of work that won Frank Keller the editing Oscar despite a few amusing things. Scenes were shot from several angles simultaneously, resulting in the same dark green Volkswagen appearing four times and, though I have yet to spot it, a Thunderbird three times. I’ve always maintained that five hubcaps came off the Charger during the chase, though others disagree, while admitting scenes at various points show different hubcaps missing. Two of each car were used in the shooting that took four weeks.
My favorite shot is when Bullitt has used his knowledge of the streets to lose the Charger and the two hoods are driving around looking for him. A shot of the rear view mirror shows McQueen’s Mustang topping the hill behind them now.
The driver in the scenes was the actual stunt driver that did the driving, which resulted in him doing the same for a chase in THE FRENCH CONNECTION.
Finally, you just know I had to include the car chase. This was the best clip I could find, slightly edited and with different music. Just click on the Watch on You line.
I had some thoughts of including BULLITT on Todd Mason’s Overlooked Movies Tuesday, not so much overlooked as ignored by the younger moviegoers of today. You know, if it wasn’t made it the last ten years, it’s no good. I have a nephew, who’s thirty-one, something of a Mustang enthusiast, that I thought might like it. “Meh, Fast and Furious was better.”

Mark Baker, F IS FOR FUGITIVE, Sue Grafton
Yvette Banek, CAT AMONG PIGEONS, Agatha Christie
Joe Barone, FADE AWAY, Harlan Coban
Patrick Balester, Patricia Highsmith
Les Blatt, HE DIES AND MAKES NO SIGN, Molly Thynne
Elgin Bleecker, LOVELY LADY, PITY ME, Roy Huggins
Brian Busby, JOHN, Irene Baird
Bill Crider, DEADHEAD, Carleton Carpenter
Martin Edwards, MURDER ON SAFARI, Elspeth Huxley
Curt Evans, Elizabeth Gill
Richard Horton, THE TIME-LOCKERS, Wallace West
Jerry House, THE WOMAN IN THE CASE, Ellery Queen
Nick Jones, THE SNAIL WATCHER AND OTHER STORIES, Patricia Highsmith
George Kelley, THE IRON TACTICIAN, Alastair Reynolds
Margot Kinberg, AN EASY THING, Paco Ignacio Taibo
B.V. Lawson, A NIGHT AT THE CEMETERY, Anton Chekov
Evan Lewis, THE EXECUTIONER IN THE LIBRARY, Don Pendleton
Steve Lewis, DEATH OF MY AUNT, C.B.H. Kitchin
Todd Mason, BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
J.F. Norris, MISS BONES, Joan Fleming
Matthew Paust, A SEPARATE PEACE, John Knowles
J. Kingston Pierce, THE MAN, Irving Wallace
REACTIONS TO READING, TOO LATE TO DIE, Bill Crider
James Reasoner, DEVIL'S MANHUNT, L. Ron Hubbard
Kelly Robinson, THEY CALL ME A CARPENTER, Upton Sinclair
Richard Robinson, ALL THE KING'S MEN, Robert Penn Warren
TomCat, MURDER ENDS THE SONG, Alfred Meyers
TracyK, THE PENQUIN POOL MURDER, Stuart Palmer

SHOT IN DETROIT nominated for an Edgar!!!!!!!!!!!!

Among so many wonderful novels. Wow! Maybe 2017 is going to be a better year.

Wednesday Night Music

Tuesday Night Music

FENCES

FENCES was the second best movie I saw this year (Denzel Washington starred in it and directed it). (MOONLIGHT was first on my list because I think it has a slight edge artistically).And also it broke new ground with the story it told.
FENCES was a straight-forward account of the life of a fifty-something black man in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. He is not a good man, but you will feel some sympathy for him by the end. Maybe not as much as I think Wilson does though.
Wilson's plays chronicle the lives of African-Americans for the last century. It is not a happy story. But if America has produced one great playwright I would nominated August Wilson as that one. The five plays on this list I have seen were all moving, authentic, truthful, artful. He creates real people with real problems. JITNEY is opening on Broadway now.

Have you seen any August Wilson plays or the movie versions? 

Plays

• Recycle (1973)
• Black Bart and the Sacred Hills (1977)
• Fullerton Street (1980)
• Jitney (1982)
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984)
• Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984)
• Fences (1987)
• The Homecoming (1989)
• The Coldest Day of the Year (1989)
• The Piano Lesson (1990)
• Two Trains Running (1991)
• Seven Guitars (1995)
• King Hedley II (1999)
• How I Learned What I Learned (2002)
• Gem of the Ocean (2003)
• Radio Golf (2005)

Honors and awards

• 1986: Whiting Award for Drama
• 1987: Pulitzer Prize for Drama – Fences
• 1987: Tony Award for Best Play – Fences
• 1987: Outer Critics Circle Award – Fences
• 1987: Artist of the Year by Chicago Tribune
• 1988: Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library
• 1988: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Joe Turner's Come and Gone
• 1990: Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts and Distinguished Pennsylvania Artists
• 1990: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play – The Piano Lesson
• 1990: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – The Piano Lesson
• 1990: Pulitzer Prize for Drama – The Piano Lesson
• 1991: Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame award
• 1991: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates^[27][28]
• 1992: American Theatre Critics' Association Award – Two Trains Running
• 1992: New York Drama Critics Circle Citation for Best American Play – Two Trains Running
• 1992: Clarence Muse Award
• 1996: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Seven Guitars
• 1999: National Humanities Medal
• 2000: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Jitney
• 2000: Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play – Jitney
• 2002: Olivier Award for Best new Play – Jitney
• 2004: The 10th Annual Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities^[29]
• 2004: The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Freedom of Speech Award
• 2005: Make Shift Award at the U.S. Confederation of Play Writers
• 2006: American Theatre Hall of Fame.^[30]

A List o

When Life Turns a Good Book Sour

So I am reading along and this book is working wonderfully for me. Yes, it is complicated reading about boats and the sea but I am hanging in there with the info-although it does occasionally seem like an info dump.
But then some men begin work on a  pipe under my house. And it is water inside my house that becomes an issue. They are drilling through the slab to retrieve missing equipment. There is unexplained water in my bedroom. They are pouring concrete inside the house. The house is beginning to look like a dump. Horrible stuff.
And suddenly I lose enough focus that I am unable to follow the plot. Did I miss the part that told me who this guy was? Am I supposed to believe in ghosts or did I miss that too?
Now I have little interest in finishing the book because I lost its train of thought.
Does this happen to you? Does life influence your ability to concentrate? Does it make a plotline seem jagged and fractured? Have you ever put aside a good book because you've missed too much to understand what's going on? Or do you go back to the place you began to veer off course.

Theme Song from A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

My Favorite Albums as a Teen (Say 16)

To put my mind in a better place, here are my favorite albums as a teenager. Get ready for the "olden days"

Rubber Soul, Beatles;
Highway 61, Bob Dylan,
Let It Bleed, Rolling Stones;
Wildflowers, Judy Collins,
Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys;
Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkle.
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, The Mamas and the Papas;
The Animals, The Animals;
Where Did Our Love Go, The Supremes;
My Generation, THE Who;
Mr. Tambourine Man, The Byrds.

What were yours? 

No FFB This Week

Due to unforeseen non -health related events, there will be no links here this week. Sorry for the interruption but I will have no Internet access.

Your Favorite Novel That Takes Place at Sea

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0122VFAFE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Reading this right now. And really liking it.

What are some of the great novels that take place at sea?

Tuesday Night Music: Wouldn't It Be Nice

Forgotten Movies: SHAMPOO

Forty years later, this film seems like a bit of a mess. George (Beatty, a Hollywood hairdresser and Lothario) is more pathetic than I remember him. The women (Hawn, Christie, Grant, Fisher) seem vacuous and sad. Maybe they are supposed to be. Maybe with the election of Nixon, everyone is supposed to seem lost. Directed by Hal Ashby, it does connect with the frenzy of the era-or perhaps the frenzy of youth. Jack Ward, (did he play in every movie over this period?) captures it best being well past the age when frolicking at pot parties seems appropriate. I expected to like it more--I think I did at the time--but it reminded me oh, so much of the despair we are experiencing now. How trivial we all can look when are pursuits are so superficial. And George seems more than a little like our p****grabbing President-elect.

Beatty huimself seems a lot like a flash in the pan now too. I caught part of HEAVEN CAN WAIT a night later and felt much the same way. Sluggish scenes, too much talking, too in love with his own face.Maybe REDS. Any Beatty apologists out there?

BRIGHT LIGHTS

HBO showed a ninety minute film Saturday night (and I am sure it will be on demand there) that detailed the parasitic bond between Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. The film was a tragic summary of their lives in that it more resembled a west coast version of Gray Gardens than a film about two successful women.

Much like the doc on Joan River and Elaine Stritch is was obsessed with painting these women as sad figures and little more. There was almost no discussion of their history or careers and instead we see both of them wandering around their eccentric houses, striking poses, singing half-songs. Yes, okay Carrie can sing, but boy she is better at writing or offering commentary on modern life. By constantly showing her singing it's as if the documentary wanted to paint her as a failed singer and not a successful novelist, scriptwriter, essayist, performer.

Perhaps Carrie is attached at the hip to Debbie. Perhaps Debbie turned both her children into hand-maidens but certainly there is much more to their story.

I especially found the long segment on Carrie signing autographs for $70 a piece annoying. Would they devote a segment to an athlete doing this? 

Why do film-makers need to shape the lives of older women into tragedies?I can't imagine such a pathetic rendering of the life of male performers. Okay, maybe Jerry Lewis.

Friday's Forgotten Books, January 6,2017

TONY AND SUSAN is the novel the Tom Ford's movie, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS comes from, Ford is only interested in a small part of the novel though. And he is more interested in style than substance. As I was vaguely dissatisfied with the movie, so too the novel.

Susan and Edward were married 15 years earlier. Both have remarried. One of the contentious issues in Susan and Edward's marriage was his desire to be a novelist. He didn't work very hard at doing this though. But now he sends Susan a ms of his novel. And at least half of the book is devoted to that novel. It's the story of a man, his wife and daughter, on their way to a vacation that are accosted by three scoundrels on the highway. His wife and daughter are taken as Tony stands helplessly by. The rest on the novel within the novel concern his efforts to alternately put this behind him and to find the men.

The Susan and Edward part of the novel details their marriage and also her subsequent marriage to Arnold, a doctor.

There are a lot of complimentary blurbs on the cover. One even from Saul Bellow. (The novel was written 25 years ago). But I found it repetitive in parts. We spend too much time with Tony and his abductors years later. Too much time with a sheriff trying to close his final case. I guess I wanted it to either be a noir novel or a domestic one. This one satisfied neither for me.

Yvette Banek, THE MONUMENTS MEN, Robert M. Edsel
Joe Barone, VANE  PURSUIT, Charlotte MacLeod
Elgin Bleecker, NEW YEAR'S EVE/1929, James T. Farrell
Brian Busby, THE TRUDEAU PAPERS, Ian Adams
Bill Crider. MY TURN, John O'Hara
Martin Edwards, WHICH WAY CAME DEATH, Faith Wolseley
Richard Horton, THE COLLECTED TALES OF E.M. Forrester
Jerry House, SURVIVAL ZERO, Mickey Spillane
George Kelley. SECRETS OF THE WORLD's BEST SELLING WRITER: Erle Stanley Gardner (Fugate)
Margot Kinberg, A THREE-PIPE PROBLEM, Julian Symons
B.V. Lawson, HABITS OF FEAR, Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Steve Lewis/William F. Deeck, THE VALENTINE VICTIM, Douglas Macleish
Todd Mason, THE LONG GOODBYE, a 1972 draft of the screenplay by Leigh Brackett; BRASS KNUCKLES by Stuart Dybek
Steven Nester (THE RAP SHEET), DESERT TOWN, Ramona Stewart
J.F. Norris, A CORPSE FOR CHRISTMAS, Henry Kane
Matt Paust, MATTAPONI QUEEN, Bella Boggs
Reactions to Reading, CRIME OF THE FATHER, Thomas Keanealy
James Reasoner, ANGEL'S FLIGHT, Lou Cameron
Richard Robinson, THE ESSENTIAL A.E VAN VOGT
Gerard Saylor, SWEET RIDE. Richard S. Prather
Kerrie Smith, THE MADRAS MIASMA, Brian Stoddart
Kevin Tipple, OF ALL THE SAD WORDS, Bill Crider
TomCat, THE MYSTERY OF THE LAUGHING SHADOW, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
TracyK CURSED TO DEATH, Bill Crider

Martin Scorcese: A Career in Ten Songs

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/martin-scorsese-songs-soundtracks-music?utm_content=buffera4189&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitterbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

The most satisfying novel

What novel was most successful in meeting the task of satisfying the reader. It doesn't have to be the greatest novel you ever read but one that when you closed the cover, you were sated. One where from start to finish you wanted to find out what was going to happen next.

Now normally I am not a huge Agatha Christie fan, but I found MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS very satisfying. In the crime area, also DAUGHTER OF TIME and A PLACE OF EXECUTION by Val McDermid.

Although it's a very sad book, I found NEVER LET ME GO, by Ishiguro very satisfying too. He made it about more than the idea of cloning humans. NEMESIS by Philip Roth was a small gem. So too LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER by Stewart O'Nan.

How about you? What book started well and never let up?

Forgotten Movies: THE VERDICT

What holds up best in THE VERDICT is Paul Newman's performance and the gritty feel Lumet gives it. In the 35 years since it came out, a million TV shows and movies have come up with more twisty plots, more diabolical insurance, law firms and hospitals. So it seems pretty tame now. There are a few characters who would have been knocked off nowadays,
Newman plays an alcoholic lawyer who's given a last chance for a big payoff by his pal. All he needs to do is take the settlement. But once he sees the comatose woman he's settling for, he goes for a bigger payoff. This was a highly watchable film, Lumet really knows how to give a film texture and make it seem real. Newman was expected to win the Oscar for this but he didn't win until THE COLOR OF MONEY a few years later. This was the first film where I remember thinking that he was finally getting older. Charlotte Rampling is the gorgeous young woman he has an affair with.

A year earlier in ABSENCE OF MALICE

Favorite Movies of 2016

MOONLIGHT-absolutely the best movie I saw last year.
FENCES-So much talent. 
JACKIE-a terrific performance and an artistic achievement
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA-another heart-breaker and another great performance-well, two really
O.J. MADE IN AMERICA-They released this theatrically
LALA LAND, a charming musical
HELL OR HIGH WATER-a western so well done.
CLASS DIVIDE-a doc that really kept our attention
AMERICAN HONEY-how the milennials are ripe for exploitation
LOVING-two great performances in a low-keyed take on the court case
WIENER DOG-you couldn't write this stuff
THE WITCH-mesmerizing take on a Puritan-era family's tussle with the supernatural
EYE ON THE SKY-the best thriller I saw last year.

I could go on but twelve is enough. How about your favorites of 2016.