#a Hollywood whodunnit

[talkteav]

Filming is underway for Acorn TV's Irish Blood, with Alicia Silverstone starring and executive producing.

Silverstone plays a sharp divorce lawyer whose life takes a dramatic turn when a suspicious letter from her estranged father forces her to confront the past and uncover the truth.

Learn More at TalkTeaV

[dean-boese-universe]

In this episode there is so much going on.  Krysta is having issues as many young teens do, we discuss the life and death of Elizabeth Short, her crazy life and her  rough death at the hands of person or persons unknown.  After the episode stick around for a happy birthday for Lexi our daughter turning 7 on the day this episode drops.  It is a full episode all about life, death but most importantly the Fam!  Join us as we learn about the Black Dahlia and so much more in this intense episode of the Family Plot Podcast!

[justforbooks]

Stieg Larsson

His Millennium trilogy was a worldwide hit. But to the Swedish author, it was only ever a sideshow to his true life’s work: fighting fascism, racism and rightwing extremism

It is a relatively well-known fact that the author of the bestselling and most widely known Nordic noir crime series of all time never got to witness his own success. Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson died of a sudden heart attack 20 years ago this week, aged only 50, before the publication of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the Millennium trilogy that followed.

What is less well known is that on the day of his death (9 November 2004), Larsson was due to give a lecture on the Nazis’ November pogrom at the headquarters of the Workers’ Educational Association in Stockholm. Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass”, was an important date in Larsson’s calendar, which he commemorated every year. To him, it epitomised the abyss of far-right extremism he spent his life fighting.

Larsson’s life as an antifascist activist has been increasingly overlooked in the wake of his books’ phenomenal global success. One of Sweden’s most lucrative literary exports, the Millennium series has sold more than 100m copies across its various titles, according to publisher Norstedts. The novels have since been adapted into a number of Swedish TV films, a Hollywood blockbuster starring Daniel Craig, and expanded into two further trilogies by two other authors.

“And yet, the trilogy is only one episode in Stieg’s journey through the world, and it certainly isn’t his life’s work”, his life partner, Eva Gabrielsson, wrote back in 2011 in her memoir. Gabrielsson refers to the “Stieg of the ‘Millennium industry’” as being created after his death. The Larsson she knew was an unwavering antifascist – a deeply rooted conviction that shines through passage after passage of his page-turning crime thrillers.

Two decades on, the novels read like a gloomy premonition of Sweden’s political landscape to come, with the far-right Sweden Democrats a de facto part of the governing coalition since 2022. Larsson exposed the undemocratic underbelly of a country usually associated with Scandinavian exceptionalism rather than murderous Nazis. It was a side of Swedish society he knew all too well as a journalist.

In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a suspenseful whodunnit set on a fictional Swedish island inhabited by a wealthy industrialist family, Nazi pasts are never far beneath the surface of the plot. The Vanger brothers – Richard, Harald and Greger – were all members of the extreme right organisation New Sweden, with Harald becoming a “key contributor to the hibernating Swedish fascist movement”. The investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist later finds photos of Greger with Sven Olov Lindholm, a Swedish Nazi leader in the 1940s. And the fascist ideology of Richard – grandfather of the missing Harriet and her vicious brother Martin – led him to the Finnish trenches in the second world war.

In the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, we find the biker gang Svavelsjö MC (whose logo features a Celtic cross, a symbol common among white supremacy groups) at the centre of a sex trafficking ring. The gang is well connected with the organised extreme right: its number two, Sonny Nieminen, has had dealings with neo-Nazi groups such as the Aryan Brotherhood and the Nordic Resistance Movement while in prison. Lisbeth Salander’s nemesis and, as it turns out, brother – a giant brute who feels no pain called Ronald Niedermann – was part of a skinhead gang in the 1980s in Hamburg, we are told; it’s a nod to a nascent far-right subculture in Germany responsible for arson attacks and murders.

And in Larsson’s final novel, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Blomkvist and Salander expose a shadowy clique within Swedish intelligence called “the Section”, comprised of members of the extreme right Democratic Alliance. “Within the Section this was no obstacle,” we learn. “The Section had in fact been instrumental in the very formation of the group.”

While the Millennium trilogy touches on many themes, especially violence against women (the original Swedish title Larsson insisted on for the first novel translates as “Men who hate women”), Larsson condemned the Swedish far right’s influence at all levels of society.

These convictions were rooted in his biography. His grandfather, with whom he grew up with in the icy north of Sweden, was an anti-Nazi communist imprisoned in an internment camp during the second world war. The grandfather would recount the horrors of the November pogrom, leaving a lasting impression on the young Larsson, himself a committed activist, first in the anti-Vietnam war movement, then in Maoist and Trotskyist circles. But it was Larsson’s commitment against the far right that would shape his politics for the bulk of his life.

In 1979, Larsson joined the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå, where he spent the next 20 years of his modest career as a low-level journalist. But as rightwing extremists began robbing banks, stealing weapons and murdering people in Sweden in the mid-1980s, Larsson became the agency’s go-to expert.

From 1983, he began writing for the British antifascist magazine Searchlight as a Stockholm correspondent. In 1991 he co-authored a Swedish-language book on rightwing extremism. And over the years he penned numerous reports and articles on contemporary antisemitism and the far right for organisations and institutes in Israel, Belgium and France.

A pivotal moment came in 1995. Larsson co-founded the Expo Foundation, which publishes a quarterly magazine on racism, antisemitism and the far right to this day. By 1999, it had become his day job. It was a calling that came at great personal cost, landing him on neo-Nazi hitlists. He received bullets by post. Colleagues were targeted through shootings or car bombs. According to Gabrielsson, it was for security reasons that they did not marry, leaving her without inheritance rights under Swedish law.

“Stieg was a nerd at heart, but there was a certain machismo to covering the far right in the 90s,” says Daniel Poohl, head of the Expo Foundation since 2005. “It was men researching dangerous other men and sometimes that meant having a baseball bat to protect yourself. Because that’s what you do when you feel that you’re on your own.”

Poohl is sitting in the first floor office of Expo in a nondescript block in a residential neighbourhood in Stockholm. Framed covers of the compact, stylish magazine, which today has 7,000 subscribers, adorn the wall behind him. In the next room, the 14 staff members are busy planning the coming issue, page drafts of which are plastered on the wall.

It’s hard not to think of Larsson’s fictional investigative publication Millennium, with which there are plenty of parallels in the novels. “A lot of people have said to me that Millennium is basically Expo,” says Poohl. “But it’s not. Millennium was the ultimate dream magazine. Stieg was a bad businessman, so it would never work in real life.”

The success of the novels, which Larsson wrote in his spare time, has partly helped the foundation, however. A representative of Larsson’s estate said that the holding company that controls it has donated a total of over 40 million Swedish kronor (£2.9 million) over the years, which “have clearly been crucial for Expo’s activities.” .

Poohl from Expo confirmed that the foundation received one off payments, as well as an additional yearly support from the Larssons for a period and a cut of the fourth novel in the series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, published in 2015 and authored by David Lagercrantz.

“People sometimes think we received a lot of money through the books, but it’s less than they think,” he says. “We’re thankful for the financial support that we have received during the years. But the royalty agreement has since ended.” Poohl adds: “The sad part is that Stieg didn’t get to use his fame to further his political work.” Joakim Larsson, his brother, declined an interview request due to health reasons. Gabrielsson, now 70, didn’t respond to multiple interview requests.

With the electoral success of the far-right Sweden Democrats, a party rooted in Swedish nazism, Larsson’s political nightmare has in many ways come true. “He tried to show that they weren’t simply a gang of madmen plotting to infiltrate Swedish society … but a real political movement that had to be combated through political means,” wrote Gabrielsson back in 2011. The “Millennium millions”, as a Swedish documentary has called the fortune made through the trilogy, would have undeniably been a big boost to his other life’s work.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[romanceyourdemons]

i absolutely adored the coen brothers’ miller’s crossing (1990). the period piece neo-noir is an entry in a trend of such films at the end of the twentieth century, and yet it distinguishes itself from those films through its narrative and tone. many contemporary films noir set in the 1930s, though ranging in tone from chinatown (1974) to dead again (1991) to who framed roger rabbit (1988), clone the narratives of dashiell hammett and raymond chandler in their densely layered and labyrinthine twists and turns. this choice is certainly appropriate for the genre they pay homage to, but it is not the choice the coen brothers make. this film’s cast is tightly woven and its plot is simple, almost minimalistic. rather than an ever-darkening whodunnit, the film’s overwhelming emphasis is on atmosphere and tone. the gorgeous cinematography and directing put huge emphasis on negative space. rooms are shown in longer shots than are typical for the 3/4 shot-dominated noir genre; silence drags out longer than the hollywood standard prefers; dialogues are far from evenly balanced, with one character contributing far more than the other in virtually every case. these attributes draw from the third man (1949) and the french new wave, and have the same effect: presenting silence, emptiness, heartlessness, and loneliness as vitally important to survival, and utterly incompatible with well-being. with spot-on performances from all actors and absolutely gorgeous visuals throughout, this film is an absolute treat to watch. although an entry in a crowded genre, miller’s crossing (1990) is one of my favorites, and i would highly recommend it

[honoringthehorrific]

✝️I watched Maxxxine! Does this series close out on a high note?…✝️

As always friends, spoilers are under the cut!…

Let me just say this movie was a banger of an ending!!

The movie has so many little references to its predecessors specifically the movie pearl. Seeing Theda Bara’s star, soldiers marching on set, pearl’s dance being recreated by a young Maxine, and even some parallels between Pearl’s audition and Maxine’s the difference being Maxine walks out confident and telling the other girls they might as well just go home instead of in tears.

In this movie we see the trauma Maxine has from her time in Texas. She has somewhat frequent flashbacks to the events. Seeing Pearl in that window, feeling Pearl assault her, even seeing her friends pass on. All of this Maxine has to compartmentalize she has no time to ruminate or work through it she has to keep moving forward.

I will say while I loved this movie the twist at the end isn’t hard to spot. Atleast it wasn’t to me. Her father makes a return and tries exorcising Maxine for his own film about the corruption of Hollywood on their children. We see sprinkles of it through the movie the biggest hint to me was hearing his voice in the introduction recording of a young Max, and seeing signs about Hollywood stealing their children. Plus he was a loose end that needed wrapped up.

The aesthetics of the movie were phenomenal. I really felt wrapped up in all this warm hazy Hollywood 80s glamour and glow. The shininess and dinginess of it all makes it really captivating. It was almost shocking when the haze and glamour got ripped from us when violence started. Seeing this sort of underbelly to it all. That like the director Maxine works for says that things were just as shitty and awful back then as they are now. A man follows Maxine into an alleyway and pulls a knife on her only to immediately cower when she pulls a gun on him. She flips the tables and makes him strip, suck her gun, and lay on the ground only for her to turn his balls into hamburger meat under her heel.

Throughout the movie there’s this self preservation aspect that I noticed. Not only is Maxine defending herself repeatedly from these men who want to take advantage of her and harm her (the guy in the alley and this skeezy detective that works for her dad) but also her desperately needing this real acting role. The director tells her she needs to act as if her life depends on this role and Maxine tells her bluntly that it actually does. Maxine never has time to sit down and process what happened in Texas or work through it…but then again do we always get the time to perfectly work through our traumas? Maxine takes things into her own hands, pushes herself, and outwardly tells the cops when her coworkers start turning up dead that they need to save themselves.

When all is said and done I loved the movie and loved the end however I couldn’t help but feel…not fully satisfied. I wanted max to get a happy ending and she does for sure but there’s this whole narrative about the past coming back to bite you and we see her dad again but once he’s taken care of there’s no aknowledgement of what happened in Texas. There’s note that people know about it and police have been investigating it…but there’s no tie off to whether they drop it or what happens to Maxine because of the investigation…it’s just brought up by her father over and over and then kind of dropped.

All in all a killer watch. I didn’t really feel it had a whodunnit feel like some people had said but it definitely had a mystery going for it.

10/10 pentagram brands ⭐️

[gaykarstaagforever]

FREE ON YOUTUBE

Murder by Death (1976)

A weird little guy invites five world-famous detectives to his spooky mansion for the weekend, to see if he can outwit them once and for all. Silliness and charmingly lame jokes ensue. And if you're at least a casual fan of 20th century English-language detective fiction / movies up to 1976, you'll appreciate the characters and genre tropes being parodied / taken down here.

While not as raucously funny as other comedy movies from this era (like Airplane! and Blazing Saddles, assuming that era's comedy works for you at all), the Neil Simon script is consistently chuckle-worthy, with some genuine lol moments. There is one joke involving Peter Falk firing a gun and having to go to the bathroom that is one of the stupidest, funniest things I have ever seen, almost entirely because of how he delivers it. Seriously, the whole movie is worth watching just for that.

Speaking of Peter Falk, the cast is Hollywood royalty, many of them reprising crime-solving characters in parody that they were at this point famous for. Special note to James Coco as the Hercule Peroit parody Milo Perrier, one of the few actors who seems to get the tone the screenplay is trying for, so he is perpetually funny. And of course Peter Falk as Sam Diamond, being absolutely perfect as Columbo doing Humphrey Bogart doing Sam Spade. Falk was never not 110%, and that's also true here. Truman Capote, playing the principal antagonist, is...well. He was never a great actor. But he's certainly being Truman Capote and that kind of makes up for it.

Also special shout-out to Estelle Winwood, who at 93 is bright-eyed and sharp enough to make an extended fart joke funny.

(That woman died eight years after this, two years after I was born. She was born in 1883 and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Amazing.)

The big black mark on this is Peter Sellers as Sidney Wang, doing his awful stupid Charlie Chan Tojo "me so solly" yellowface garbage. Obviously his history of doing this character like this, to pop culture acclaim, was enough to get him into this movie doing it, WELL PAST the point where it was in any way acceptable. The movie knows that, sort of, and tries to Tropic Thunder it by making his behavior an object of (too) light scorn, while also pairing him with an "adopted Japanese son," played by Japanese-American actor Richard Narita. It is still utterly awkward and gross, redeemed only slightly by the fact that Sellers is a good actor so he gives Wang genuine depth of character, despite the rest of this. That is in no way a defense, and it is still terrible. Just slightly less terrible, maybe? Relatively?

With all of the magical realism and trope tear-downs in this plot, I kept expecting by the end that someone would reveal Sellers as a character perpetuating a racist fraud. But they aren't brave enough to do that. Real shame.

Also there are no Holmes and Watson parodies here, which seems like a glaring omission. Wikipedia says they cut scenes from the original screenplay which would have had them either show up right at the end, after the crime has already been solved, or near the end, and then solve it. These were apparently cut because it was decided they would distract from and overshadow the plot at that point.

Fair enough. But as the plot by the end is purposeful convoluted goofiness mixed with a meta-commentary on the whodunnit genre in general...would it have made THAT much of a difference? I don't think so.

It is a breezy 90 minutes. And while the first half drags purposefully bad jokes out a little too long and has trouble settling on a consistent comedic tone, it ramps up and is really solid by the end.

There are also some surprising jokes about sexuality and gender identity here. I don't want to oversell that, because it is all played as just more wackiness. But I didn't expect anything quite like this in a Hollywood movie from 1976. A welcome surprise.

Oh and the paper caricatures of the cast at the beginning and end were drawn by Charles Addams. Yes, THAT Charles Addams.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 67%. I'd go higher than that, at least the high seventies. That Peter Falk bathroom joke at like an hour and seventeen minutes is really goddamn funny.

[mogwai-movie-house]

Gosford Park (2001)

Just rewatched Robert Altman's Gosford Park for the first time in many years.

What a superb example of true filmmaking: every line, every glance, every detail the camera closes in upon tells you something about a character, the world being built, or life itself.

Something I've heard actors say when trying to express why Shakespeare is truly great is that 'there are no small parts' in any of his plays, and that's very much the case here: every single person who appears on the screen - and there are dozens and dozens of them - lives and breathes a full existence, no matter how few lines they get to say or how little time we get to spend with them.

It really hit me this time around that you could follow any of the characters and make the story about them, if you only decided to pay enough attention. There were three or four strands that seem, in the context of the traditional murder-mystery nature of the story, to be the ones we deem the most important, but it seems so clear that if I rewatched the film many times, I could forget about whodunnit and try figure out the fates, backstories and internal monologues of at least another 30.

And so I couldn't help but note that 99.99% of all the things we are seeing presented to us as "films" today do not do this, and cannot do this, cannot withstand even the slightest examination or expectation of life and truth below the clumsy surface messaging. The broken clockwork misshapes Hollywood and the rest of the 'movie' industry now churns out are not films at all, and we should all really get round to stopping referring to them as such. This is a film.

Having said that, and even though it certainly is a sumptuous delight for the mind and senses, perfectly acted by arguably the greatest cast in history, it still feels just a little overlong, and the producing of the point a little dragged out. Maybe I was just tired when I watched it, but I felt the reveal wasn't as good as it could be, and strands of it peter out at the end instead of resolving in a powerful-enough way.

But that's not really the focus or point of this shaggy dog story, which is much better appreciated as one of the greatest moving portrait paintings of a time and a place and a sampling of its population that has ever been committed to film. In its achievements in this highest of all pinnacles of cinematic art, it makes just about everything else you will have ever have seen look like a waste of your time and an insult to your intelligence.

★★★★★★★★★✰

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (7-13 Jan 2024)

the addition of this disaster boy was delightful

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 Second First Chances (Kedreeva) - 92K, steddie, canon-divergent Ladyhawke AU. Very well-written, exactly what it says on the tin. Very enjoyable.

😊 Murray Mysteries (Knöves Storytelling) - "full-cast audio-drama style re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, set in the present day. Mina Murray is an unemployed twenty-something, jigsaw puzzler, and brand new Podcaster. Her life doesn’t exactly make for interesting content. That is until her best friend Lucy falls mysteriously ill and Mina’s boyfriend Jonathan loses contact on a work trip to Romania…" Very creative, very queer, very enjoyable!

🥰 ship-to-ship combat (pomeloquat) - 76K, SuperBat - "Clark, in an attempt to make some spare cash, unintentionally stumbles into the world of superhero fanfiction, becomes a prolific writer for Gotham's OTP, and tries his best to fend off rival fans who want him to convert to superbat instead." - extremely funny and delightful identity porn fic

🥰 Tension and Tonic (Zenaidamacrouras1) - 78K, cellist!Bucky/artist!Steve, one night stand that develops feelings. Mostly hilarious, with some fantastic characterizations, especially of the supporting characters. Fic does go to some pretty dark thoughts very briefly but ultimately the vibe I ended up with was much more on the funny side of the scale.

💖💖 +41K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

A Letter from "Crawly" to Azirapil (mostlydeadlanguages) - Good Omens: Aziraphale & Crowley, 486 words - actual cuneiform on actual clay tablets, 'translated'. Our boy Ea-Nasir gets a shoutout. Fan makers are amazing.

veracity (pomeloquat) - DCU: SuperBat, 3K - a group of Metropolis criminals give Batman some truth serum to find out how to deal with Superman & get more than they bargained for. Absolute hilarity. Fantastic related art.

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

8 Out of 10 Cats - s22, e11

QI - series S, ep3, 5

D20: Fantasy High: Sophomore Year - BONUS "Fireside Chat with Brennan & Friends

D20: Fantasy High: Sophomore Year - BONUS "Making Chungledown Bim (with Lou Wilson)"

Finding Your Roots - "Fathers and Sons" (s10, e3): LeVar Burton & Wes Studi

Hollywood Reporter Actors Roundtable 2023

The Holdovers (2023)

D20: Escape From The Bloodkeep - "The Tomb of Ultimate Evil" (s2, e6)

D20: Fantasy High: Junior Year - "Summer Scaries" (s21, e1)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Yaaath Queen" (s16, e1)

All Creatures Great and Small - s4, e1-7 (😍😍😍)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

The Sporkful - Ozempic Isn’t So Great For Fat People, Says Aubrey Gordon

Pop Culture Happy Hour - All Of Us Strangers

Up First - Congressional Funding Deal, Israel and Lebanon, Lloyd Austin Fallout

Today, Explained - Pirates of the Red Sea

How To! - How To Keep Caring Amid Endless Crises

Shedunnit - Whodunnit Centenary: 1924

Switched on Pop - The case of the missing vocals, and other listener questions

Vibe Check - Look to God, Not Monica

ICYMI - The Nine-Month Cruise Heard Round the World

Code Switch - Everyone wants a piece of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy

Outward - Raquel Willis is in Bloom

Ologies with Alie Ward - Ethnoecology (ETHNOBOTANY/NATIVE PLANTS) with Leigh Joseph

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Baldur's Gate 3

NPR's Book of the Day - Roxane Gay fleshes out her strong 'Opinions'

99% Invisible #565 - Mini-Stories: Volume 18

Just One Thing - Be Kind

Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Sibling Rivalry Edition (w/ Ify Nwadiwe)

Dear Prudence - A DNA Test Revealed a Secret Sibling. Help!

What Next: TBD - Boeing’s Max Mess

⭐ Endless Thread - The Minnesota Timberwolves score NBA fandom in Brazil, but there's a kink

You're Dead to Me - History of Kung Fu

Today, Explained - Hollywood’s secret musicals

⭐ Hit Parade - And the Grammy Goes to… Edition

Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Copycat Brands

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

'80s Soft Pop

The Golden Age of Boy Bands

Presenting Britney Spears

Def Leppard's Greatest Bites

Best of '80s Adult Hits

Covers & Remixes

Singer-Songwriter Classics

Red Hot Chili Peppers

[cottonkhaleesi]

a rare non-crafty post from me today: So this tonsillitis is kicking my ass thoroughly and thus the soft brain wants comfort movies, and what's more comforting (about to really date myself here) than the Jonathan Creek Christmas Specials.

Seriously, they bring back a whole host of feels for me, my ma loved detective and whodunnit stories, my da loved magic tricks, and I loved watching the interplay of characters that you could have picked up of the street so well written were their foibles and talents.

Jonathan Creek especially fascinated me by having such a quick mind and not caring that the world didn't appreciate his special interests but also blatantly awkward and bad with people in a real way. Think Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock Holmes grew up at a state school, wasn't ambitious or overtly pushed, learnt the basics of how to get along with people by osmosis and was absolutely harmless -I can't stress that enough Jonathan Creek is not dangerous due to his vast intellect and knowledge, he is just a guy, who happens to be good at his job which is setting up tricks and thus is suited to unravelling them as well. And the women / love interests are all their own characters, not suped up Hollywood caricatures of women, but women with their own agendas who are often won over by Jonathan through exposure to the way his mind works and the addiction that being part of solving an impossible mystery brings.

I also used to joke in my pre-teen brain that Jonathan Creek was my third dad, because my father and he shared so many traits (up to and including t-shirt flannel shirt and oversized duffle coat fashion; inexplicably being invited to lots of parties despite being the creature who will sit in the corner, drink beer and possibly go through your bookshelves without speaking to anyone the whole time; good at crafts; wants to/does live in isolated/interesting places) and then the traits my dad didn’t share I do (analytical brain and autism-coding*)

So whilst the special effects (of which they tried to apply many) are really terrible in today's climate of CGI, and the situations sometimes require a bit of wilful suspension of disbelief, the Jonathan Creek series and especially the Christmas Specials, remain in my ultimate comfort box. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[e-b-reads]

Books of the month: March + April 2023

Failed to do any post like this for March, so now I am catching up all at once! For new followers/those who do not know, I am both a part-time PhD student and work at a summer camp (which is a retreat center in the off-season, but summer is the really busy time of year). Anyway, between the end of the semester and getting prepped for camp, the busy season has started earlier for me than usual. Doesn't mean I'm not reading! Just means I'm posting less about it. Here's books I read in March and April that I would recommend:

The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud): Had one of those impulses to use inter-library loan and reread a series I last read sometime in middle or high school. This time it's the Bartimaeus triology. (I also reread The Golem's Eye in the past two months; waiting on the third.) Anyway, I remember the books as engaging and funny, which they are; this time around I'm spending more time thinking about all the political and ethical questions raised by this fantasy society that's like our world except magicians rule everything. (i.e. I'm spending more time admiring Stroud's worldbuilding.) A series worth reading/rereading!

The Best American Mystery Stories 2020 (C.J. Box, Ed.): These were fun and fascinating, sometimes at the same time and sometimes by turns. When busy, it can be nice to have some short stories to dip into, and I always like mysteries. I especially spent time considering what exactly makes a "mystery" - some of these are more whodunnits (occasionally with a twist), others are mysterious but the reader knows what happened, others have crime and/or action but no one's solving anything. All good in different ways!

A Free Man of Color or One Extra Corpse (Barbara Hambly): Right, so I have already written about my love of the Benjamin January mystery series at least in passing. A Free Man of Color is the first in that series: 1830s New Orleans, very focused on the slave/free colored (the term at the time) community, murder mystery. I keep hesitating to recommend the series outright because it is 19 books long and, at this point, full of my blorbos, so I'm not sure I'm totally objective about it. However! One Extra Corpse is the second in a new historical murder mystery series by the same author, this one set in inter-war Hollywood but with a transplanted English protagonist. Reading this one, full of likeable characters but not the ones I feel unreasonably affectionate about, I realized: actually, I do think that Hambly's attention to historical detail, flawed but human characters, sense of humor, detail-driven mystery plots, etc., make for good books. So I do recommend either of these mystery series to anyone who likes that kind of thing! They are not flawless, but they are lots of fun.

[ceasarslegion]

I used to be a James Bond blog, my url was d0uble-0h-se7en before this. I've seen all the movies and rewatched Skyfall just last night and it got me thinking of why it rubs me the wrong way when Benoit Blanc fans act like Bond is less-than as a franchise. I used to think that maybe it was just that I enjoyed a rather antiquated series thats always had its issues regarding how it portrays British monarchism and espionage, but honestly thats... not what it is

And look, I love Glass Onion and Knives Out and I love Benoit Blanc too, but it's the attitude that Bond has nothing to offer because you may like Benoit more that's been rubbing me the wrong way. And I get that Bond isn't for everyone, it's got a pretty unique style to it that appeals to a pretty specific audience, and old-school spy films have fairly erratic pacing when compared to your average action or whodunnit. It's totally fine if you don't like it, but I don't vibe with the attitude that one of the most influential franchises of all time for cinematic storytelling, cinematography, practical effects, stunts, the list goes on, has no artistic merit because of someone's personal tastes. Especially when Bond's influence is so baked into modern cinema that it's arguably impossible to decouple any hollywood-calibre film made today from the things it contributed, including Knives Out and Glass Onion.

You don't have to like them, but you can't act like it has no value or influence on film history and modernity alike

[mediamixs]

Bodies: people who die multiple times

Bodies is a TV series that premiered on Netflix on October 19, 2023. It is a murder mystery that follows four detectives investigating the same murder in four different timelines: 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. The series is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Si Spencer. The show features Stephen Graham, who plays a key role in the mystery. The series is a genre-blurring whodunnit that travels through time and has a high sci-fi concept.

When a body is found on Longharvest Lane in London's East End in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053, a detective from each of those time periods investigates. Connections are made across the decades, and somehow the detectives discover their investigations are linked. The series is a mix of time-traveling sci-fi, police procedural, murder mystery, and period drama. The show features an all-star cast, including Stephen Graham, Shira Haas, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Kyle Soller, and Amaka Okafor. The series is a mind-bending murder thriller that could be described as a mix of Vienna Blood, Line of Duty, and The Lazarus Project. The show is set to be a breakout hit for Netflix, with its intriguing blend of genres and a compelling storyline that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats.

The critical reception of Bodies has been positive so far, with many reviewers praising the show's unique blend of genres, strong performances, and intriguing storyline. Here are some of the most positive reviews of the show:

The Guardian's review describes the show as "exceptionally good value" and praises its "thrilling and tense" modern-day scenes, as well as its "cartoonish and cod-historical" past scenes. The review also notes that the show pays tribute to its comic book origins with split screens and other visual elements.

The Hollywood Reporter's review calls the show a "decently considered dose of mid-intensity time-travel thrills" and praises its "top-notch cast" and "strong production values." The review notes that the show strikes a balance between being "amusingly ridiculous and just-plain-ridiculous."

Empire's review calls the show a "tantalisingly original concept" and praises its "grab-you-by-the-goolies" premise. The review notes that the show can be frustrating at times, but ultimately concludes that it's "just about worth sticking around for the big reveals."

IMDb's user reviews describe the show as "gripping and intriguing" and "visually stunning." Reviewers praise the show's strong performances and clever weaving together of four different storylines.

In summary, Bodies has received positive reviews so far, with many reviewers praising the show's unique blend of genres, strong performances, and intriguing storyline.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: A Haunting in Venice

[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

A Haunting in Venice is the best entry in Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot series to date.

Granted, that’s a rather low bar. Murder on the Orient Express was perfectly serviceable, but also quite generic; Branagh’s usually unmistakable voice was seemingly smothered by studio interference, leaving the finished product virtually indistinguishable from a typical Hollywood blockbuster—which ultimately prevented it from escaping the long shadow of Sidney Lumet’s superior adaptation of the classic whodunnit. And while I’ve yet to watch Death on the Nile in its entirety, its marketing left a similar impression.

A Haunting in Venice, on the other hand, is a different beast altogether. In a departure from its predecessors, it essentially abandons Agatha Christie’s source material beyond the basic premise (altering the setting, discarding several characters, and even revising the title), instead crafting a largely original story—which in turn allows it to develop its own distinctive identity.

Branagh takes full advantage of this creative freedom, making very deliberate artistic choices that elegantly convey the movie’s mood and central themes. Early on, for example, when our recently retired protagonist is at his most cynical and pessimistic, the framing is rigidly static (apart from the occasional pan), the compositions disconcertingly claustrophobic—thus lending the visuals an oppressively mundane atmosphere. When the plot unexpectedly delves into the realm of the supernatural, however, the cinematography gradually becomes more stylized dynamic: sometimes, the camera swoops and soars through shadowy corridors and spooky hidden passages like a disembodied spirit; in other instances, it’s mounted directly to Poirot’s chest, remaining focused on his face as reality warps and distorts around him. In an especially disorienting scene, the image literally flips upside down as the bewildered detective sprints through the shot, reflecting the metaphorical inversion of his perception.

These aesthetic flourishes aren’t exactly subtle, but they are extremely purposeful, mirroring the gradual evolution of the core conflict as the baffling mystery challenges our skeptical hero’s inflexible worldview. And in an industry that’s currently obsessed with maximizing box office profits at the expense of personality, this emphasis on craftsmanship, formalism, and narrative transparency is—God help us—legitimately noteworthy.

[heysatanitsyourgirl]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let's spread the self-love🫶🏻 😘

Oh god I’ve only got the two up !!

For the Hollywood dream: Gwen always assumed that if she was in a movie it would be a a psychological-thriller or at least a classic horror.

So how did she get stuck at a boarding school trying to solve and survive a living whodunnit. (Murder mystery au)

Vagabond: He forces a polite smile on his face, to make it seem like he actually gave a fuck. Which he did not. Then he checks to make sure his mohawk is still awesome in the mirror (it is) and takes a deep breath

…..

“This is a love story.” (Fleabag au)

[persephoneggsy]

My dragon age ships and their taste in movies for no reason at all:

Fiora Cousland x Alistair Theirin

Fiora likes comedies - the more absurd, the better. She’s very into Monty Python/Mel Brooks movies. Alistair, on the other hand, has a huge soft spot for romcoms, even if Fiora finds all the relationship drama a little convoluted. 

He’s just a big ol’ softie at heart and he always cries at the happy endings. Do NOT bring up The Notebook to him. He will rant. Fiora’s heard it about twenty times (because Morrigan loves to troll Alistair by constantly bringing it up).

Marian Hawke x Sebastian Vael

Maybe this is bc at this point I just like to project on him, but in my heart I know Sebastian would love science fiction. His favorite video game series is Mass Effect, so his favorite movies are any of the Star Treks, particularly First Contact. 

This puts him comically at odds with Marian, who is a Star Wars girl through and through (she unironically loves the prequels and probably had a crush on Anakin Skywalker as a kid). Other than that, I can see them liking the whimsicality of Disney animated films. 

Hildegarde Trevelyan x Cullen Rutherford

Hildegarde loves historical dramas, period pieces, etc, though she’s a stickler for historical accuracy so she’s a bit hard to please. Cullen just likes watching the battle scenes. 

For his part, I see Cullen as a mystery/whodunnit enthusiast who likes to try and guess the murderer before the end (he’s got a 75% accuracy score... Hilde has a 90%). I also like thinking Cullen likes old Hollywood-style musicals, and introduces Hilde to them on one of their earliest dates.

[owltypical]

finally watched the first knives out after all the recent fuss over glass onion and because i’m in a murder mystery mood again, movie good but i don’t hafta tell anybody that, i know i’m late to the party

it’s just real nice to see a whodunnit like that, for years now it feels like it’s been nothing but sherlock and poirot and so on adaptations with big action scenes and intense music and other inserted modern hollywood nonsense to try and make it hip and exciting and edgy for audiences they don’t respect the attention span or brain power of

i just wanna watch a bunch of weird assholes based in a weird house/boat/train/etc talk and interact and then the eccentric detective does the big reveal at the end in a fancy room