Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Best Hollywood film mysteries--

Last week, CBS-TV aired the American Film Institute's list its top 10 lists in 10 film genres. I missed the show but thanks to the Associated Press story, I saw that there was (thankfully) a "Mystery" entry.

The number one mystery film is right at 50-years-old now, the eerie and dramatic Alfred Hitchcock classic "Vertigo" from 1958. [I count it as a fun treat that I did see the movie on the big screen years ago. I think most good films deserve a movie theatre viewing.] I didn't know until I looked it up in Patrick McGilligan's biography Alfred Hitchcock: a life in darkness and light that the movie plot evolved from screenwriters adaptation of a French novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The story was also set during World War II (unlike present-day San Francisco in the movie). I googled the original film poster which I think is a masterpiece in itself. It is a great choice for the category although the second selection "Chinatown" is my long-time personal favorite from 1974.

The list continues with "Rear Window" from 1954, "Laura" from 1944, "The Third Man" from 1949, "The Maltese Falcon" from 1941, "North by Northwest" from 1959, "Blue Velvet," from 1986, "Dial M for Murder" from 1954, and "The Usual Suspects" in 1995.

Thank goodness for DVDs and microwave popcorn!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Book Club discusses "Bangkok Tattoo"

Bangkok Tattoo was the book selection for the book club for May (as mentioned in the previous post) and it was a first this respect: an explanation about the writer and his work was emailed before the book club. Author John Burdett was featured in an original essay entry for "Powells.com" as a writer about Thailand who decided to base a detective series there. (Here's a pix of John that matches the one in the back of the book lap.)

Entitled "The Power of Difference," Burdett's essay details Thailand culture and environment through the narrow perspective of Theravada Buddhism (in Southeast Asia) and women sex workers in the bar scenes.

I suspected the essay would be helpful to put the book in perspective or understand it and some book clubbers agreed.

Here are some other points made regarding the book: two had visited Thailand years ago and didn't recognize it from the novel (of course, Burdett writes about a small community of Thailand), the wry humor (mainly as told by narrator Sonchai Detective Jitpleecheep with his observations of life) was appreciated and one person skipped the book after reading a number of pages while another went on to read the first "Jitpleecheep" novel, Bangkok 8. Additionally, it was pointed out that frequently used term for foreigners farang seemed to be a derogatory (maybe on the sly side?) code name for Americans and Europeans. One book clubber said she never heard that expression in Thailand.

Finally, the author's writing was considered good (although unduly graphic at times as one pointed out and I read a graphic scene that jumped out at me) and crafty with the story broken into sections that relay the entire novel. And the writing style of long (elaborate) sentences caught my eye as, for instance, the detective prepares for breakfast out and considers: I'm pretty hungry, so I choose kuay jap, a thick broth of Chinese mushrooms and pork lumps streaming with nutrition as the hawker dips and raises his ladle, a great writhing knot of kuaytiaw phat khii mao (literally "drunkard's fried noodles"; a stir-fry of rice noodles, basil, chicken, and crimson tide of fresh sliced childes), a single fried trout with naam plaa (a transcendentally sauce made of fermented anchovy__an acquired taste, farang), a glass of cold, clear nongaseous water from the world-famous Krung Tep Faucets, a 7-Up--and I'm all set.

OK, now there's a sentence that tries to say it all.

Friday, June 06, 2008

More with Arthur Rosenfeld--

Here's an additional message about Mr. Rosenfeld (see the previous post for more), if you look at his website on the ABOUT webpage then you'll see his "Favorite Books" list. Included is the John Burdett title Bangkok Tattoo, which ironically, the book club read in May for its book selection.

This book is a murder mystery set in Bangkok, Thailand with the police investigating the death of an CIA agent in the company of a prostitute. It is the second of a series with Royal Thai Police detective Sonchia Jitpleecheep in a novel with mystery, world politics, Buddhism and (steeped in) Eastern culture. This book would certainly appeal to Mr. Rosenfeld. Now as for the book club, here goes...

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Another Genre to Mention...

Flipping through a recent Rolling Stone magazine I ran across an ad that really caught my eye. Check this out--(in red, large print) "Kung Fu Noir (Martial Art Fiction Comes of Age)" the ad proclaims.

Well, read further and the author of book promotion (The Cutting Season and Crocodile and the Crane, that is) explains all on his website. Of course, first you may go to the "kung fu noir" website and notice "Arthur Rosenfeld" in red at the bottom. This genre is (as of 2008) primarily: [a] unique blend of traditional martial arts tales (wuxia) with contemporary American crime fiction.

Different, huh? Rosenfeld says so and with a background in Asian culture and philosophy, a martial arts expert and writer of books and magazine articles, he appears to have "the right stuff" to proclaim this new genre. Here's a pix of the talented guy from his website. Our library system has his Crocodile book and would likely get more if these titles keep gaining interest.

Is he is on the start of a big new series for crime fiction? We'll have to see.