Beware of Identity Theft This Easter

March 2009 Book Round-up

SF: 30: Cap Kennedy: Slave Ship From Sern – Gregory Kern(E. C. Tubb)

AD: 31: Fargo: Bandolero – John Benteen(Ben Haas)

AD: 32: Fargo: Sierra Silver – John W. Hardin

SF: 33: The Star Kings – Edmond Hamilton

AD: 34: Fargo: Dynamite Fever – John W. Hardin

SF: 35: Cap Kennedy: Monster of Metalaze – Gregory Kern(E. C. Tubb)

CR: 36: CSI: Headhunter – Greg Cox

SF: 37: The Empress of Mars – Kage Baker

WE: 38: Tales From Deadwood: The Troopers – Mike Jameson

MY: 39: The Gift Horse – Frank Gruber

HR: 40: Graveslinger – Shannon Eric Denton and Jeff Mariotte artwork by John Cboins and Nima Sorat

MY: 41: I Know A Trick Worth Two of That – Samuel Holt(Donald E. Westlake)

MY: 42: The French Key Mystery – Frank Gruber

CR: 43: House Dick – E. Howard Hunt

AD: 44: Fargo: Gringo Guns – John Benteen(Ben Haas)

AD: 45: Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow – Vic Crume screenplay by Robert Westerby and based on the book Christopher Syn by Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan

AD: 46: Fargo: The Border Jumpers – John Benteen(Ben Haas)

MY: 47: Drury Lane’s Last Case – Barnaby Ross(Ellery Queen)

March 2009 Movie Round-up

Song of The South(1946)

Them!(1954)

The Big Gundown(1966)

The Five Man Army(1970)

Two Mules For Sister Sara(1970)

Southern Comfort(1981)

Amadeus(1984)

Tombstone(1993)

Jesse Stone: Thin Ice(2007)

Vipers(2008)

Taken(2008)

George Thorogood and The Destroyers

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Blues, George Thorogood, rock

George Thorogood is another old favorite from my youth. The album pictured in the clip is the first One of his I ever bought. The song, an old Hank Williams, is my favorite from the release.

My New Favorite Commercial

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Metallica, Ncaa coaches

Here is my new favorite commercial. And I don’t usually like commercials.

And Now For Something Completely Odd*

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Brett Domino

*With apologies to Monty Python

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Brett Domino:

and:

FFB: Chiefs – Stuart Woods

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Forgotten Books, Stuart Woods

My selection this week is Stuart Woods’ CHIEFS, his first novel, published in 1981. It won the Edgar Allen Poe award for fiction and was later made into a miniseries starring Charlton Heston, Danny Glover, John Goodman, and Stephen Collins.

The time is 1920 and the small town is Delano, South Carolina. Will Henry Lee is a failed cotton farmer, lost his farm(it is 1920), who takes a job as the town’s first police chief.

In a brutal winter, the naked body of a young boy, a teenager, is found. While there is no direct evidence of murder, the body shows signs of severe beatings. Though still learning the job of policeman, Lee goes about the search with a vigor and intensity, obsessed with learning what happened to the boy.

The story stretches for forty years, intertwining with the lives of two other police chiefs, one a murderer himself, the other harboring a secret that could derail a new political career.

All this is set against the drama of a small southern town growing up, overcoming the small hatreds, racism, a class system dividing poor and rich. CHIEFS is considered the first book in the Will Lee series, a descendant of the first chief, a man who eventually becomes the U.S.President.

This is my favorite of Woods’ books and I don’t mean to slight any of his other many works. Woods has a style that is eminently readable, flowing smoothly along. I can read one of his books in just four or five hours. You get so caught up in what’s going on that it’s hard to put down.

CHIEFS is easily available, still in print, with a hardcover twenty-fifth anniversary edition and a trade paperback. Mass market copies are readily obtained on the used book sites at reasonable prices. Well worth looking up.

Wild Animation

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Blublu.org

Check this bit of genius out.

I’m told it took a year to complete.

Nu Metal – OTEP

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Otep

This band has an interesting sound. I like metal, but what exactly NU metal is I’m not sure. I know normally I haven’t really got into metal with that-how do I describe it?-the husky, gravelly voice maybe? This strikes a chord though.

I heard about this band on, of all places, Harlan Ellison’s site.

The Big Gundown(La Resa Dei Conti )1966

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Lee Van Cleef, spaghetti westerns

Lee Van Cleef plays Jonathan Corbett, sometimes bar owner, sometimes lawman, who has political ambitions in Colorado. While at a party discussing it with a rich man named Brokston, Corbett is introduced to Brokston’s bodyguard, a German named Baron von Schulenberg, a dueling specialist with twenty-three kills to his credit. You just know before the film is over the pair will hook up in a battle for superiority.

Word suddenly comes that a twelve year old girl had been raped and knifed to death by a Mexican named Cuchillo Sanchez(Tomas Milian). Corbett sets out to bring him in, following him south toward Mexico.

Every time he gets close, Cuchillo, a young, handsome Mexican with a gift for words, manages to charm people into helping him escape. He keeps telling Corbett that he didn’t kill the little girl, but knows who did. What else would a killer say?

As he follows the young rogue on into Mexico, Corbett comes to realize that all may not be as it seems, setting up a showdown at the end of the picture with all parties involved.

THE BIG GUNDOWN was the first film Van Cleef made after THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY and was his first role as lead and hero. In researching for this post, there seems to be several versions of the film. The original European cut was 106 minutes long, the American theatrical version an edited down 93 minutes. An 89 minute length has been shown on television. A Canadian fan released a version that restored the missing scenes, with English dialogue added in 2005. The DVD I came across is apparently the 89 minute television version.

I thought I had not seen the film until I watched it. Some of it is familiar. I probably saw at least parts of it on a television broadcast.

The music is by Ennio Morricone and it is a very good film. Though classed as a spaghetti western with the requisite Morricone score, to me anyway, it didn’t have quite the same feel. Maybe, in the early parts of the film, in Colorado, there were too many trees and foliage. I liked it though.

Here’s the main theme: