Category Archives: Crime film

My cultural highlights of 2022

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

The end of the year nears. That means it is time for my year cultural highlights of 2022. So, without further introduction, let’s get into it.

Film

Possibly the best new release I saw in the past 12 months was Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s The Holy Spider (2022). The story of a young female journalist (a powerhouse performance by Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) investigating a religious serial killer in a rural Iranian city, little did I know when I saw it as part of Melbourne International Film Festival in September that it’s damning commentary on the male dominated nature of Iranian society, would find such a strong real world echo in the female led protest movement shaking the country to its foundations today. While The Holy Spider is not for the faint hearted, its horror is brilliantly conveyed through show don’t tell storytelling. Seriously, a lot of directors could learn from watching this film that you don’t always have to hit the audience over the head with a narrative sledgehammer.

Two other 2022 releases make my best of film list for the year. The first is Emily the Criminal. This is a whip smart neo noir about a young woman who falls into crime, featuring Aubrey Plaza in the lead role. I call it a millennial revenge film, which I think is THE upcoming crime genre with a bullet.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, Burt Lancaster, Crime fiction, Crime film, David Peace, David Whish-Wilson, French crime fiction, Georges Simenon, Horror, Joel Edgerton, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir, Spies, True crime, Yaphet Kotto

Tagged Algiers Third World capital, Ali Abbasi, Archive 81 (2022), Aubrey Plaza, Black Bird (2022), Blue-Tongue Films, David Peace, Desert Fury (1947), Eliane Mokhtefi, Emily the Criminal (2022), Georges Simenon, Joel Edgerton, Jumpin Jack Flash David Litvinoff and the Rock n Roll Underworld, Kireon Pim, Michael Moriarty, Pascal Garnier, Ray Liotta, Report to the Commissioner (1975), Taron Edgerton, The Holy Spider (2022), The Stranger (2022), Zar Amir-Ebrahimi

Wake in Fright is a Christmas film

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

As we dive into the Yuletide season, this is just a quick reminder that Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 film Wake In Fright definitely qualifies as a Christmas film.

I recently took part in a discussion on Kotcheff’s amazing film for the Journey’s Into Darkness film discussion group in the US. I talked about what Wake In Fright says about Australia in 1971 and now, conceptions of masculinity, and urban Australians uneasy relationship with the outback and our bloody colonial past. We also discussed how the film functions as a crime film, and outback noir and an Australian folk horror. You can watch the talk in full on Youtube here.

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Crime fiction, Crime film, Horror, Noir fiction, Ozsploitation, Rural noir

Tagged Australian crime fiction, Australian folk horror, Australian noir, Outback noir, Ted Kotcheff, Wake in Fright, Wake in Fright (1971)

Projection Booth podcast #595: Nightmare Alley (1947)

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

For your Noirvember listening pleasure, the latest episode of Projection Booth Podcast is on the 1947 film noir, Nightmare Alley. I join Projection Booth host Mike White & film critic Samm Deighan to talk about the film, the William Lindsay Gresham book it is based on, and the 2021 reboot. We also discuss carnival noir & clairvoyants in noir film & I did a particular shout out to Bryan Forbes’s Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964). We also talked a fair bit about sex: how much sex Stanton Carlisle gets in the 1947 film version (because no one else ever seems to) and how sexy that version is generally, especially compared to the 2021 reboot.

You can listen to the episode in full at this link.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Crime film, Femme fatale, Film Noir, Noir fiction

Tagged Bryan Forbes, Carnival noir, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Joan Blondell, Mike White, Nightmare Alley (1947), Nightmare Alley (2021), Samm Deighan, Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), Tyrone Power, William Lindsay Gresham

Register for on-line NoirCon 2022

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Those of you who have been following my site for a while now may have seen me post about NoirCon previously. A celebration of all things noir in film, literature, art and anything else you care to mention, NoirCon was previously held as a face-to-face gathering in Philadelphia, but has been cancelled for the last few years, due to Covid and other problems.

Well, now it is back, this year as an online gathering.

NoirCon will take place Friday-Saturday, October 21-23, EST. Virtual NoirCon 2022 will be held on the Accelevents platform. An all-access pass covering the entire conference is $36. Registration includes access to the Accelevents platform for 30 days after the event, so attendees can re-watch events or catch up on panels they missed.

NoirCon is hands down the best literary/arts festival I have attended. The exact program is not live yet but whatever the fevered mind of NoirCon organiser Lou Boxer has dreamt up in terms of a program, I have no doubt it’ll be good, including new events and events that would have been held in previous cancelled versions of the program. So if you have any interest in noir at all and are able to make the time zone work for you, you should definitely register at this link.… Read more

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, 1990s American crime films, Asian noir, Australian noir, Crime fiction, Crime film, David Goodis, Femme fatale, Film Noir, French cinema, Heist films, Neo Noir, Noir Con, Noir fiction, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Tart noir, Tartan Noir, True crime

Tagged Halley Sutton, Lou Boxer, Nikki Dolson, noir art, Noir Con 2022, noir fiction, noir film, NoirCon, Richie Narvaez, Scott Adlerberg

Pulp on the big screen

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Andrew Nette| 8 Comments

This month sees the 50th anniversary of the Mike Hodges film, Pulp.

I feel like Pulp, which I reviewed on this site here back in 2016, does not get a lot of love from people, but I am a fan of its bizarre, at times almost campy noir vibe. Most of all, I like the fact that it is an ode to the era of mass produced literature and to a time when pulp, in all its forms, could still be dangerous.

The lead character is a sleazy expat British expat pulp writer called Mickey King, played by Michael Caine, a nod to the prolific writer Earl Stanley Gardner. King’s dialogue drips with sleazy pulp cadence and the film is full of images of pulp in its many forms.

Ever since watching this film, I have been on the look-out for signs of pulp in the movies. As a 50th anniversary tribute to the Hodges film, below are the screenshots of what I have managed to find so far. I am sure there are many others and I would love readers to alert me to ones I have missed or to help me identify the ones below that I have not been able to identify.