noir
RAINY SEASON – A Review by Rose Auburn
Review excerpt:
I read Rainy Season in one day. Not because it’s a fairly short novel (175 pages) but because I simply could not put it down. It is not a poorly-written imitation of a Noir Romance, it is a Noir Romance. The opening was absolutely spot-on for the genre; sublime, stylised, descriptive and cynical. All the scenes played through your mind in shades of grey and black with the permanent tattoo of the rain which, in so many ways, is another character.
Rose Auburn, Writing & Reviews
Read the complete five-star review at Rose’s website:
The Bogart Advantage
It’s a close call but this might be one of those rare instances where the movie outperforms the book. The flick does have an unfair advantage though with Bogart as the lead…
Even trying to categorize “In a Lonely Place” is tricky: It has elements of murder mystery, melodrama and Hollywood insider scoop. Yet it is certainly one of the most forthright films to deal with domestic abuse ever to come from a major production company, let alone in the early 1950s. Here is a movie so rough-minded, so willing to be unsympathetic that it opens with its protagonist, a screenwriter named Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), threatening to get into a brawl with a stranger.
New York Times , April 30, 2020
#alonetogetherinalonelyplace
Say what you will…
Be it be an exploration of loneliness or light or whatever, but ”Nighthawks,” to me, is the most colorful expression of the beautiful bleakness of noir that I know…
From Those who say Edward Hopper is the artist of social distancing may be wrong:
But while some Hopper experts appreciate the wave of [social media] interest in the American painter, who died in 1967, they say it’s a mistake to brand him as a patron saint of loneliness and social isolation.”
Washington Post April 27, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. EDT
#alonetogetherwithhopper
Had to stream my way to France to finally get me some decent Neo Noir
And by decent I mean kickass…
And dark.
Really dark.
But that’s what one should expect with a Claire Denis production, non?
Oui.
LAST DAYS by Brian Evenson — A Reluctant Review
Subsequent to this seemingly short-sighted review, I was at least long-sighted enough to read more of Evenson’s work and happily I have found him to be one of the most interesting and smart and original voices writing today. Obviously I need to re-read Last Days because, obviously, the fault in its failure to successfully entertain me seems to lie with me and not Evenson.
However, until I do re-read the work, the original impression I have of it remains, so, so too shall the following review with its original two stars. – June, 2024
BOOK | FICTION | HORROR
LAST DAYS BY BRIAN EVENSON
RATING: ★ ★
I had been looking hard for a killer horror noir novel ever since reading FALLING ANGEL by William Hjortsberg, a stellar benchmark of the sub-genre that is in close competition for greatness with ANGEL HEART, its movie adaptation starring Mickey Rourke.
I eventually came across a couple of pretty good lists of horror noir books and found that LAST DAYS was high on both of them.
In Last Days I thought for sure I had a ringer.
And then when I began reading Peter Straub’s introduction for it there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was going to be the absolutely best horror noir book I had ever read.