Novel by Stansberry! Cover photo by Rozovsky!

Domenic Stansberry's novel The Confession, winner of the Edgar Award for best paperback original in 2005, is out again from Molotov Editions, available for pre-order now from Kindle and soon in other reputable e-formats.  This e-edition includes a cover photo by me.

My previous book-cover shots:

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Listening to an audiobook in French

I'm listening to an audiobook in French for the first time, Fred Vargas' Debout les morts, the novel translated into English as The Three Evangelists. My French is far from perfect, yet, to my surprise, the partial attention with which one can listen to audiobooks meshes nicely with the partial understanding imposed by the deficiency of my French. I can let the story roll by, getting the gist, without stopping to agonize over words I don't know, the way I would if reading. Already context has taught me the meaning of a few words or expressions. So I recommend audiobooks for second-language students.

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A Climate of Fear, Vargas' ninth novel featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, is high on my to-read list. And The Accordionist, an English translation of a 1997 novel about the characters known as the Three Evangelists, will appear this summer. In the meantime, here's a two-part interview I did with Fred Vargas in 2013: (http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/search/label/Fred%20Vargas%20interview)

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Because everyone else is doing it ...

Most Hated Movie: Dressed to Kill/Batman Begins
Movie I think is overrated: The Big Lebowski
Movie I love: Big Deal on Madonna Street
Favorite Horror: Freaks
Favorite Comedy: Annie Hall
Favorite Sci Fi Movie: Blade Runner
Favorite Super Hero Movie: Superman II
Favorite War Movie: Foreign Correspondent
Favorite Western: The Searchers
Favorite Japanese movie: Stray Dog

Favorite Italian movies: Amarcord/Big Deal on Madonna Street
Favorite French movie: Grand Illusion

Favorite Hindi musical heist-gone-wrong movie: Kaante
Favorite silent movie: The General
Childhood Favorite: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (or one of those Sinbad movies, anyhow)
Favorite Franchise: I don’t like “franchises.”
Favorite Director: Alfred Hitchcock/Howard Hawks

Takashi Shimura

Favorite Actor: Takashi Shimura
Favorite Actress: Myrna Loy
Favorite genre/character actor: Elisha Cook Jr.
Most talented cinematic figures: Buster Keaton/Alfred Hitchcock
Favorite movie seen recently: Elevator to the Gallows
Favorite movie of all time: Trouble in Paradise
Special award: To Sight and Sound which, out of Citizen Kane fatigue, named Vertigo the best film of all time. Memory tells me that Vertigo, while a fine movie, is not even one of Hitchcock's three best.

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Bollywood goes to Hollywood: DBB watches Kaante

I watched Kaante (2002) at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles this week. A few well-chosen and well-executed Bollywood production numbers helped make the movie's 2 1/2 hours fly by. Perhaps more heist movies should incorporate such numbers.

The major characters were all good, as were some of the minor ones. The solution to the movie's central mystery is arbitrary, but that's a red herring; the question drives the movie. The answer is beside the point.

The movie is in Hindi, liberally interspersed with English. All but one of the lead characters speaks both languages, and the script turns the linguistic duality into plot points both serious and comic. The film was shot in Los Angeles and incorporates several picturesque Los Angeles locations, among which is not, as far as I can tell, the Bradbury Building.

The New Beverly is Quentin Tarantino's theater, and Tarantino has been been quoted as rating Kaante high among movies influenced by his own Reservoir Dogs. I suspect that the occasional waves of what sounded like knowing laughter at the New Beverly reflected the audience's recognition of particular nods to Tarantino's movie, but knowledge of Reservoir Dogs is no prerequisite to enjoying Kaante.
 
© Peter Rozovsky 2017