How Selective is Your Audience?

Joe Clifford’s name has lingered on the periphery of my consciousness for close to a year, one of those guys I “really ought to read sometime.” About ten percent of those guys actually get read. The fault is all mine. There are too many good writers and good books, and not enough time.

Then I went to Bouchercon in Long Beach and saw him on a panel, learned more about him and his writing. That bumped him up near the top of the queue. (The last writer to get such a Bouchercon Bump was Les Edgerton, after seeing him in Albany. If I end up liking Clifford’s books half as much as I like Les’s, the trip to California was worth it, right there.) Clifford’s Junkie Love is still a few books down the list, but his blog has caught my attention. He posts about once a week, and I’ve yet to read anything that was not thought provoking and well-conceived. Definitely worth checking out.

Last week he wrote about forgiveness, and morphed it into a discussion of audience. (I’ll wait here while you check it out. It’s worth both our time.) He references a friend named Joe Loya, who changed Clifford’s views about writing for an audience. (The abundance of Joes in this story forces me to stick with last names. Sorry if it seems impersonal.)

Clifford had been of the opinion to keep the audience in mind at all times. (I’m paraphrasing. You want the straight scoop, read the damn blog. I gave you the link.) After a chat with Loya, Clifford has reconsidered. Loya’s money quote: “I tell my students, find your audience. If your audience is ten people and a chapbook, then it’s ten people and a chapbook. Go out and write your story.”

This resonated with me. I had come to a similar conclusion a couple of years ago, fortified by the (limited) success conferred on me by the contract and reviews of Grind Joint, and the Shamus nomination for A Small Sacrifice. Not to be an arrogant ass, but I knew what I was doing, and I was good at it. There were people who enjoyed and appreciated it. Maybe not enough of them to make a living at it (certainly not so far), but enough to give me comfort on long winter nights that I was not some poseur dicking around as an “artiste.”

My concern was, that’s the kind of attitude a person takes when he doesn’t have the balls to take the chances needed to rise above the crowd. Having come to respect Clifford’s opinion as I have, I consider Loya to be thoroughly vouched for; his concept explains a lot. It’s not unfair that James Patterson/Dan Brown/E.L James sell so well, even though I wouldn’t read any of them for money. (It’s not personal. What they write isn’t to my taste.) That’s fine: I’m not their audience.

We can only control our output, based on the gifts we have. Rare is the writer who gets to choose his or her audience; audiences choose us. Paraphrasing Loye, write your story, own your book, and see who comes to it. By all means, get the word out as best you can, but the audience that comes is your audience. Appreciate them. Love them. They’re giving you their two most valuable possessions: their money and, maybe even more important, their time. Just don’t pander to them. People can spot a phony.

Thanks, Joes. Not only did you provide some validation, you got me thinking about it from a different angle, so I appreciate the concept even more than I had before.

Beth Kelly: The Western Picture Rides Again

Today OBAAT broadens its horizons with the first post from Beth Kelly. Beth is a blogger and freelance writer from Chicago. She loves old Western, but has never been west of the Mississippi. (She hopes to change that soon.) When she’s not writing, she can be found practicing piano or teaching her cat new magic tricks. Find her on Twitter @bkelly_88.

Beth approached me a couple of weeks ago t ask if I’d be interested in running some of her pieces on Westerns in the blog. I read some samples and told her to fire when ready. I’m looking forward to seeing more from her as she gets a little deeper into what makes Westerns special to her, and maybe provoke a few arguments lively discussions while we’re at it.

Take it away, Beth.

The Western is a tradition as old as American cinema itself. The idea of the nomadic gunslinger who rides into the frontier town and confronts—or  becomes—the local criminal is closely tied to the classical American values of exploration and individualism. More recently, filmmakers have broadened their perspective on the genre, and used it as a backdrop to explore more deeply the themes of racism, violence, community, women's rights, and many others. This has led to the reestablishment of the Western as a commercially viable and artistically important art form.

The concept of Manifest Destiny played heavily into the stories of early Westerns, and Native Americans were often portrayed as dishonest savages who threatened the well-being of frontier towns. This is apparent in John Ford's 1939 film Stagecoach, which launched the career of Western film icon John Wayne and is considered one of the most influential films of all time. In Stagecoach, the villains are Apache Indians, and Wayne's character, a fugitive, becomes the hero of the piece when he helps protect a group of settlers from an Apache attack.

Over the next two decades, Westerns became a metaphor for the hard working, individualistic American spirit. The image of John Wayne or Gary Cooper fighting Indians or outlaws against the backdrop of the sun beating down against the wide-open plains was a parallel, for many, to the entrepreneurial attitude needed to survive and succeed in the wide-open free market. In the 1960s, however, film noir began its heavy influence on American cinema, and the Western was no exception. Noble frontier knights in shining spurs started to be replaced by opportunistic drifters and hired guns whose primary motivation was money or simple revenge. These traits are most distinctly highlighted in the spaghetti Westerns of Italian director Sergio Leone, whose hero, often played by then-rising star Clint Eastwood, was typically a selfish, amoral drifter who excelled at killing and subterfuge. Leone's films influenced a slew of imitators, but by the mid-70s, production of Westerns in general had declined rapidly, perhaps because audiences felt the genre had been thoroughly explored and had nothing left to offer.

It wasn't until 1990's Best Picture winner Dances With Wolves that the Western began to regain popularity. Based on the book by Michael Blake, Wolves tells the story of an American army lieutenant who befriends a tribe of Lakota Indians. The subject matter allowed for a more introspective and character-driven film, and for a more comprehensive and sympathetic view of Native Americans than had been seen in previous Westerns. Only two years later, another Western won the Best Picture Oscar: Clint Eastwood's unanimously praised Unforgiven. Heralded as an instant classic, Eastwood's film explores the themes of heroism, violence, and revenge as they relate to an aging gunman, played by Eastwood himself. Taken in the abstract, the film can be viewed as a self-aware examination of the progression of the Western itself as a genre, or of Eastwood's own career, as the most popular living Western movie star.

Since those two landmark movies, the Western has attracted a wealth of talented filmmakers. Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain is a story of forbidden homosexual love. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is about the evils of slavery, and borrows its titular character from a 1966 spaghetti Western. 2010's True Grit saw a classic John Wayne Western remade by the Coen Brothers. The most recent buzzed about Western is Slow West, starring Michael Fassbender. Before the film even had a chance to premiere at Sundance A24 productions and DirecTV bought the rights to distribute it. The popularity of the Western may rise and fall, but the beauty of its landscapes, its window into the soul of American culture, and its resonance with American film goers will always be universal.

Sons of Anarchy, Season One

Kindly Old Doc Eaton told me I either lose significant weight within a year or he’s going to tie a knot around my esophagus and cut out my stomach. (Not him personally. He knows people. He also didn’t specify what he meant by “significant weight,” but based on prior discussions, I inferred 30 pounds.) Among the ways to do this is to increase my amount of exercise to more than zero. I enjoy mindless exercise for the sake of exercise about as much as bugs enjoy high-velocity windshields. The initial solution has been to ride an exercise bike while watching television. Sons of Anarchy had been recommended, creator Kurt Sutter played an important role in writing The Shield, and it’s streaming on Netflix. This ensures I’m on the bike for 40 – 60 minutes at least four days a week, so I’m in.

Sons of Anarchy is the story of a motorcycle gang’s club’s Northern California

chapter. (The full name is “Sons of Anarchy Redwood Order,” a/k/a Sam Crow.) Begun by the late John Teller, it is now run by co-founder Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman), with Teller’s son Jax (Charlie Hunnam) as vice president. John’s old widow, Gemma (Katey Sagal), is now Clay’s old lady, which causes some friction when Jax, who’s tweaker ex-wife Wendy (Drea de Matteo, Adrianna in The Sopranos) is about to give birth, finds an old journal of his father’s while looking for baby stuff. Turns out John had more of a club of outlaws running an auto and bike repair shop in mind, not the organized gang that generates most of its revenue running guns. A romantic complication comes when Jax’s high school sweetheart, Tara (Maggie Siff) returns to town as a doctor. Gemma wants her nowhere around Jax, but they’re forced together when Baby Abel is born with severe health issues, thanks to Mom’s drug abuse.

An interesting added attraction is the fictional town of Charming (allegedly located in California’s Central Valley), where everything takes place. Charming chief of police, Wayne Unser (Dayton Callie, Charley Utter in Deadwood) works hand-in-glove with Clay to run the town; Sam Crow effectively handles all law enforcement. This is fine with pretty much everyone in town—Unser makes good money, and the club keeps all drugs and violent crime out of Charming, as well as hosting charitable activities and the best auto shop around—except for the Unser’s deputy and chief-in-waiting, David Hale (Tayler Sheridan), who’s a good enough guy with a bit of a stick up his ass. Hale is appalled that a criminal enterprise is Charming’s most effective form of law enforcement, and can’t wait for Unser to retire so he can run Sam Crow out of town.

That’s a lot to keep in the air, and showrunner Sutter does it pretty well. The story lines of the budding power struggle between Clay and Jax, how Sam Crow plays black, Mexican, and white supremacist gangs against each other, and the internal workings of a semi-legit, criminal motorcycle-oriented enterprise are compelling. (I make no pretense to know if this is how motorcycle gangs really operate, but Sutter, his writers, and cast make it all feasible and palatable.) Forcing Jax and Tara even closer together when an ATF agent who stalked her in medical school comes to town (Jay Karnes, Dutch Wagenbach of The Shield) plays well into a legitimate ATF investigation to allow a little three-dimensional chess to take place. My exercise bike pretty much pedals itself when these balls are in the air.

The problem lies in the Jax-Tara-Wendy love triangle, manipulated by Gemma with a goal of playing both women against each other so Jax ends up with the baby and neither woman, keeping his attention on the club. Frankly, that part’s more reminiscent of Dynasty than The Shield, and my legs get tired after a couple of minutes.

Behind the camera, the casting was excellent, with Hunnam, Perlman, and Sagal more than capable of carrying the burdens given to them; the supporting cast is also solid. The dialog isn’t quite to the level of other cable crime shows (such as Justified or The Shield), mainly because it’s uneven. At times it whistles along, as when Unser and Hale have a rare heart-to heart because Hale is torn between honoring the badge and keeping someone from getting badly hurt, and Unser tells him, “Son, that badge ain’t even real silver.” On the other hand, some of what gets said in the love triangle line sounds too much like the first thing that popped into the writer’s mind, based on things he’d heard before on other, lesser, shows.

On balance I enjoy it. Season Two has begun with a white supremacy angle I’m curious to see play out. (Casting Adam Arkin and Henry Rollins as the two leaders doesn’t hurt any, either.) Unless it goes off the rails, I’ll likely watch the series through to the end. Will I watch it again, adding it to our rotation of Deadwood, The Wire, The Sopranos, The Shield, and, next year, Justified? Almost certainly not. Though not a waste of time—I’ve already come up with a couple of good angles for Penns River bits—the value here is mostly on the surface. Repeated viewings don’t appear to be in order.

January Reads...and Breaking News!

This was to have been the routine recounting of the best books I read last month (and I read some good ones), but Declan Burke’s review of Grind Joint has me chuffed. An excerpt:

Rooted in the Slavic ethnic heritage of western Pennsylvania, Dana King’s style – this is his fourth novel – has been compared to the work of the late Elmore Leonard, and it’s easy to see why: Grind Joint is a compelling tale of small-town gangsters and cops rooted in vernacular dialogue and blackly comic in the way the bad guys’ ambitions easily exceed their abilities. Grind Joint reads more like a proto-Leonard story, one more reminiscent of George V Higgins, whose The Friends of Eddie Coyle exerted a major influence on Leonard’s style.

There is a chilly and occasionally unsettling quality of realism to King’s unflinching appraisal of the devastating impact of economic downturn on the small-town United States, which leads its protagonists to perform increasingly convoluted moral gymnastics.

The entire review can be read on the Irish Times web site. (No, Grind Joint is not the “affecting psychological thriller” referred to in the title, though that sounds like a hell of a book, too.)

Now we resume our regularly scheduled program.

January was spent reading the Christmas gelt, which was primarily non-fiction, but what great non-fiction it was.

Hooked, Les Edgerton. I’ve loved Les’s fiction since I first read The Bitch, and I spent three days at the Creatures, Crime, and Creativity conference last fall tripping over unsolicited raves for this book. They were right. It hits the right tone throughout and has a lot of things I hadn’t thought of, and—thankfully—confirmed some others. I liked this book so much I bought another copy to give to my writers group, for those who struggle with their beginnings.

Where Good Ideas Come From (The Natural History of Innovation), Steven Johnson. I became aware of Johnson by watching his excellent PBS mini-series How We Got to Now and adding that book to my Wish List; The Beloved Spouse doubled down on him, and I’m a better person for it. Johnson explores concepts such as the adjacent possible (in short, why some ideas can’t take off because they’re too far ahead of their time), wrapping up with a compelling argument that most advances aren’t generated for profit, but are done in the spirit of finding things out; then someone figures a way to make money from them. Highest recommendation, though the proofreader should be shot.

The Poisoner’s Handbook (Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York), Deborah Blum. Another book I became aware of via PBS, The Poisoner’s Handbook traces the origin of forensic toxicology in the United States, as begun by the first New York City medical Examiner (Charles Norris) and his master chemist (Alexander Gettler). Starting with the time of the wholly corrupt coroner system, the book traces the careers of Norris and Gettler through the heyday of death by poison, and their struggles to not only find out how poisons killed (and prove when they had, or had not, been used), but to get the powers that be to take them seriously. Highest recommendation, especially for the corollary value of learning firsthand where government regulation come from and what life—and, too often, death—was like without it.

Twenty Questions With Jim Winter

I first encountered Jim Winter when I read Road Rules, a speedy trip from Cleveland to Savannah with a carload of dope the guys driving don’t know is there, though it seems everyone else in the world does. I moved to Northcoast Shakedown, featuring his recurring PI character Nick Kepler, and is as well done a look at insurance scams as I’ve read.

Jim was born in Cleveland and moved to Cincinnati to, as he puts it, “marry the love of his life;” seventeen years later he met her, and the rest is history. His newest is a Kepler novella, Gypsy’s Kiss.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Gypsy’s Kiss.

Jim Winter: Gypsy’s Kiss is a novella that brings Nick Kepler’s story to a close. It brings back Gypsy from the story “Roofies” and has her leaving the sex trade for good. Only someone wants to get even with her for some perceived or real slight.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

JW: When I wrote “Roofies,” I noticed that Gypsy had developed feelings for Nick that he either didn’t notice or chose to ignore. I hit on the idea that Gypsy would express this by asking Nick to be her final client. I wrote a short story based on the idea, but didn’t like it, so I expanded it and decided this would also be the end of the series.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write Gypsy’s Kiss, start to finish?

JW: The current version, which is a 14,000-word novella, took about three weeks to draft. I did several revisions and had it professionally edited. The final edits took about three weeks as well.

OBAAT: Where did Kepler come from? In what ways is he like, and unlike, you?

JW: I came up with Kepler in the late 1990s. I had an earlier character by that name, but could never get it to work, so I developed my freelance insurance investigator instead. Like his creator, he doesn’t really like fads very much unless it’s something that makes his life better. Like he probably jumped on iPods before most people, but he didn’t like our national obsession with oversized gas-sucking cars early in the last decade. Unlike me, I think he’s horrible with women. Not to them. He loves women. But his decisions as to which ones to be with are a bit questionable.

OBAAT: In what time and place is Gypsy’s Kiss set? How important is the setting to the book as a whole?

JW: Since the original novels were written and set in early 2000s Cleveland, I set this one in the spring of 2005. That keeps the events of Bad Religion recent enough to have consequences, yet it also has Nick heading to New Orleans mere months before Hurricane Katrina.

OBAAT: How did Gypsy’s Kiss come to be published?

JW: Since it’s so short, I decided this would be my last original independent offering. I’ll still do short stories for now, but with a novel passing back and forth between me and an agent, I decided it was time to end the series.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

JW: It varies. I read a lot of history and biographies. For fiction, I divide my TBR stack between crime and science fiction. (Editor’s Note: Jim did an excellent series of reviews of presidential biographies on his blog, Edged in Blue. If you’re interested in presidential history, these are well worth going back for. I know I felt bad we hadn’t had more presidents when he finished the series.)

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on your writing.)

JW: Stephen King was a huge influence on me for the way he creates a sense of place. His Maine does not exist, and yet many people can tell you how to get to Castle Rock better than Google can tell you how to get around your hometown.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

JW: It depends. Gypsy’s Kiss is a short, short work, so outlining really doesn’t work. For longer work, I try to outline. There’s no way to keep track of where you’re going without it.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

JW: I draft, and I try to power through the first draft. If I go back after getting an idea, I lose momentum. Then I let a story sit in the drawer and go off and work on something else. There was a novel I finished in the spring of last year I haven’t looked at, although I try to get back to a first draft much faster.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

JW: As soon as you finish the first story, start the next. Always have something to work on.

OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?

JW: I wish I could have written Mystic River. That was the novel that gave me the push to write the novel I’m working on with an agent now.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

JW: I’m finishing up the degree I should have had when I was 22, so right now, writing sort of is my break.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

JW: I am putting the final (for now) revisions together on Holland Bay for an agent I’ve been talking to. It’s sort of The Wire meets 87^th Precinct.

Potpourri

I was going to promote The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of today, but, frankly, I’m tired of treading the line between promotion and bloviating. I don’t much like telling people how good my book is and how they really, really ought to read it if they want to be happier/have nicer hair/better sex/live longer. I think it’s a good book, but I’m prejudiced, not to mention a writer (read: introvert) and not a marketer (read: extrovert). It’s not only awkward for me, it’s exhausting. So, not today. If you think you might like Stuff, or any of my books, I’d be delighted if you bought or downloaded a copy, and will sign a paper copy any time you want. If not, buy someone else’s book. There are a metric shit tonne of excellent writers out there, as even a brief perusal of posts here will prove. Read any the authors mentioned. You’ll thank me for it.

So what am I going to post about, if not as an act of shameless and blatant self-promotion? Well, there are a few things:

McFly Day 2. The original box of books for The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

had some errors I hadn’t caught. Friend of this blog and blogger extraordinaire himself Peter Rozovsky pointed them out and I corrected them. While the errors

weren’t major—not as bad as some professionally edited and printed books I’ve read recently—the books didn’t meet the standard I like to set, and I appreciate Peter’s pointing them out. That was the last book I’ll self-publish without first availing myself of his professional services. It’s nice to think the original versions with the errors will be worth something someday, but I’m pretty sure the only five copies ever printed are in my office, so you missed your chance. That ought to learn you.

(Editor’s Note: I thought you weren’t going to promote the book.)

(Author’s Note: That’s just a mention, not promotion. They don’t want to buy the fucking book, they don’t have to.)

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The Center for Fiction’s Crime Fiction Academy posts interviews and talks from noted crime writers. I’ve seen the interview with Elmore Leonard (Part Two is here) and the talk given by Dennis Lehane (also in two parts). Both are educational, engaging, and funny, well worth the time. Other authors in the series include Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, and George Pelecanos, though I’ve not had a chance to check theirs out.

/ / / /

I have long considered Ed McBain’s work to be the apotheosis of crime fiction, so it was better than good news to learn last week Hard Case Crime will re-release two early (as in pre-87^th Precinct) McBain novels, both out of print for over sixty years. So Nude, So Dead will launch in July, with Cut Me In to follow in January of 2016. Details and samples of each can be found by following the links. Congratulations and thanks are due Charles Ardai, one of the good guys in publishing, for bringing these back.

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Every parent worries if they’re doing it right. Rarely is the correctness of an approach brought home as well as was done for me last week, when The Sole Heir told me a brief anecdote that took place between her and The Beau. They were cooking, and he didn’t think she used enough non-stick coating on the pan. She acknowledged she might have used more, but had recently received a

“Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” from me in a similar situation. The look he gave her made it obvious he had no idea what she was talking about. Understanding references to movies released 22 years (and more) before her birth was a bit of a project we undertook when she was about eleven years old, so she’d understand cultural references derived from those films. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jaws, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Animal House, Lawrence of Arabia, The Big Lebowski, both Godfathers, Alien, Aliens, The Terminator, Terminator 2, and probably fifty more over the years are familiar to her when they might not otherwise have been. We’ve all seen Internet lists of the “Ten/Fifteen/Twenty Greatest Movies Ever For [some quality],” that include only movies made in the past fifteen years or so, or since the writer first started paying attention. The Sole Heir knows better, and I’m happy to have played some small part in that. Our educational and entertaining screening room is available to her and The Beau on request.

Movies Since Last Time

It’s been a while since I passed judgment on any movies. I was busy and didn’t see many for a bit, then saw several during a time I already had more blog posts than I needed. Not that anyone cares. I didn’t even care, but I felt some introduction was needed. This was it.

Fed Up (2014). A (mostly) well done documentary of the insidious effects of sugar on Americans’ diets and politics. Hard to say which is more disturbing: the secret addition of sugar to virtually all processed foods, the misleading labeling, or the industry’s ability to pay Congress to gut any regulations or policies that might cost it money? (Actually, the worst isn’t mentioned in the film: how much of the money they pay Congress with came from us in the form of sugar and corn subsidies.) As with most documentaries, it works best when presenting its evidence matter-of-factly. Afterward I couldn’t say whether I was more angry at the shameful politics, or depressed over the knowledge of why my best efforts to lost weight have failed. On the down side, choosing three overweight teens as anecdotal examples—which seems to be de rigueur for news and politicians alike—forces one to wonder how representative these examples are. Still, far more reasonable—and, therefore, affecting—than anything by Michael Moore.

Jerry and Tom (1998). Interesting film, great fun in spots, clever idea, great cast, and good lines for them to speak. Still, not quite all there. Joe Mantegna plays a hit man whose straight job is working at a sleazy used car lot, where he’s breaking in Sam Rockwell as the new guy in both areas. Maury Chaykin owns the car lot, and Charles Durning is the senior sales/hit man. Victims include Ted Danson and Wiliam H. Macy. I thought I’d like it more, but the primary conceit—a comedy about hit men and their work—didn’t hold up for me, as the movie found it too hard to catch all the right tones. Maybe I’m getting old. Or growing up. Damn, I hope not.

The Skeleton Twins (2013). Saturday Night Live alumni Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader in as depressing a movie as one is likely to sit through. Wiig and Hader play estranged twins who try to reconcile after he attempts suicide. While they have their moments, neither has enough likeable qualities for the viewer to care whether they live or die. By the end, when Wiig weights herself down and jumps into the deep end of a swimming pool, Hader miraculously knows not only that she’s attempting suicide, but exactly where she is. (Twintuition, I guess.) By that time I was hoping she’d drag him down with her. (Yep, that’s a spoiler. I did you a favor.) The only character worth caring about is Wiig’s husband (Owen Wilson), who is given short shrift and shuffled off when they don’t need him anymore.

Fargo (1996). An unequivocal thumbs-up, which was why I watched it. If not the Coen Brothers’ best, it’s in the top three, with Miller’s Crossing and Blood Simple. Often misunderstood—it is not a comedy, except in the blackest sense of the word—the accents aren’t meant to portray the locals as rubes, but as a community, which, with the exception of Jerry Lundegaard, has pretty much figured out how life works, for both good and bad, and has to find a way to deal with events so far removed from anything they could have expected. A classic.

Night Moves (1975). Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a retired pro football player working none too successfully as a PI. Hired by an aging never-was to find her missing daughter (the 16-year-old has been missing two weeks before she bothers to call anyone, and no one thinks anything of that), Moseby juggles a case that flits from LA to New Mexico to the Florida Keys in a plot that only Harry seems to have to fly commercial for; everyone else just appears wherever they’re needed. Hackman is joined by a solid supporting cast: a very young James Woods, Jennifer Warren, Ed Binns, and a too-brief appearance by Kenneth Mars. Too bad the plot doesn’t hold up, and so much of the dialog is the “adults acting out as though confused children” bullshit that became popular in the 70s.

Sabotage (2014). Lots to like about this one, but it doesn’t quite hold together under anything like close inspection. I won’t say what, as they’re potential spoilers and the movie is definitely not a waste of time if you’re into action flicks. Arnold Schwarzenegger is more subtle than usual, and, hey, he’s Arnold, so you kind of have to like him. The character is a departure for him, and he pulls it off relatively well as the leader of an elite team of undercover DEA agents who tried, just once, to rip off a DTO (“Drug Trafficking Organization; we don’t call them cartels anymore”). The heist goes bad, the team is suspended for six months, then they start turning up dead in grisly fashion about the time they get back together. The plot is twisty enough to be fun, but holes were left where logic would become inconvenient.

Chicago (2002). Another classic, pretty close to perfect entertainment on multiple levels. On the surface, one of the great song-and-dance movies ever made, with a great score by John Kander and brilliant lyrics by Fred Ebb. Pay even a little attention and it’s a scathing satire of American media and justice that hasn’t changed much since the 1920s. Who knew Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere (who steals every scene) could sing and dance? (Okay, CZJ has won a Tony since, but who knew it then?)