Fernando Di Leo's, Caliber (Milano Caliber 9)

Watched this today on Netflix, I'd heard about it for years but had never gotten around to seeing it.

Lots of groovy music, double and triple crosses, people dropping off and exchanging mysterious packages that sometimes explode, and general mayhem.  I really enjoyed it and am going to check out more Italian crime flicks, although I think I might be starting out with the best of the lot.

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Some other stuff that happened....

Read COLD IN JULY, by Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite writers. A man wakes up one night to the sound of an intruder, whom he ends up fatally shooting. The intruder's father, who has just gotten out of prison, swears revenge. But then both men find out things are not what they seem...

That's not that great of a synopsis, but it is a fun little book. I have yet to be disappointed by Joe Lansdale--the first story I read by him was "Night They Missed the Horror Show" which I read at age 16 and basically warped me for life.

I finished a couple of Bill Bryson books. I don't believe I've finished anything else, but have a couple that I am almost done with.

Movies: Watched EASTERN PROMISES again. Also a documentary about Russian prison tattoos called THE MARK OF CAIN. Didn't see much else--we've had some very busy times this month that seem to finally be done with for a while. I'm not doing that good a job at this blog, I guess. Maybe next month will be better. I know I've seen other movies but can't remember much about them. I've had a lot of things I got on Netflix that I just let run in the background while doing something else. I don't think those really count.

The Call

WHAT I READ: The Call, by Yannick Murphy.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A small town veterinarian who has his son go into a coma after a hunting accident. A lot of other things happen too.
WHY I'M WRITING THIS WAY: The whole book is written like this, as a series of calls the main character gets, although sometimes the calls are not actual phone calls, sometimes it's his wife calling or someone else. Sometimes a call is only metaphorical.
HOW LONG I TOOK TO READ IT: Less than 24 hours, I started yesterday afternoon and finished this morning, probably a few hours total. It's short and the format makes it a quick read.
WHAT I THOUGHT: I really enjoyed it, the first really good book I've read this year that I wanted to keep reading. Interested to see her other books, although somehow I doubt they will be written like this.
OTHER BOOKS I REMEMBER LIKE THIS: The Cardboard Universe was a series of encyclopedic entries with two characters writing them and arguing throughout the footnotes. That particular author [can't remember the name, don't want to look it up] had another novel that had the same non-standard format but I never read it. Really enjoyed that particular book, though, it was a take-off on Philip K. Dick. sort of an alternate-universe where Phoebus K. Dank was an even less successful science fiction author.

Scoreboard for February...

The lack of holidays and focus on other stuff made this month a slow one for reading and watching.

Books read: 5 Movies watched: 9

Year to date:

Books read: 8 Movies watched: 23

Need to read more [have at least two books that I will probably finish this weekend, but still haven't found a book I've been nuts about.]

Watching Take Shelter....

..and it's like watching paint dry. I feel like I'm under the influence of sedatives.
I like some stuff abut it but it is very, very slow with not much happening. That seems to be the direction movies, especially indie movies, are going these days.

Finished A FAN'S NOTES, an autobiographical novel which I've been "working on" for years. It's by Frederick Exley and is nominally about a troubled man who lives in a small town and lives for alcohol and the New York Giants, especially Frank Gifford.
It's more than that, it's crazy houses and bad jobs, and lots of craziness. I like this picture of the author. He passed away about 20 years ago, wrote three books and a lot of articles. A FAN'S NOTES was the first of the three, I have not seen the others, although a couple of years ago I read a book called EXLEY that was about a kid whose dad was an obsessive fan of Exley and A FAN'S NOTES.

Deathstalker 2 (trailer)

Saw this sequel last night....even lighter in tone than the first, which wasn't exactly GAME OF THRONES. I think it might have been one of those Roger Corman specials where they'd shoot one movie and then shoot a cheaper one with the leftover sets and props. This is a lot smaller in scale than the first one, but a lot of fun. Wish the others would be availble on DVD or on streaming.

Good movie for beer drinking. I love how the closing credits end with the various warnings and disclaimers about the film's copyright being superimposed over a shot of the female lead's bare chest.