This weekend, Peter Weir graces us with The Way Back, a tale of daring escape by prisoners of war. In due fashion this week’s Listicle salutes the soldier in film. From comedy to adventure to stark, sobering drama, soldiers have faced a great deal on the movie screen.

This article is filed under Australia, Best Movies, Biography, Espionage, Germany, Great Britain, Historical Fiction, History, Humor, Military, Movies, Mystery, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Southeast Asia, The Fourth Wall, Vietnam.

There is a telling scene in the novel, when Conan Doyle visits the theatre managed by Stoker and is snubbed by the celebrated actress Ellen Terry, who is wearing a black armband to mourn the death of Sherlock Holmes. “The world does not need Arthur Conan Doyle,” Stoker declares. “The world needs Sherlock Holmes.”

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Mystery.

Whatever her faults, you can’t criticise Patricia Cornwell for sticking in a rut. Port Mortuary, her latest novel about the forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta, uses a new narrative device to explore fresh plot territory. But the resulting book is exceptionally difficult to like.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers.

Acclaimed screenwriter Rowan Joffé will try his hand at the directing game next year. For his debut, he has selected an auspiciously high-profile story. Brighton Rock, adapted from Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, is a captivating crime thriller and a chilling exploration of the human capacity for love, betrayal and violence. If all goes right, this will be one beautiful and scary film.

This article is filed under Best Books, Best Movies, Classics, Crime Fiction, Espionage, Great Britain, Literary Themes, Movies, Mystery, Religion, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers, Writers.

Sherlock Holmes as a strict Victorian period piece is over and done with, but the character still has potential in a new context. The only rule is not to stray from the unique faculties that make Sherlock such a distinctive and popular hero. If the story’s focus ceases to be the detective’s brilliant deductive logic, then the magic is lost and the character wasted. If, however, due attention and respect are paid to this detail, the rest is free and open to broader interpretation.

This article is filed under Best Books, Best Movies, Classics, Crime Fiction, Espionage, Great Britain, Literary Themes, Movies, Mystery, Short Stories, Television, The Fourth Wall, Theatre, Thrillers, Writers.

I got myself a videotape of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest at a young age, and proceeded to watch the ever-living hell out of it. I can’t recall having seen what you might call a grown-up movie before that, and a lot of dramatic films that I love now might not have held my attention then. But North by Northwest really has got it all.

This article is filed under Art, Best Movies, Crime Fiction, Espionage, Movies, Mystery, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

Take some deep breaths, movie fans – we’re going in. This weekend’s new shocker, Devil, appears to feature a bunch of hapless folks trapped in a dark elevator with something quite nasty. Later this season, we will also be getting Buried, concerning a man negotiating for his life while buried in a box underground. Claustrophobia [...]

This article is filed under Horror, Movies, Mystery, Phobias, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

After years of silence, Hammer Film is returning to active production in a big way this year. To begin with, the studio is producing the upcoming Let Me In, a remake of the superb Swedish vampire story Let The Right One In (2008). With this and a number of other new flicks on the way, there is more exciting news. Christopher Lee, now a late octogenarian but still a commanding tower of a man, is back on board for at least one picture.

This article is filed under Horror, Movies, Mystery, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

Justin Cronin has written an epic here. Like Stephen King’s The Stand and Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, this book is a character-driven apocalyptic road trip of a novel that takes us on a journey both physical and metaphysical. His writing transcends genre in every way, including a haunting description of death by nuclear fire.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Horror, Mystery, Thrillers.

Lisbeth Salander is broken, maybe beyond repair. Wanted for three murders in Stockholm, she shows up in the Emergency Room in Goteborg still breathing but with a bullet in her head. Her other wounds have been patched with duct tape, an improvisation the doctor on call admires as he preps her for life-saving surgery assisted by an American surgeon with a blood alcohol level that’s off the charts.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers.