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4 items from 2012

18 May 2012 2:58 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

Mickey Spillane grabbed his position in the pop culture pantheon much like his iconic creation, private eye Mike Hammer, made his way through a case: through a sort of literary brute force, blasting away with heavy doses of graphic violence, steamy sex, and a style which reviewers often considered the prose version of a blunt object.

As a mystery writer, Spillane wasn’t as clever as Evan Hunter, nor as introspective as late career Ross MacDonald, nor did he have the insider’s street savvy of George V. Higgins, or the prose command of Raymond Chandler. Read today, some of his stuff seems so familiar and stale and excessive it borders on camp. But, whatever one’s qualitative judgment on Spillane and his canon, there’s no doubt his impact on the mystery genre – and the private eye tale in particular – was both massive and indelible, reaching beyond the printed »

- Bill Mesce

30 April 2012 10:56 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Ewan McGregor is nice and caring, but this hero narrative is all a bit icky

Ewan McGregor in Cold Chain Mission (Sunday, BBC2) is delivering vaccinations for deadly childhood diseases to all the kids he didn't catch in episode one. Additional drama is provided by the fact that the vaccines must be kept cold, which, journeying deep into the jungle, down a river that's like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Death on the Nile (translation: these are two films I've seen which also feature a river), is no small matter. Every leg of the journey sees him leaping from the chopper and darting into a hut to find the fridge, like the Tiger Who Came to Tea. "Right, I'm just going to freeze these ice-packs and put the vaccines in the fridge, so that when we set off again, everything really will be as cold as possible."

McGregor has »

- Zoe Williams, Charity Celebrity

30 April 2012 10:56 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Ewan McGregor is nice and caring, but this hero narrative is all a bit icky

Ewan McGregor in Cold Chain Mission (Sunday, BBC2) is delivering vaccinations for deadly childhood diseases to all the kids he didn't catch in episode one. Additional drama is provided by the fact that the vaccines must be kept cold, which, journeying deep into the jungle, down a river that's like a cross between Apocalypse Now and Death on the Nile (translation: these are two films I've seen which also feature a river), is no small matter. Every leg of the journey sees him leaping from the chopper and darting into a hut to find the fridge, like the Tiger Who Came to Tea. "Right, I'm just going to freeze these ice-packs and put the vaccines in the fridge, so that when we set off again, everything really will be as cold as possible."

McGregor has »

- Zoe Williams, Charity Celebrity

6 February 2012 4:51 AM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Agatha Christie grew to dislike her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, but his little grey cells have made him a hit with viewers

Natalie Haynes's guide to TV detectives: #1 – Columbo

For longevity alone, David Suchet's Poirot is right up there. The first episode was broadcast in 1989, and 12 seasons later – after a long hiatus and dark rumours of cancellation – ITV finally announced that the remaining novels will be filmed. Thank goodness. Poirot needs things to be neat and tidy: the asymmetry of stopping filming before the books had been finished would have driven him to an early grave.

Agatha Christie grew to dislike Poirot, so she packed him in with supporting characters: Captain Hastings, the car enthusiast and expositional idiot; Inspector Japp, the hapless Scotland Yard representative; and Miss Lemon, the filing queen.

Suchet had big spats to fill when he took on the role of Poirot. Peter Ustinov had »

- Natalie Haynes

4 items from 2012