The good old/bad old days of Cold War paranoia films
The 1970s are often cited as the heyday of the paranoid thriller — thanks to “The Parallax View” (1974) and “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) and a few other key titles — but the genre really started a...
View Article‘Room 237’: getting lost in the world of a movie
The new documentary “Room 237” is a very entertaining look at the borderline madness that has gripped obsessive fans of the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film “The Shining.” A movie that many of us remember as...
View Article‘The Doomsday Equation’: 3 days until the end
In addition to his day job as a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, Matt Richtel has launched a second career as one of our best thriller writers. “The Doomsday Equation” — which William...
View Article‘London Spy’: an agent’s secret life
The five-part BBC2 series “London Spy” debuted on BBC America last Thursday, but it is also being made available for downloading by Amazon on a week-by-week basis. While I wished I could have...
View Article‘Money Monster’: a summer film for adults
Plenty of serious-minded star vehicles are given limited releases each fall and winter for Oscar consideration, but it’s getting increasingly rare to see a smart Hollywood studio film for adults, like...
View ArticleNew York at Christmas, ‘Condor’ style
When a friend sent me a notice of a Christmas week screening of “Three Days of the Condor” at the great Los Angeles revival house, the New Beverly Cinema, I wasn’t surprised. The classic 1975 thriller...
View ArticleWhen bad times produce great films
A friend on social media suggested last week that there could be an unexpected positive result from the chaos and corruption of the Trump Administration – a new wave of paranoid thrillers similar to...
View Article‘The Switch’: when paranoia is justified
The new Joseph Finder novel “The Switch” (Dutton) starts from a wonderfully simple and believable premise: What might happen if you picked up the wrong laptop during the hassle of getting through...
View Article‘The Bishop’s Pawn’: who killed MLK?
Wednesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, a pivotal moment in the turbulent history of America during the 1960s. We will be dealing with a lot...
View Article‘Condor’: clever update of 1975 classic
As if there aren’t already more streaming TV options than most of us can keep up with, AT&T has gotten into the business with its Audience Network, available via DirecTV and the DirecTV Now app. A...
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