I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Conclusion

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. Part 5 of this essay may be found here. Part 6 of this essay may be found here. Part … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Conclusion →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 7

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. Part 5 of this essay may be found here. Part 6 of this essay may be found here. The … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 7 →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 4

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. When I awoke late on the afternoon of Thursday, February 15, 2001 in my small studio apartment in West Philadelphia, I felt completely rotten. And more than a … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 4 →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 3

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. When I awoke in my new apartment – on the 8th floor of the Madison Building in the Presidential Apartment complex, situated where City Avenue meets the Schuylkill Expressway – on Wednesday, February 14, 2001, the temperature … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 3 →

I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 2

Part 1 of this essay may be found here. I cannot remember exactly when I first saw Hammett. By which I mean, when I first watched the second half of the 1982 film, a fictional account set in 1928 San Francisco, just before the eponymous writer published his first novel. One night, while I was … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 2 →

Who Is the Most Heroic Character in Film Noir?

A few days, I published an essay distilling my thoughts about a hypothetical Film Noir Cinematic Universe (“FNCU”). In a tweet I wrote to make readers aware of this essay, I said, “While there are a ridiculous number of villains in #FilmNoir, I was genuinely surprised how many legitimate #heroes there are.” ***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*** … Continue reading Who Is the Most Heroic Character in Film Noir? →

Grappling With the Instinctive – and Unnecessary – Fictionalization of History

I recently watched Michael Mann’s Public Enemies for the first time since its 2009 theatrical release. Based on Bryan Burrough’s excellent 2004 book of the same name, it narrows the focus of the sprawling book to the cat-and-mouse game played by bank robber John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis, special agent in charge of the Chicago … Continue reading Grappling With the Instinctive – and Unnecessary – Fictionalization of History →

Finding The Worst Character In Neo-Noir: Setting The Brackets

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!! [Editor's note: In an earlier version of this post, I neglected to include Woo-Jin Lee in my Cunning Manipulator list, so I correct this post by adding him and removing Hedra Carlson] In a previous post, I used two metrics—POINTS and Opportunity-Adjusted POINTS (“OAP”) to identify 96 films most often cited as … Continue reading Finding The Worst Character In Neo-Noir: Setting The Brackets →

Why I chose…The Big Knockover

I am not generally a fan of Facebook “challenges.” Nonetheless, when my friend Rebecca nominated me for the seven-day book challenge, I accepted. The rules were simple: on each of seven consecutive days, post a book cover, with no explanations, while also nominating another person for the challenge. On May 16, 2018, I completed the … Continue reading Why I chose…The Big Knockover →

Film Noir: A Personal Journey

[Eds. note: This essay was the inspiration for my 2022 book Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History...and My Own. If you like what you read below, I urge you to check out the book.] A few years ago, I turned 48. On a lark, I decided to celebrate (in … Continue reading Film Noir: A Personal Journey →