Crime Drama
Michael Mann’s Thief: James Caan and James Belushi Return to Chicago 40 Years Later
Neon lights across Wabash. Coffee and donuts by the Adler. Midnight blues on Lincoln Ave. Car light chats in the West Loop. The streets are wet. The night is blue. The men are dangerous. This is the world of Michael Mann’s Thief. Inspired by Frank Hohimer’s 1975 true crime book The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar, the feature film debut of the Chicago veteran is a bridge between two times: a boiling point for ’70s crime thrillers and a fever dream of the ’80s to come. In 1980, Mann knew exactly where he was going when he set out to play in his hometown. From the prescient use of Tangerine Dream to the lone wolf archetype he gave to James Caan, Thief serves as a blueprint for everything that defines his CV. A CV, mind you, that would not only go on to define the ’80s but recalib...
Anthony Bourdain’s Crime Novel Gone Bamboo to Get TV Series Adaptation
Shortly after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978, Anthony Bourdain spent his days cooking in some of the most famous restaurants in New York City. In his free time, he started publishing works of fiction, too, but it was only his nonfiction short stories and books like Kitchen Confidential that ever received widespread attention. It looks like that’s about to change, because Bourdain’s second novel, the 1997 crime thriller Gone Bamboo, has just been picked up for a TV series adaptation. Producers Webster and Robert Stone have acquired the rights to Gone Bamboo and plan to create a pilot for a scripted series, reports Deadline. Before now, the Stone brothers’ producing credits have included The Conspirator, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and The Negotiator — aka Hollywoo...
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Is Tighter, Leaner, and Self-Aware: Review
The Pitch: The Godfather trilogy has to be the most beloved hated idea in popular cinema. The Godfather, about the semi-reluctant rise of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) to become the head of his family’s criminal organization, is one of the most watched and venerated American movies. The Godfather Part II, about Michael leveraging the last bit of his soul for control that isn’t his to take, broke a rule it could just as easily have created: it’s a sequel every bit as good as the original. The third Godfather movie, which sees Michael’s past replay itself in a violent burlesque? That’s a movie over which people are still personally aggrieved. They’ll come out of the woodwork to tell you The Godfather Part III sucked. Go ahead and post about it on social media, someone will find you and tell y...
