News You Can Bruise for 2025 March

(1) Sun Mar 09 2025 10:29 February Film Roundup:

• The Iron Sheriff (1957): Above-average western focusing on the psychological stress of being the only sheriff in town but having a major conflict of interest during an investigation. A little bit of noir and mystery in there. Good stuff.
• The Quiller Memorandum (1966): George Segal as a spy? I was dubious. But the sort of spy he plays is the kind who pretends to be a doofy backslapping George Segal American, which made for some fun interrogation scenes. Was it really an act, though? I have serious doubts about Quiller's tradecraft, like when he sets up a timed explosion without making sure he has a clear escape route. Also, I don't think he ever writes the titular memorandum.

  Great location shots of 1960s West Berlin, similar to what you see in Assignment K but in a better movie.

• Quick Change (1990): Saw this on a date with Sumana and we both loved it. Like Working Girl and Something Wild, this is one of those excellent 80s comedies that have slipped through history's cracks despite having big stars and big laughs. They could be considered rom-coms, but they don't fit the Nora Ephron formula which has persisted to the present day. And they're not designed to appeal to teenage boys who are now middle-aged, like Big Trouble in Little China or Ghostbusters. But man, this is a great movie, full of minor characters who get their time to shine. I've been seing Jason Robards a lot in his "handsome leading man" phase (A Million Clowns, Once Upon A Time In The West) and it's good to see him still getting work in his "crusty police chief" era.

  While discussing this film with Sumana afterwards I had cause to look at the Film Roundup Roundup films for 1990, and I hereby propose that Quick Change, Mo' Better Blues and Gremlins 2: The New Batch are all taking place at the same place and the same time. IMDB trivia backs me up: "The bank was located at 101 Park Avenue, just across the street from 100 Park Avenue were Gremlins 2 was filmed." Quite a busy weekend at 40th and Park!

  IMDB trivia also says that Ron Howard turned down the chance to direct because he couldn't find a character to root for in this movie. This explains Ron Howard's directorial style as much as the Ron Howard/Billy Wilder anecdote explains Billy Wilder's. PS: if you're stuck, you can always root for the punctilious bus driver. He's just trying to keep the city running!

Sat Mar 15 2025 11:19 The Crummy.com Review of Things 2024: It took me til March, but I pulled it off this year! Here are the best media I experienced (or created) in 2024:

I'll start by tooting my own horn, because why not. I had two stories published in 2024: "Expert Witness" (A Ravy Uvana Story) in Analog and "The Blanket Thief" (cozy fantasy) in the Winter 2024 issue of Baubles From Bones. You can hear me read "Expert Witness" on the Analog podcast.

I gave a talk at PyCon US, How to maintain a popular Python library for most of your life without with burning out", and I was honored with the Python Software Foundation Community Service Award. I wrote two as-yet-unpublished stories in 2024, "A Tomorrow Problem" and "Cause of Action" (both in the Ravy Uvana universe).

Now, on to things not created by me. The Crummy.com Game of the Year is Balatro, a game that doubles down on the part of roguelikes I enjoy the most: the clever creation of wacky, game-breaking combinations from randomly presented choices. Honorable mention to Slice & Dice, the roguelike I have on my phone to stop myself from doomscrolling.

Other games of note: Animal Well and Baldur's Gate 3. I was really into BG3 and played it exclusively up until the point of my Japan trip, but when I came back the spell had been broken and I can't get back into it to finish it.

The Crummy.com Book of the Year is Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. The story of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park has been well told, but I'd never before considered the parallel story of the people creating codes for Allied intelligence to use. This memoir was a fascinating look into bureaucratic infighting; logistics nightmares; the simultaneous invention of one-time pads; and the difficulties of trying to give cryptographic training to a rotating cast of strong-willed characters who, Wikipedia will tell you, frequently do not survive the war.

I spent a lot of 2024 reading comic crime novels for research. I read a bunch of Donald Westlake's Dortmunder books (Drowned Hopes stands out but I don't recommend that as your first one), Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto, Kyril Bonfiglioli's art scam trilogy (I tried to watch Mortdecai (2015) but couldn't get through the first friggin' scene), and the first three of Sarah Caudwell's academic/lawyer murder mysteries.

Also of note: the manga Yokohama Station SF, The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, old issues of the trade publication The Soda Fountain, and the really funny The Husbands by my friend Holly Gramazio.