John Sand « Friends/Family/Fans of Max Allan Collins

Caleb York Nominated

Tuesday, June 28th, 2022

Hardcover:

Paperback:

E-Book:

Digital Audiobook

I’m pleased to say that my Caleb York novel – Shoot-out at Sugar Creek – has been nominated for a Scribe award.

Original Novel — General
Patient Zero, Amanda Bridgeman (Aconyte)
Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins (Kensington)
Debonair in Death, Terrie Farley Moran (Berkley)

Winners will be announced at San Diego Comic-Con July 22, 2022. A full list of nominees in all categories is at the IAMTW.

This is a bittersweet but much appreciated honor. For whatever reason, neither the Spur nor Peacemaker Awards from the Western Writers of America and the Western Fictioneers respectively have ever honored the Caleb York novels. (I should say we did get a Best Novel nomination for The Legend of Caleb York from the Fictioneers, but nothing since.)

I would imagine I’m viewed as an interloper, a mystery/crime novelist moving in on their territory. It’s been a fun ride nonetheless. Kensington has not asked for more Caleb York novels, and I am making no approaches to other publishers, though the York sales have been strong enough to make that possible. It’s just that my goal for Caleb York was to fashion a novel from Mickey’s unproduced screenplay, The Saga of Cali York, written for John Wayne. I only did more novels because Kensington requested them, and, hey, who am I to turn down work?

But at this stage of the game, I’m starting to question that question. I am embarking on what may be the final Nate Heller novel, the potentially massive Too Many Bullets, and will likely be spending most of the rest of this year on it. My health is fine, considering the underlying factors, but I am particular about what projects I take on at this point.

It’s hard for me to walk away from a series. I really loved writing Caleb York, as I’ve been a fan of movie and TV westerns since early childhood – admittedly less so of western fiction. But those six novels satisfied a creative itch and I’m pleased to go out on a Scribe nomination. The paperback of it is coming in October.

The Scribes honor writers of movie novelizations and TV tie-ins, as well as authors continuing characters begun by famous writers like Robert B. Parker, Edgar Rice Burroughs and, yup, Mickey Spillane. This is the first time I’ve submitted a Caleb York novel to the Scribes, as members are limited to one submission in a category, and previously I submitted Mike Hammer novels to the General Fiction category (winning several times, I’m pleased to say).

Those keeping score may recall that Lee Goldberg and I founded the International Association of Media and Tie-in Writers (IAMTW) a decade and a half ago. Lee, having more class than me, never submitted his work to the awards given by an organization he co-founded. I, of course, having no shame, have been a frequent nominee and occasional winner.

The reason why I have no shame is that the real shame goes to the writing organizations (you know who you are) that have ignored tie-in writing throughout their existence, as if the talented writers creating novels and short stories in their respective fields (science fiction, mystery fiction, horror, western) didn’t exist at all.

I know from the mail I’ve received over the years (snail and e-) that most readers don’t make that distinction. The role that Star Trek and Star Wars novels played in keeping those franchises alive during periods when Hollywood’s versions lay fallow cannot be overestimated. My publishers frequently mention that I am the author of Saving Private Ryan and Air Force One (among others) without bothering to mention they are novelizations. Until the recent Reeder & Rogers political trilogy came along, my CSI novels (written, like that trilogy, with my gifted co-writer Matthew Clemens) were my bestselling mystery/crime novels…and introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to my work.

So I am proud to be co-founder of the IAMTW, and will bear up under the shame of participating in their awards.

* * *

Speaking of westerns, among the streaming series Barb and I have been watching is 1883, which is supposedly a prequel to the very popular Yellowstone. We tried the latter and somewhere in the second season got irritated with it, so we avoided the prequel for a while. We shouldn’t have.

My love for Sam Elliot as perhaps our last great western icon in the Hollywood sense finally prompted us to watch, and it’s a fine show – tough, heart-felt, and more historically accurate than most. (Really it should be set at least ten years earlier, but apparently that would screw up its prequel-to-Yellowstone timeline.) Everyone on this series is good, but Elliot seems to sense this is a career-capper and his rock-hard surface hiding tender humanity – he is sort of the ultimate “tough love” advocate – sums up everything we admire about his work.

1883 is on Paramount-Plus, and I’m finding it the best of the handful of streaming services of which I partake. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to honor the memory and approach of Roddenberry while updating it. Barb and I glance at each other every episode and at some point one of us says, “Can you believe it’s 2022 and we’re watching new Star Trek?”

And real Star Trek at that.

The Offer wrapped up very well. Having read a bit about the actual filming of The Godfather, I am aware a certain amount of sugarcoating, not to mention artistic license, is afoot here. But I was shocked by the swells of emotion I felt in the knowledge that the characters have achieved their goals and were about to go on with their lives without me. For me, Miles Teller is the standout in a cast that I would have to say is flawless (well, the Sinatra guy could have been better).

Also viewed streaming (it’s available a couple of places) is a three-and-a-half-hour Bollywood movie my son badgered me to watch – RRR. It is an absolutely bonkers action spectacle that makes Raiders of the Lost Arc look like a documentary about archeology. They fight, they sing, they dance, they romance, they make sure we know the Brits were stinkers. It’s absurd and childish and sophisticated and three hours and a half just blow by. I cannot do RRR justice, other than to say – don’t leave the planet before you’ve experienced it. (My favorite scene had to do with the massive cages of wild beasts being unleashed on a British nighttime garden party.)

You’re welcome.

* * *

One of the things about writing a weekly blog, with a specific deadline, is that everything else can get in the way.

Today I have to prep for the commentary I’m doing tomorrow morning (at Phil Dingeldein’s studio in Rock Island) for the ClassicFlix 4K Blu-ray (and 3-D) release of the 1953 I, the Jury, something I had only dreamed might one day happen. But the prep will not be easy, as there is much to discuss.

Last week I was in a foul mood and did not feel well, and dragged myself through this bloggy process. And if it showed, well, you’re not paying anything for this. Don’t bitch.

However. I performed the kind of screw-up I am well-known among my friends and associates (not mutually exclusive groups) for performing: I posted the four gigs of my band Crusin’ this summer and managed to leave out one of those dates, while thoughtfully including the times and places. You can’t have everything.

Before I present the revised schedule, I’ll mention that Crusin’ appeared last Friday night (June 24) at Ardon Creek Winery. It’s a lovely outdoor venue, and we were pretty good. The crowd was even better, numbering in the hundreds. A taco truck fed their tummies, and we fed their souls. It was fun, and I felt good throughout, relieved that my age had not dulled my rock ‘n’ roll skills appreciably since last year.

We had not appeared at Ardon Creek, one of our favorite venues, since pre-Covid, so it felt like a reunion. Barb was there – she helps me set up and tear down – and my son Nate, his wife Abby and their two kids Sam and Lucy came and capered on the surrounding green landscape that makes this particular venue so special.

I know these updates go out to readers, fans and friends all over the country, all over the world really, and what follows is strictly for Eastern Iowa and thereabouts. But here’s the rest of Crusin’s season:

Saturday July 2 we’re at Proof Social in Muscatine, from 5 to 8 p.m. On the patio, inside in case of rain.

Sunday August 14 it’s the Second Sunday Concert Series at Musser Public Library, 408 E. 2nd Street in Muscatine, IA. Sometimes it’s indoors, weather allowing outside in the parking lot. 6 to 8 p.m.

Sunday Aug 21 2022 – the Muscatine Art Center’s yearly Ice Cream Social, 1 till 4 p.m. 1314 Mulberry Ave, Muscatine.

* * *

Here’s a nice John Sand review.

This piece looks at Road to Perdition on Netflix.

You have to scroll down a ways, but this is an in depth look at several of the Nolan novels, including the recent Skim Deep. [Note: the link is a PDF-format Internet magazine. The homepage is here.—Nate] The writer is very self-confident, smart and talky, but careless (my middle name is “Allen” in the first piece, and Richard Stark, it seems, writes about “Porter”). But it’s a deeper dive (a current term I despise) than Nolan is usually given.

Here’s a Spillane WW 2-era comic book story I didn’t know about!

M.A.C.

Tags: Awards, Caleb York, Crusin', John Sand, Mickey Spillane, Movie Reviews, Nate Heller, Nathan Heller, Nolan, Reviews, Road to Perdition, RRR, Shoot-out at Sugar Creek, Skim Deep, Star Trek, The Legend of Caleb York, Too Many Bullets
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 6 Comments »

Sand Sale, Perdition, Hammer Theme, Spillane, Crusin’

Tuesday, June 21st, 2022

There is another John Sand bargain this week – I believe it goes to the 15th of next month (July) – for the audio of To Live and Spy in Berlin. For only 99 cents! Brian J. Gill reads this (and the other two Sand novels) in a nice English accent that suits the material; really a great job.

* * *

Several friends and fans wrote me about a Daily Atlantic newsletter essay that selected Road to Perdition as an ideal Father’s Day movie. I liked the piece, even though it neglected to mention me, and was touched that the photo running with the article was from the sequence directly based on my first driving lesson with my late father. No bank robberies were involved in real life, however. I also like John Rooney being based on John Looney got a mention.

Here it is:

‘He Was My Father’

Sometimes at the Daily we step back at the end of the week’s blizzard of news and current events and suggest something for your leisure time. It’s Father’s Day weekend, and so I want to recommend to you one of my favorite movies, a meditation on generations and fatherhood and loyalty and duty, a warm, nostalgic look at families during a simpler time, starring two of America’s most beloved actors.

I am talking, of course, about Road to Perdition.

If you have not seen it, Road to Perdition (based on the graphic novel of the same name, and widely available to stream) is a 2002 film about Irish gangsters in the 1930s. But it’s really about fathers and sons. A mob leg-breaker named Mike Sullivan, played by a bulked-up Tom Hanks, is fiercely loyal to his boss, John Rooney (played, in his last role, against type and with regal Hibernian menace by Paul Newman); indeed, Sullivan and Rooney have a father-son relationship.

But Rooney already has a son, played by Daniel Craig, and that son is a murderous psychopath. (People wonder why I had a hard time accepting Craig as James Bond. It’s because I saw Road to Perdition first.) Without giving away too much, Sullivan and his own young son, Michael, have to go on the lam. It’s a father-son road-trip movie, except with tommy guns and stone killers.

You may find this an unusual recommendation. Bear with me.

When Father’s Day rolls around, I naturally think of my own father. I have never been able to relate to all those Hallmark-card, Ward Cleaver images. My dad was a complicated man, which is what sons say when we mean “He was terribly flawed in a lot of ways, but he loved me.” He bore a lot of sins and had a lot of shortcomings, but he had a consistent code of ethics in dealing with others and he was known for it. He kept his word, paid his debts, and treated others with respect. He was the kind of man who would walk into a local bar and his peers would call him Nick but younger men would unfailingly refer to him as “Mr. Nichols.” Even our younger neighbors called him “Mr. Nichols,” with great affection. (When he died, I sold his house to one of the children who’d grown up next door to him.)

I think most of us had fathers who weren’t perfect. Mine wasn’t, and yet he taught me important things: Do an honest day’s work. Love your country. Do things you have to do even if they’re unpleasant. Never back down if you know you’re right. Be courteous in public.

He also taught me how to gamble and showed me how to spot someone dealing off the bottom of a deck of cards.

He wasn’t the blueprint for a good husband or father, and he knew it. When I was in my 30s, he admitted to my mother that he thought I’d grown up to be a better man than he was. This is a hard thing to learn about your father, a source of both pride and sadness. (I will have more to say about fathers, and the men I knew growing up, over on my Peacefield newsletter this weekend.)

Which brings me back to Road to Perdition. When Sullivan has to go on the run with Michael (played by a young Tyler Hoechlin), the son finally learns what the father he idolizes actually does for a living. He also learns that Rooney—based on the real-life Irish godfather John Patrick Looney—is not a kindly grandfather but a cold-blooded killer. These men (and this is very much a man’s movie) are scoundrels, but they have a code, and their obedience to that code leads them to tragic choices.

The last line of the movie (again, without spoiling anything) is what ties it all to my memories of my own boyhood. Young Michael reminisces, and says: “When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them: He was my father.”

That is the most honest thing most of us can say about our fathers. We love them, and they love us, and that’s enough.

* * *

My Brit pal Andrew Sumner, who edits my Mike Hammer novels at Titan (including the upcoming Kill Me If You Can), sent this great video.

He explains: “Due to my regular attendance at London’s finest jazz clubs, I’ve become friendly with a well-known UK swing/jazz R&B performer called Ray Gelato. Ray leads a band called Ray Gelato and the Giants and they essentially channel the energy of Louis Prima & Louis Jordan – they played Paul McCartney’s wedding, they’ve supported Queen, etc. They’re in a similar wheelhouse to Brian Setzer and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.”

Andrew was nice enough to request that they play “Harlem Nocturne,” Mike Hammer’s theme in the Keach era, and dedicate it to me. Have a listen and look (or is that a butcher’s hook?).

* * *

If you’re a huge Spillane fan or huge Collins fan or just huge masochist, you may wish to watch this entire ninety-minute interview of me (on the subject of Mickey) by Dan Scheider (he’s very’s good) featuring the great Kevin Burton Smith of Thrilling Detective fame and accomplishment.

* * *

On another musical note (or two or three or four), my band Crusin’, 2018 inductees in the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, will be playing four dates in Eastern Iowa this summer and early fall.

First up, on Friday June 24 from 6 to 9 p.m., is the Ardon Creek Vineyard in the gently rolling farmland of “76 Township” in Eastern Iowa, approximately 30 minutes southeast of Iowa City, Iowa, 15 minutes southwest of Muscatine, Iowa and 5 miles north of Letts. Here’s the address: 2391 Independence Avenue, Letts, IA 52754. Their phone is (563) 272-0028 and more info’s available here, including a map.

On Saturday July 2 we’ll be at Proof Social in Muscatine, from 5 to 8 pm. We’ll be on the patio unless there’s rain, in which case we’ll be inside. This is a lovely venue, and the patio overlooks the Mississippi.

On Sunday August 14 we’ll again be appearing as part of the Second Sunday Concert Series at Musser Public Library, 408 E. 2nd Street in Muscatine, IA. Sometimes it’s held indoors and other times, weather allowing, with an outdoor stage in the parking lot. Hours are 6 to 8 p.m.

Finally, we’ll be appearing at the Muscatine Art Center’s yearly Ice Cream Social, which runs from 1 till 4 p.m. (Our times are 1:15 to 2:10 and 3 to 3:45.) 1314 Mulberry Ave, Muscatine.

Yes, our “season” is short, which is on purpose. Again I wonder if this will be the last year for Crusin’ appearances. And my memory fills with my departed bandmates, including the most recent and cutting loss, bass player Brian Van Winkle. I hope he’s somewhere arguing with Paul Thomas, Chuck Bunn, Bruce Peters, and Terry Beckey who among them gets to play bass if that Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven gig comes through. But knowing Brian, he’d just smile and wait his turn.

Crusin’ at the Moose in January 2022

* * *

Check out this wonderful Quarry’s Blood review at the web’s definitive genre book review site, Bookgasm.

Here’s a nice Goodreads review of the graphic novel, Road to Perdition.

And finally here is The Big Bundle at the Hard Case Crime web site.

M.A.C.

Tags: Interviews, John Sand, Kill Me If You Can, Nate Heller, Nathan Heller, Quarry, Quarry's Blood, Reviews, Road to Perdition, Sales, The Big Bundle, To Live and Spy in Berlin
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 3 Comments »

54 Years and Counting! (Really 56.)

Tuesday, June 7th, 2022

Barb and I took our first post-Covid lockdown overnight trip, celebrating our 54th wedding anniversary last week – specifically, on June 1st, the day of, and returning to Muscatine on June 2nd, the start of year 55.

It was a delightful trip, although two business situations back in the real world came up shortly after we arrived in Galena, Illinois (our favorite getaway spot) and reminded me how nice life was when you didn’t have a cell phone in your pocket.

Things settled down, though, and we shopped and lunched at Vinny Vanucci’s and had a lovely evening, dining at Fritz and Frites and then sharing a quiet, typically Collins evening in our suite at the Irish Cottage – see the photos as evidence.

You will note that I look almost giddy sharing a table with a beautiful blonde, undeterred by having spent 56 years of my life with her (we started going together in 1966). There are numerous reasons not to like me, even to hate me, but none better than my managing to hornswoggle (one of my late father’s favorite words) her into spending most of her life with me.

Obviously Barb is a beauty. But she is also funny and smart and ridiculously thoughtful. She loves the Three Stooges. She loves the Beatles. She loves the original Star Trek. She loves James Bond. She loves her grandchildren. And she even loves me.

The question we get most often is how we write together and remain married. I’ve seen other writing couples really struggle with that. My answer sounds flip but it’s true: our offices are on separate floors.

Another major factor is that we develop the idea for a story or novel together, often over lunch or on a car ride, and then she works alone on her draft, checking in with me only if she hits a rough patch and wants an opinion (rare). She does not love to write. I try to tell her that no writers really love to write, though many of us are compelled to do so, and all of us love to have written. But she entered the field basically to help me out, editing, and writing the “Mike Mist” feature for Ms. Tree after I burned out on minute mysteries.

So when she finishes a draft of a novel, she claims (believably) to be sick of it. She doesn’t care what I do with it. This is basically true, but if my draft wanders too far afield from what she had in mind, she’s very tough-minded about getting me back on track.

We just finished our short novel, Cutout, for Neo-Text. I say “finished,” but we haven’t heard back from the editor, so you never know when rewrites are requested. But it feels good and was very much an idea that came from Barb and a story that she generated. The Antiques novels are fairly loose and it’s not unusual for long stretches to be my work; but in Cutout, her writing was so tight that working on it, trying to improve on it, was like repairing an expensive watch.

So feel free to hate me for being so lucky in having this life partner. I don’t deserve her. But at least I know it.

We wrapped up our anniversary celebration with a concert – Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Really, it was Frankie Valli and four back-up singers/dancers, but I’m not complaining…it was a great show. Held at the cavernous and unfortunately named TaxSlayer Center in Moline, the concert featured an amazingly spry eighty-eight year-old Valli hitting all the high notes and giving a long, opening-act-free presentation of most of his many hits, without and without the Seasons. A multi-media affair, with a fantastic rocking band, it had a Vegas feel that made other oldies shows I’ve seen look and feel like the cobbled-together affairs they often are.

The event had been postponed twice, and we almost skipped it, having already had a fun but exhausting Galena trip. But we were very, very glad we saw this pop music legend in performance.

* * *

Among the list of things Barb loves I listed Star Trek. We loved all the movies, including the one Shatner directed, and the recent J.J. Abrams reboot features, which not everyone does. We are okay with Next Generation, but every other ST series has left us cold – we haven’t ever boarded those vessels, not long-term.

I was once approached to do a Star Trek novel and was thrilled. It was to be about the newest, about-to-debut series, Enterprise, which I was told was a throwback to the original series. I watched the premiere, all revved up – it starred Scott Bakula, from Quantum Leap! But then it turned out to, well, uh…suck. At least in my opinion. And Barb’s.

I tried to get the book gig anyway, but both my tries were rejected because they resembled this episode of that Trek spin-off or that episode of this one.

Now comes Star Trek – Strange New Worlds, and we are both fans. It’s basically the series that Gene Roddenberry first intended to do, as indicated by the pilot (“The Menagerie”) with Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, Majel Barrett as Number One, and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

Strange New Worlds (streaming on Paramount Plus) is a smart, respectful prequel with a great cast. Anson Mount as Pike seems to combine the best of Kirk and Picard, Rebecca Romijn as Number One is a particularly strong presence, and Ethan Peck as Spock channels Nimoy to an eerie degree, particularly the sound and cadence of the original Spock’s voice.

The art design and special effects are stellar (sue me) and the stories so far mostly take place on the stunning Enterprise itself. The major difference is that none of the episodes to date are anything William Shatner would have put up with. Look, I love Shatner. (So does Barb.) He’s a force of nature and his Kirk is definitive. But he would never, never have allowed his episodes to focus so much on its ensemble cast. To Anson Mount’s credit, he holds the show together without flexing his ego.

This is the best Star Trek since…Star Trek.

* * *

Thanks to all of you who took advantage of the week-long 99-cent sale for the Kindle edition of No Time To Spy, which collects the three John Sand novels by Matt Clemens and me.

We did not hit number one on any of the Amazon bestseller lists (The Shrinking Island recently did) but we got into the upper reaches.

For those of you who (like me) prefer physical media, the “real” book of No Time to Spy is a fat thing of beauty.

You can get it here for $15.99.

* * *

Finally, here’s another of those “movies you didn’t know were based on comics” pieces, but not a bad one (on Road to Perdition of course).

M.A.C.

Tags: Cutout, John Sand, Mickey Spillane, No Time to Spy, Road to Perdition, The Shrinking Island
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 5 Comments »

No Time to Spy 99, OSS 117, and Stranger Things 4

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022

E-Book:

Paperback:

No Time to Spy – the collection of the three John Sand novels by Matt Clemens and me – is going on sale for an astonishing 99-cents (for the e-book) at Amazon starting today (May 31 at 12 a.m.) and ending June 6 (at 11 p.m.). Those are Pacific times.

For those of you who haven’t tried these books, this is an excellent low-cost opportunity. The response has generally been very good to the Sand novels, but a couple of supposed “big fans” of mine have attacked them for various reasons that seem specious to me. For one thing, they apparently don’t understand that the John Le Carre school of spy fiction (which I admire) is different from the Ian Fleming school (which I adore).

The premise of the trilogy, as you may know from previous updates here, is that John Sand is the real-life spy that James Bond was based on, and that Ian Fleming was a colleague who used Sand’s experiences as a basis for his fiction. The publicity that Sand receives as the basis of Bond forces him out of the spy game; also, he marries a very wealthy young woman – a Texas oil heiress – in an echo of what occurs in both the book and film of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, minus the tragedy.

Matt and I never mention Bond and Fleming by name, but it’s obviously an open secret. The books are larger than life, in the fashion of the Bond novels and films, but are at the same time quite tough and the frequent action can be violent, even shocking. The sexual content is largely limited to the married couple’s couplings.

The novels are, in order: Come Spy With Me; Live Fast, Spy Hard; and To Live and Spy in Berlin.

Matt and I had hoped to do at least one more Sand novel, but despite general positive reader response, sales have not encouraged us to do so. If this 99-cent sale pushes us onto Amazon bestseller lists, even briefly, that could change.

The ignorance of the handful of readers who have denigrated the books for being spoofs are the kind who can’t see the difference between Harry Palmer and Austin Powers.

This is not to say I don’t like a good Bond spoof, and a third in the film series of what is (in my opinion) the greatest satiric response to Bond is now available – OSS 117:
From Africa With Love, again starring Jean Dujardin (of The Artist fame) as secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath. The third film does not seem to be on any of the streaming services, but can be purchased on Blu-ray and DVD at Amazon.

The first two films, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009), are also available from Amazon in French with English subtitles on both Blu-ray and DVD. E-bay has both of these from various sources. E-bay also has From Africa With Love, but I ordered editions listed as having English subtitles and it wasn’t till my third try that I landed on a version that had that essential option. I would stick with ordering from Amazon.

What’s great about these films – they are strictly parodies of the Connery era, the star physically resembling the “real” James Bond – is that they work as Fleming-style spy stories with the hilarious inclusion of a Bond clone who is bone-headedly politically incorrect and in some ways a dope…and yet he’s a credible action hero. None of the other parodies of Bond accomplish that.

This new film finds OSS 117 actually growing and changing by the final scene…perhaps not dramatically, as it would appear his growth is largely limited to not patting the asses of the pretty females at the spy office as a greeting.

And you will adore the opening credits with the fake Bond theme song and faux Maurice Binder visuals.

I love these movies and wish they were more readily available. But if you’re a Bond fan, you need to see them. Also worthwhile is the boxed set of the original French OSS 117 films, which are among the better Bond imitations of the ‘60s.

* * *

I wrote at some length last week about the assorted streaming mini-series we have been watching. We picked up on season four of Stranger Things, which Netflix has just “dropped” as they say (an expression I could do without). I will tell you right now that Barb bailed before the end of the first episode, and I don’t blame her.

Having really liked the preceding seasons, I hung in there and watched the first two episodes – which were long, around an hour and twenty minutes each, far too long for a premise as wispy as that of Stranger Things. I have continued on and will stick it out to the end.

But the opening two episodes are a tough go. They present a version of high school that is simplistic and ridiculous – for example, El (who has lost her powers and apparently also her spine) is picked on by…everybody, at a school filled only with bullies. Several new annoying characters are introduced right when we’re trying to remember who the recurring characters are, some of whom are hard to recognize at first. After all, it’s been three years, real time, since the previous season. The kid actors all look much too old for the six months, story time, that have elapsed. Those annoying new characters include a rebel who looks to be about 35 and a pizza delivery hippie whose sub-Cheech-and-Chong comedy relief is painful to endure.

When the high school stuff fades and the sci-fi/horror stuff kicks in, Stranger Things gets back on recognizable track, uneven but rewarding. The biggest problem is the shifting tone, with the Winona Ryder storyline comic (despite tragic circumstances) and her sidekick conspiracy theorist, bearded Brett Gelman, often uncomfortably hammy.

The first two very long episodes are written and directed by the creators, the Duffer Brothers. Surprisingly, it’s the subsequent episodes by other hands that are what bring the season around. The creators seem to let their actors go over the top, unbridled, with Gelman (much better in non-Duffer-directed episodes) and newcomer Joseph Munson (the rebel Eddie Munson…get it, Munster?) their chief victims. These first two episodes are weak on Direction 101 items like matching action and, well, pacing.

The pop culture references get laid on a little thick, too. We have Robert Englund repeatedly scratching his insane asylum-cell table with his fingernails (Freddie Krueger, get it?) and the kids entering a haunted house right out of (the much better) It. Krueger is playing Victor Kreel (Victor Crawley horror franchise, check) as he subs for Hannibal Lecter offering convicted-serial-killer advice from his cell.

Why watch?

Well, once you get past the first two ill-judged episodes, the Eleven story kicks in, in a satisfying way. Most of the young actors are terrific, especially Sadie Sink (and her character is into Kate Bush, which reveals good taste on somebody’s part, probably the Duffers, giving credit where it’s due). Really, all of the recurring characters are fine, with Millie Bobby Brown a standout, once she ditches the suddenly-El-is-a-five-year-old bit. Of the original group Gaten Matarazzo remains winning – the heart of the ensemble.

It’s not the Duffer Brothers’ fault that Covid happened and three years passed, damaging the believability of cast members as kids younger than they’re playing. That a number of new actors were cast as teenagers and look at least thirty is the creators’ fault.

What I think happened is this: the brothers were in the right place with the right idea at the right time to be one of the first binge-worthy shows, really jump-starting Netflix. But in the meantime some other gifted creators have taken advantage of the limited-season, limited-series approach, and upped the ante. This season of Stranger Things does not compare to Gaslit, The Offer, The Staircase, or Better Call Saul.

Not even close.

* * *

Road to Perdition is on this list of the best noirs to date of the 21st Century.

M.A.C.

Tags: Deals, John Sand, No Time to Spy
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | Comments Off on No Time to Spy 99, OSS 117, and Stranger Things 4

Posts Tagged ‘John Sand’

Caleb York Nominated

Sand Sale, Perdition, Hammer Theme, Spillane, Crusin’

54 Years and Counting! (Really 56.)

No Time to Spy 99, OSS 117, and Stranger Things 4