Manga Review: Case Closed, Vols. 89 & 90

Manga Review: Case Closed, Vols. 89 & 90 by Gosho Aoyama Quick recap: Shinichi Kudou (Jimmy Kudo in the dub) is a genius teen detective who is shrunk into a preteen by an experimental poison administered by agents of the Black Organization. (So called because they all wear black.) Taking the psuedonym Conan Edogawa, Shinichi… Continue reading Manga Review: Case Closed, Vols. 89 & 90

Book Review: Cooked to Death

Book Review: Cooked to Death edited by Rhonda Gilliland and Michael Allan Mallory Let’s return to the world of themed anthologies, a quick way to get a sample of various authors writing on a particular topic. In this case, it’s primarily Minnesota and other Midwestern writers doing crime and mystery short stories around the topic… Continue reading Book Review: Cooked to Death

TV Review: Doctor Who: The Two Doctors

Two and Six are going to have to put their heads together to get out of this fix!

TV Review: Doctor Who: The Two Doctors directed by Peter Moffat One of the fun things you can do in a long-running series about time travel that regularly replaces the main character’s actor is have “crossover” episodes where more than one version of that main character team up. Doctor Who had already done this with… Continue reading TV Review: Doctor Who: The Two Doctors

Movie Review: Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

Jackie gets a little too close to a buzzsaw.

Movie Review: Mr. Nice Guy (1997) directed by Sammo Kam-Bo Hung The place is Melbourne, Australia. Reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and her cameraman Richard (Peter Houghton) were secretly filming a drug deal between suit and tie mobsters lead by Giancarlo (Richard Norton) and the more street gang “Demons” led by Grank (Peter Lindsay) when the deal… Continue reading Movie Review: Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

Movie Review: Oldboy (2003)

A central dilemma of the film.

Movie Review: Oldboy (2003) directed by Park Chan-wook On his daughter’s birthday, Dae-su Oh (Choi Min-sik) got stinking drunk and taken to the police station. He was still pretty drunk when he was picked up by his friend No Joo-hwan (Dae-han Ji). So when Dae-su vanished while No’s back was turned in a phone booth, at… Continue reading Movie Review: Oldboy (2003)

Magazine Review: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May/June 2021

Magazine Review: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May/June 2021 edited by Linda Landrigan In 1956, HSD Publications wanted to create a new mystery story magazine. To boost sales, they licensed the name of Alfred Hitchcock, a famous director who was then the host of a popular television show. While Mr. Hitchcock otherwise had nothing to do… Continue reading Magazine Review: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May/June 2021

Manga Review: Iron Wok Jan! 2

Manga Review: Iron Wok Jan! 2 by Shinji Saijyo, with supervisor Keiko Oyama Jan Akiyama’s grandfather Kaiichiro was one of the two greatest chefs of Chinese cuisine in Japan. He took Jan into the mountains for years to train him in the culinary arts. But Kaiichiro Akiyama died, and his final instructions were for Jan… Continue reading Manga Review: Iron Wok Jan! 2

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 1953

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 1953 edited by Ellery Queen If you’re not picky about condition, you can find a lot of cool old magazines for very reasonable prices, like say a dollar for this 1950s EQMM. At this time, editor Frederic Dannay still used his pen name of Ellery Queen on the… Continue reading Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 1953

Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu

Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu edited by Ross E Lockhart Fantasy and horror author H.P. Lovecraft wasn’t a big seller during his lifetime, but the loose setting he created of the Cthulhu Mythos, where humans are only the most recent inhabitants of a cold and chaotic universe, and many of the previous inhabitants are… Continue reading Book Review: The Book of Cthulhu

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1977

Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1977 edited by Ellery Queen Having enjoyed a recent issue of this magazine, I decided to root around for an older copy.  This one was published in December 1976, but the cover date was a month ahead.  Frederic Dannay (half of the “Ellery Queen” writing team) was still… Continue reading Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1977