May 2007 Archives

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The opening sequence of 28 Weeks Later -- call it an opening salvo -- is utterly ferocious. Proceedings start quietly, but this is a sequel to the apocalyptic 28 Days Later, and, as in any zombie movie, peace is only the prelude to a storm of blood and viscera. It starts with a woman trying to cook a meal, in the dark, as photographic evidence of the world that used to exist distracts her from the task. She's part of a cobbled-together family living in a cottage, isolated, in the London countryside. Though the house is dark, it's daylight outside -- the windows have been tightly boarded against the sunshine and the possibility of unwanted visitors.


What if Spider-Man were an asshole?

The Closers by Michael Connelly

If you fly cross-country much and have yet to make the acquaintance of Michael Connelly, well, maybe you'll thank me later. Sure, I've tackled more highbrow material on long flights, but Connelly's mystery novels are the most compulsively readable things I've yet discovered, and they're readily available in the kind of airport-lounge newsstands where you might find yourself scrounging for something on short notice. Yes, there's something almost quaintly pretentious about a novelist whose main character is a crusading L.A. cop named Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch. (He has darkness in his soul!) And yes, the stories can feel repetitive and formulaic. But Connelly is a former newspaperman who cranks out relentlessly clean prose and reliably twisty plots that make turning the pages an easy pleasure, and his attention to the ordinary details of good policework is convincing. I'm always happy to know there's a new Connelly paperback on deck for my next long flight — I just got back from Vegas and can report that The Closers is typically absorbing reading, though it's not a good place to start. Try to get ahold of 1992's The Black Echo, which introduces Bosch to the world. (If you're wondering about movies, Clint Eastwood adapted Blood Work, a non-Bosch novel from 1998.)