Friday, January 4, 2013

Know Best Sew Fears

You like crime cinema like you should? You'd do well to check out William Boyle and Anthony Moretta's new 70's crime film blog Goodbye Like a Bullet. They've started off strong with examinations of John CassavetesThe Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time - adapted from Edward Bunker's No Beast So Fierce. Gooooooood shit.

Though going for more of a grindhouse feel, Julian Grant's latest feature Sweet Leaf has a late-seventies/early-eighties vibe to it. Check out the trailer at Vimeo... I can dig it. If you wanna check out his previous fucked up little low-budget crime flick F*ckload of Scotch Tape as five-minute webisodes, JG is making that available for free at Blip.

Julian's latest short film - That Pale Light in the West - is an adaptation of Nik Korpon's short story (which you can read in his collection Bar Scars... hint, hint), and Nik's waxing magnanimous about me & Jules & F*ckload of Scotch Tape at Spinetingler:

"If you're reading this list and don't know about FLOST and Jed Ayres, you shouldn't be reading this list. You should be buying F*ckload of Shorts and watchig FLOST. If you do know both of them, you know why it's on this list."

Thanks, Nik... and a whole lot of other people too. It's been a good week to be me. My upcoming (February) novella, Fierce Bitches has been getting a few nice notices from: The Nerd of Noir at Spinetingler Magazine, Josh at Just a Guy That Likes To Read and Kieran Shea at Black Irish Blarney. I've also collected some sweet-ass blurbs from the likes of J.I. Baker and David Whish-Wilson (whom Liam Jose got me all hot for - I've just gotta read Line of Sight quick-like).

But, big, fat, sweaty thanks to Keith Rawson who, at LitReactor, put A F*ckload of Shorts alongside Megan Abbott's Dare Me, Jake Hinkson's Hell on Church Street, Grant Jerkins' The Ninth Step and Tom Piccirilli's The Last Kind Words in his Best of the Best: The Genre Edition year-end listiness. That's insanely good company to be keeping, and gotta admit, I feel a bit like the turd in the punch bowl there... still, huge thanks to Keith, a real honor, sir. Mr. K. also included A F*ckload of Shorts on his Spinetingler list, which feels good, but Brian Lindenmuth added my unpublished novel Peckerwood on his. So... thanks, Brian, but sorry, kids.... no chance to read that one anytime soon.

But, hey, go check out that Spinetingler piece, you'll find some damn good crime shit lovingly selected by Brian, Keith, Nerd and R. Thomas Brown. Probably some chunka surprise waiting for you there. I like finding tomorrow's favorites through these typa things. Some N@B folks getting love there too - Kevin Lynn Helmick's Driving Alone, Gordon Highland's Flashover, John Hornor Jacobs' This Dark Earth, Sean Doolittle's Lake Country and N@B-butthole-cousin Kirby Gann's Ghosting also picked up honors.

1 comment:

David Cranmer said...

I'll check out Goodbye Like a Bullet. Been on a 70s crime kick of late. And lots of top links, Jed. Thanks.