Reading From the Same Page

A brief excursion into literature for today's post. It makes a change from me ranting about Spurs (OK, I was wrong, they won last night, but there's still the second leg of this tie to come in Poland - a disaster waiting to happen), or my demented ramblings about politics, the Paralympics or bus driving apes. Getting to the point, the other day I picked up a copy of The Sweet Forever by George P Pelecanos from a charity shop for thirty pence. A bargain, I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, I've been a fan of Pelecanos' fiction for quite a while now, but I'd never visited his website until now. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the site included some of Mr Pelecanos' musings on the subject of films. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that he rates many of the same fairly offbeat movies that I do. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone discuss Monte Walsh, let alone admit to liking the film. At last - I'm not alone!

But it got better, not only does he list Magnificent Seven as one of his favourite westerns, (and truly, this a film which contains a lesson for just about any situation life can throw at you), but he waxes lyrical on the subject of Sam Peckinpah's Killer Elite (a truly weird, yet quite brilliant action film), and even manages to explain the plot of The Seven Ups, a 1970s cop film I've always admired, but never quite understood). Jesus, I thought, no wonder I like this guy's books so much - we're clearly reading from the same page! Mind you, it also helps that his books tend to be set in Washington DC, just about the only part of the US I'm personally familiar with. (I used to have to go there for work on a regular basis). Anyway, the upshot of all this was that I ended up ordering the DVD of Killer Elite from Amazon, along with a whole stack of classic Universal horror films I was buying as a form of retail therapy after Spurs' shocking start to the season. See, we're back to bloody Tottenham Hotspur already! There's just no escape!