Sam Wiebe Introduces the 1974 Classic Slated to introduce The Conversation at the Vancouver Film Center before the pandemic, Canadian crime writer Sam Wiebe, the creator of private eyes Dave Wakeland and Michael Drayton, finally got to do it in April 2022. The screening was part of a free day of programming in memoriam for VIFF staff … Continue reading A Conversation About The Conversation
Tag: Those '70s Shows
“It’s Not Supposed to Matter”
"The Conversation" Remembered You can't fit The Conversation into any neat, cinematic genre convention. It's a bleak, cynical character study within a psychological thriller. It's also an inside-out twist on the traditional hard-boiled P.I. as Round Table knight. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is no gumshoe. He's a surveillance expert. A legendary eavesdropper considered tops in … Continue reading “It’s Not Supposed to Matter”
Looking for the Connections
Reconsidering Altman's "The Long Goodbye" I think Altman's rendition of The Long Goodbye gets a bad rap. Fans of Raymond Chandler's poetic novels and Bogart's iconic portrayal find Elliot Gould as a smart-ass, sleepy "Rip Van Marlowe" too much of a change in character. Gould's Philip Marlowe is a man who fell asleep in the … Continue reading Looking for the Connections