Just about everyone who’s a mystery fan knows that Joseph Hansen made publishing history in 1970 with Fadeout, the first detective novel that featured an openly gay investigator, Dave Brandstetter. But how many mystery fans know that Hansen published 12 Dave Brandstetter mysteries? I didn’t know that until I saw The Complete Brandstetter offered by Daedalus Books at http://salesbooks.com. The omnibus collection  published by England’s No Exit Press (www.noexit.co.uk) contains all 12 of the Brandstetters at a bargain price. Don’t miss this one!

“Get off of my lawn!” Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) rasps as he points his rifle at a bunch of Hmong gangbangers who were busy pummeling his teenage neighbor.  Gran Torino is a vehicle for Clint Eastwood to play a retired Ford autoworker who finds himself a relic of a vanished world.  His Polish neighborhood is now populated by immigrants.  His priest is a third of his age.  His wife is dead.  He’s mocked by his family.  He growls alot.  But circumstances take this aloof retiree into a Twilight Zone of violence.  You’ll be surprised at the humor in this movie.  And you’ll also be touched by Eastwood’s message about families.  GRADE: B+

The Funk Brothers were Motown’s in-house band. They invented the “Motown” sound. The Funk Brothers labored in obscurity until STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN, a documentary, appeared in 2002. The remaining members of The Funk Brothers perform with contemporary artists like Joan Osborne. The founder of Motown Records, Barry Gordy, Jr. worked at Ford. He was fascinated by the assembly line process. So when he started a recording company, it operated like an assembly line. The Funk Brothers explain how the process worked and it’s fascinating stuff. If you haven’t seen this fine documentary, it can be had for a song at Wal-Mart or put it in your NetFlix queue.

This 3-disk set features most of the Motown establishment: the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. All the familiar tunes are here. However, if you’re more adventurous, try the COMPLETE MOTOWN #1s in the cute little house (10 CDs for $127.49 on AMAZON).

For the first time in recent memory, I agree with the Golden Globe choices. Here they are:

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

BEST MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Colin Farrell, In Bruges

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
WALL-E

Look for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE to be the favorite at Oscar-time.

There are a dozen Poirot collections out there, but this one looks like the pick of the litter. I found this 12 DVD collection at BJ’s WAREHOUSE for $34.99 (AMAZON wants $79.99 for the same thing). Some of my favorites are here: MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN, MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA, and EVIL UNDER THE SUN. All in all, there are 12 full-length David Suchet/Hercule Poirot classics in this collection. Just think of this as 19 hours and 39 minutes of delight!

Although the complete Perry Mason TV series is being issued season by season, this collection showed up at my local Sam’s Club for $15 (AMAZON wants $35 for the same thing). How could I resist? In addition to a dozen Perry Mason episodes (of uneven quality) it’s the “Special Features” disk most fans will be most interested in viewing. The syndication promos are fun to watch (and bring back a lot of memories). Raymond Burr’s Charlie Rose interview is here. The Photo Gallery is a nice touch. If you’re fan of the Perry Mason TV series this is a “must-have” set.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” wrote Charles Caleb Colton. I’ve admired Bill Crider’s Friday feature of reviewing a “Forgotten Book” for Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books each week. My first candidate is Theodore Sturgeon’s The Dreaming Jewels. The edition I recommend is the Bluejay Books edition with the creepy cover by Rowena Morrill and more Rowena interior artwork. Like all of Sturgeon’s work, there’s a blending of reality. In this case, a young boy, a circus, and bizarre extraterrestrials produce a mind-bending plot. As Bill Crider pointed out in his review of John D. MacDonald’s The Brass Cupcake it seems incredible that a great writer like JDM could be out-of-print and nearly forgotten. I feel the same way about Theodore Sturgeon. If you haven’t read Sturgeon, or haven’t read him in awhile, The Dreaming Jewels is the perfect place to start. GRADE: A

It’s far fetched and frequently ridiculous, but given this dismal TV season 24 stands as a shining light of hope (for some entertainment) this weekend. Essentially, 24 is a soap opera with violence. Lots of violence. Agent Jack Bauer (played by the wooden Kiefer Sutherland) takes on various terrorists and deals with corrupt bureaucrats. The show’s conceit is that each one hour episode equals one hour of a day of mind-bending action. If you haven’t watched the previous seasons of 24, not to worry. It isn’t that deep. An added bonus is that Dave Barry posts entries on his blog during each episode of 24. Hilarious!

After reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and then viewing the recent movie with the same name you’ll notice only two similarities. Both the story and the movie have the same title and both have a character named Benjamin Button who ages in reverse. Other than that, there are no commonalities. Of course, the movie has the fetching Cate Blanchett who delivers a wonderful performance. Brad Pitt does his Brad Pitt thing. If you like this time-in-reverse type of trope, try Philip K. Dick’s Counter-Clock World.