In this series, I’m looking back at the books and movies of the “Psycho” franchise before its TV revival in “Bates Motel,” which will conclude its five-season run this month. More than two decades after 1959’s “Psycho,” Robert Bloch returned to the Norman Bates saga with “Psycho II” (1982), which has more in common with Wes Craven’s […]
Welcome to a new series where I look back at the books and movies of the “Psycho” franchise before its revival in “Bates Motel,” one of the best TV shows of the decade, which will conclude its five-season run this month. Let’s start at the beginning with Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho” (1959). At 125 pages, it can […]
Following two solid lead-ins, “Patterns of Force” (2009) is a satisfying final chapter in Michael Reaves’ “Coruscant Nights” trilogy. It’s definitely pulpy (mostly in a good way) and it gets bizarrely untethered at times, but Reaves provides lots of juicy writing about core “Star Wars” concepts in a book that is perhaps used as source material for […]
The “Bates Motel” (10 p.m. Eastern Mondays, A&E) narrative has steamrolled its way into the plot of the 1960 movie “Psycho,” its source material, the past couple weeks. I was looking forward to seeing those classic scenes play out, particularly the famous “shower scene,” here starring Rhianna as Marion Crane. Then we got a twist: Norman (Freddie […]
“The Lost City of the Monkey God” (January, hardcover) looks from its cover like the latest Douglas Preston thriller, perhaps along the lines of “The Codex,” something about tromping through Central America in search of a lost city. But that little notation “A True Story” isn’t a “Fargo”-style joke. “Lost City” is a work of journalism […]
Having already been renewed through its third season, “This Is Us” is a show we’ll be talking about for a while. After last Tuesday’s Season 1 finale, I Facebooked that it successfully made me cry in 18 out of 18 episodes, and that it’s the #bestshowontv. That hashtag was mostly used by other “This Is Us” fans […]
Michael Reaves steps up his game in “Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows” (2008), which has more of a true mystery plot than the trilogy’s first book and even better tie-ins to the wider Expanded Universe. While there are continuity oddities and plot conveniences, it’s a compulsive page-turner and Jax Pavan’s gang of renegades is more engaging […]
After making my list of the top “Buffy” 20 episodes for the 20th anniversary, I had a hankering to go back to the time when 12 of those episodes take place: The high school years of Seasons 1-3. Luckily, Dark Horse launched “Buffy: The High School Years” with two comics last year, and with more forthcoming. Both […]
Book review: The 16th Agent Pendergast novel is Preston & Child’s craziest ride, but it’s also a key Constance Greene novel.
TV rankings: To mark the 20th anniversary of the show’s TV debut, I pick my 20 favorite episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”