As readers of the blog will be aware, my book on the 1980 film, "Union City", starring Dennis Lipscomb, Deborah Harry, Everett McGill, Irina Maleeva, and Sam Murray was recently made available for pre-orders. I'm glad to report that the book is now published and is shipping. This was an absolute labour of love for me. Look how beautiful it is!
Although I've been writing fiction for many many years, my thoughts have only occasionally turned to filmmaking, usually deciding that it's too complex a business to get into, and being wary of relinquishing editorial control. There was a period a couple of years ago, however, where it was more to the forefront of my mind, and I was trying to think of ways to bring a short film together with the minimum involvement of others. Not because that input wouldn't be valuable, simply because I wanted to attempt something that I wouldn't find too daunting. This came to a head when my partner, Sophie, bought a Mantelly brand kids instant print camera. This cute device thermal prints black and white images similar to receipts. I realised that if I took some pics and strung them together - similar to a montage - I could create a film not dissimilar in style to Chris Marker's "La Jetée" (1962), in which a voiceover narrates the story against a set of images. Using that as the central conceit, I began shooting images locally, mostly of brutalist buildings, interspersed with photographs of myself in a latex full head armadillo mask which I knew would come in useful someday (doesn't everyone have one of these at home?)
"Armadillotown" began life as a novel shortly after my partner bought me that mask one Christmas, however I never progressed beyond the first thousand words. I had an idea of an unlikely billionnaire wanting to create a utopia, a city where there is full employment, little crime, where everything is catered for - with one proviso: that the citizens have to wear an armadillo mask at all times except when completely alone. I would then have a detective from outside the town called to investigate a missing persons case, with the tagline being "The job was a missing persons case. But how do you find someone in a city where everyone looks the same." I can't recall why I never progressed with that novel, but those first thousand words subsequently formed the basis of the screenplay. As it turns out, having since made the film I've returned to the novel idea and written a thirty thousand word novella-isation, expanding the premise, but that's another story.
Taking photos with this child's camera brought the concept to life. The images are naturally grainy black and white, perfectly suited to a noir sensibility. Realising that it might be difficult writing a script and then shooting images to match it, I adopted a hybrid approach, capturing images that I thought would work in a film, writing the scenario around them, and having fleshed out the story then taking photos to order. This ensured I could remain within my capabilities. Armed with over three hundred photos and the script, I edited them in Photoshop where they became even more low-res as a result, and then I downloaded some editing software (Movavi Video Editor) which was free and would enable me to add effects, music and the voiceover, and for which I would only need to pay the minimum of one month's subscription once the film was completed and could then be downloaded into a viewable format. This method allowed me to keep any costs very low. The entire film comes in at less than £50. The film itself is just over fourteen minutes long.
Whilst editing, I recorded myself reading the script for pacing and collaging the images, but it was clear I needed someone professional in this role and so I approached Paul Robinson, an actor friend of mine who works under the name Sam Heydon. The addition of his voice greatly improved the rough draft I had. Another friend, Tom Jarvis, whose current band are The Widows, offered me some film music he'd been tinkering with, plus one song from the band which was mostly an instrumental. That song, "Crossfire", plays at the opening and end of the film. In both cases, these additions were incorporated by myself without either Paul or Tom seeing the film until it was completed. I was cautious of letting anyone see the film at all until I was happy with it, but through serendipity both their contributions fit perfectly.
"Armadillotown" falls into the category of an experimental art film, which was my intention, with a strong story pulling the viewer through to an existential ending. My PI doesn't resolve the case, but simply acknowledges that it would be redundant to do so. As commented by someone who has viewed the film, my PI goes into Armadillotown with the intention of finding someone, but ends up losing himself.
Once the film was completed and I received good feedback from a select audience I had to decide what to do with it. I could have simply thrown it up onto YouTube, but I wanted to do things properly and so began approaching film festivals via FilmFreeway. It soon became clear to me that submitting a film to a festival was no different than trying to place a short story or a novel. No matter how good (or bad) something is, the competition is fierce. However, persistence is everything and I've recently been notified that "Armadillotown" is a finalist in the Best Short film awards run by the Sykehouse Film Festival. There will be a screening as part of the festival - on Sunday 17th May - which I'm looking forward to attending.
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Not being a filmmaker, as such, I sometimes have the feeling that showing my film to film folk is akin to proudly displaying a model made out of sticklebricks to a group of builders and architects, but as all feedback has been positive it does seem that "Armadillotown" has merit. What would be ideal would be for the project to gain traction, and perhaps for the novella-isation to be optioned for a larger picture. I can see a lot of potential in this idea, and hope to push it forwards. Either way, I've enjoyed applying my mind to something different, and hope once the festival circuit is exhausted that I can then release the film in some way to a larger audience.
For the moment, here's a very brief trailer.
With publication of my monograph on the 1980 film, Union City, imminent, I thought I'd share a photograph about the signed 'cinema tickets' which will be included as inserts within the first 200 copies sold. I rattled through these last weekend and they have been returned to the publisher, so hopefully it won't be long before the books have been printed and will be posted with them inside. I'll update this when I receive my copies, but in the meantime feast your eyes on these little beauties.
Union City is available to pre-order exclusively from PS Publishing (via their Electric Dreamhouse imprint).
Exciting news! My monograph on the 1980 film, Union City, is available to pre-order from PS Publishing (via their Electric Dreamhouse imprint) from today.
The following is the official press release:
“Before Twin Peaks there was Union City” – Everett McGill
As soon as the first Electric Dreamhouse publications were
announced back in 2018 I knew I wanted to write something for the imprint. Applying
myself to an entire film seemed wondrously decadent. Devotion decided, the only
decision required was what film I would write about. Many of my favourites (Mulholland
Drive, Donnie Darko, Way Out West, El Topo) were too
well-known and had plenty of existing coverage, and I felt that some other
contenders (Pierrot le Fou, Sátántangó) wouldn’t fit the genre
requirements for PS. I narrowed it down to three films: Spoorlos
(English title, The Vanishing, directed by George Sluizer), The
Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel), or Union City (Marcus Reichert)
which starred Deborah Harry in her first starring role. Whilst I loved Spoorlos,
I was wary of a language barrier when conducting interviews, and having already
written a short pamphlet about the Buñuel film I decided to go for Union
City. Chris Stein of Blondie had written the score, and I’d previously had
interactions with him on Instagram. So I reached out and he agreed to be
interviewed. Suddenly, the ball was rolling.
I’d first seen Union City on television almost thirty years ago, and had subsequently reviewed it for an online magazine when it appeared on DVD in 2006. I believe it to be a forgotten masterpiece. The plot is quite simple. Harlan (Dennis Lipscomb) and Lillian (Deborah Harry) rent an apartment in a tenement block in the eponymous city situated in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey. Their lives have become stale, the marriage mundane. Harlan becomes fixated by a ‘milk thief’ who drinks from their morning doorstep delivery. An unhealthy obsession develops and after a convoluted ploy to wake and catch the thief he does so. Assuming moral superiority backdropped against the impotency of his life, Harlan attacks and accidentally kills the man. The remainder of the film explores his paranoia and fear of being found out.
If this sounds like the plot of a simple noir thriller then
indeed it is. The film is based on The Corpse Next Door, a short story
by the crime writer Cornell Woolrich. I felt the film was ripe for examination,
and as it happened my timing was perfect. Having contacted Chris Stein in
November 2019, most of my initial interviews with the cast and crew were
conducted during 2020, when the world was in lockdown. From my tiny terraced
house in Norwich, UK, I conducted in-depth telephone conversations with some major
film industry names in Hollywood, who were at home instead of on location and
therefore had the time and inclination to chat, considering they could do
little else! Most especially, I was able to cultivate a close friendship with
Marcus Reichert (the director), which led to us talking regularly, reading each
other’s work, and providing insights I hadn’t expected. Reichert had become
completely disillusioned with the film industry following the release of Union
City (for reasons which I discuss in the book). The writing of my book was to
prove cathartic for him, enabling reconnections with those he had been involved
with during that time, and a reassessment of that period of his life. He was
very grateful for my efforts, and thankfully was able to read and offer
approval (if not always agreement) over the finished draft, before he
regretfully and suddenly passed away in 2022.
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In addition to extensive interviews with Marcus, my book includes a scene by scene run through of the film together with chapters on film noir, colour, comedy, the hitherto unknown proposed sequels, and writer Cornell Woolrich; plus interviews with the following: Monty Montgomery (who went on to produce films with David Lynch and who also had an acting role as The Cowboy in Mulholland Drive), Ed Lachman (the cinematographer, who has also worked with directors Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, and most recently with Todd Haynes), Stefan Czapsky (the gaffer, who since went on to work with Tim Burton, among others, as a cinematographer), Fred Caruso (the line producer who has also worked with Sergio Leone and David Lynch), Deborah Harry (lead singer of Blondie), Chris Stein (guitarist with Blondie who scored the film), Everett McGill (actor who went on to have a role in Twin Peaks and other Lynch films), Irina Maleeva (actor whose career started with Federico Fellini), and Sam McMurray (an actor now known for his US TV work).
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For those who have seen the film, I feel this in-depth movie
monograph will provide many surprising insights and fresh information. For
those who have yet to watch the film, I hope my book will encourage them to
seek it out. As a precursor of neo-noir and with several of the crew latterly
working with David Lynch, it inhabits a pivotal role in cinematic history and
remains – for me, certainly – an essential watch.
Union City can be pre-ordered direct from the publisher here.
Well, it's that time of the year when everyone is doing their 'best and worst of' lists, so here is mine. I'm going to list the books and movies and records I read/watched/listened to in 2025 and then pick my favourites. This isn't restricted to what was new in 2025, but what I actually watched and read and heard - some of these items might be very old indeed.
Books:
I read the following in 2025:
That's worked out at 69 books this year, which is two down from last year. However, I've also read all or part of another 27 books in my role as one of the judges for the Otherwise awards (ongoing), plus I've proofread and copyedited around another 8 novels as work (with those which were exceptional also making the above list).
Thankfully there weren't many books that I read this year that I absolutely hated, with most of the books attaining either three or four stars in my Goodreads round-up which is equivalent to 'I liked it' and above. However I really struggled with Sarah Lotz's "The Three". where in the right hands, this story of three children who inexplicably survive three separate simultaneous plane crashes might have been a good idea. Unfortunately, Lotz goes down the route of telling the story through the 'book' of a journalist, who in herself is using interviews, witness accounts, secondhand information etc, to drive the story forwards. What I found most annoying, is that despite such a multitude of characters, they all speak in the same voice (barring some thoroughly inappropriate stereotypical racial mannerisms), so - quite frankly - the story is quite numbingly boring. Moving on, whilst I normally enjoy the short stories published as chapbooks under the Nightjar imprint, there were two which only gained either one or two Goodreads stars from me this year. I won't name them, as I think the appreciation of short stories can vary from reader to reader, more so than novels, and generally those in this series are never less than interesting.
I continued ploughing through George Simenon's Maigret novels, reading sixteen of those this year and enjoying all of them (and like last year, one more than the others). If I read around the same number next year I might potentially finish the series, even if that leaves me a little bereft. Speaking of which, unfortunately, this year saw the death of Tom Robbins, a writer I absolutely adore, so I decided to re-read his first novel, "Another Roadside Attraction", however my takeaway was that it was clearly a first novel, and despite flashes of brilliance it meandered and pontificated without his usual wit (something I remember thinking when I first read it in the 90s). I'd suggest, as an alternative, "Jitterbug Perfume", one of my favourite novels which I have re-read many times. Alongside "Another Roadside Attraction", other recommended 3 star reads (which are probably all 3.5) include "Death of the Author" by Nnedi Okorafor, which plays an interesting twist with AI (with a third-quarter-drag which could be explained by the twist at the end and in fact makes rethinking about the novel much more interesting); short story collections, "Licensed Premises" by Neil Campbell (a mixed collection with disquieting appeal) and "The Dream Operator" by Mike O'Driscoll (literary, visceral speculative fiction stories with "The Spaceman" - a kind of coming of age story - being my favourite. In fact, I'd recommended this book on that basis alone); "What's With Baum?" by Woody Allen (whilst the writing could be tighter in places and it needs a better edit, the story is strong and anyone interested in Allen and his movies will find enough familiarity here to enjoy); "Serotonin" by Michel Houellebecq (a novel which started at a cracking and intriguing pace but gradually became bogged down with detail that was far less interesting and which then - apart from a couple of sequences - descended into the same navel-gazing reflections which come to befall the protagonist); and the non-fiction books "Les Vampires" by Tim Major (about the film series of the same name, which reads never less than delightful) and "Under A Rock" by Chris Stein (As an insight into 'fame' this memoir is an insightful window into what happens when the media isn't looking).
There was a large number of 4 star reads this year, including a high number of Maigret novels. Others included Ray Cluley's first collection, now ten years old, "Probably Monsters" (a great selection of stories; proper literature, not just coathangers to hang scrappy, secondhand horror from, but heartfelt examinations of the human condition); "Suspicion" by Seichō Matsumoto (Matsumoto has a knack of really getting to the bottom of his characters and the story arc of the reporter in this novel is sublime, underpinning everything else with immaculate precision); "A Short Stay in Hell" by Steven L. Peck (a short novella which posits a potentially everlasting Hell with a twist: you can get out if you can find the story of your life in a vast library); "The Exopotamia Manuscript" by Maxim Jakubowski (there's a rich warmth to the telling of a man close to the end of his years reminiscing on what was and what might have been and in fact what actually could be); "Stray Pilot" by Douglas Thompson (an excellent piece of work about a pilot who disappears whilst chasing a UFO shortly after WW2 and subsequently reappears after eighty years to reconnect with his family and to warn humanity about climate change issues. This is possibly my favourite of Thompson's novels); "The Man Who Went Up in Smoke" by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö (the second in their Martin Beck detective series, which - like Maigret - I love and intend to read in full); "Eastmouth and Other Stories" by Alison Moore (a great collection of liminal stories which often capture moments of departure for each main subsequent character, whether tentatively celebratory or edging into the unknown); and "Moon Over Brendle" by Jeff Noon which I've copyedited for the publisher and is due to come out next year (you are in for a treat!).
There were several books this year that I'd rate 4.5/5 but which were just edged out of my top three. These were "They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei (a graphic novel about the treatment of US Japanese citizens in WW2, a timely read and a reminder that only a handful of decisions stand between many of us and our safety); "Lapvona" by Ottessa Moshfegh (a literary exploration of faith and filth); "Poppy Harp" by Simon Avery (a 'wonderfully lovely' folk horror novel, affectionately riffing off 1970s childrens television shows); and especially "The Ghost" by Terry Grimwood (a distillation of a what-if scenario, the consideration of whether what makes a man who he is – a monster, a saviour – is the weight of history, an accumulation of circumstances, or a straightforward personal choice. "The Ghost" is a superlative example of how the best fiction makes us feel: uncomfortable, thoughtful, stirred. I heartily recommend this work which I am still thinking months later).
As usual, however, I default to Goodreads for those few books which I rated 5/5 during the year, and on this occasion there were only three, which makes my final selection much easier. So, without further ado, here are my third place and then my top two favourite reads of 2025:
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Last year I wrote a post detailing the gigs I'd attended that year, and I think I'll make this an annual thing to keep my photos in one place. This year, it amounted to 27 gigs (more than ever before in one year). I don't take many photos as I prefer to be in the moment, but early on I like to get my phone out and take at least one snap (as a reminder more than anything else). And I do mean snaps, there's no professionalism here! Anyway, no doubt this might be of interest to someone, somewhere, so here, listing the main act only unless there is a very significant other, are the gigs I attended in 2025 with accompanying pic. It's probably worth noting that some of these I attended as chaperone for my daughter, but on the whole I enjoyed all of them.
7th February 2025
Papa Roach
Wembley Arena
19th February 2025
Peter Perrett
Islington Assembly, London
22nd February 2025
Mattiel
The Social, London
Norwich Arts Centre
14th March 2025
Barry Adamson
Norwich Arts Centre
6th April 2025
Hallan
Norwich Waterfront Studio
3rd May 2025
Panic Shack
Norwich Arts Centre
6th May 2025
Boko Yout (support)
Brixton Academy, London
6th May 2025
Viagra Boys
Brixton Academy, London
9th May 2025
Arooj Aftab
Norwich Cathedral
17th May 2025
Throwing Muses
Norwich Waterfront
22nd May 2025
Supergrass
The Roundhouse, London
24th May 2025
The Starting Line
02 Islington Academy, London
31st May 2025
Public Image Ltd
Norwich Epic Studio
19th June 2025
Sparks
Eventim Apollo, London
16th August 2025
Evicshen (support)
Islington Assembly, London
16th August 2025
Gibby Haynes and the Thunes Institute for Musical Excellence
Islington Assembly, London
2nd October 2025
Atreyu
Norwich Epic Studio
18th October 2025
New Found Glory
Brixton Academy, London
24th October 2025
Hitsujibungaku
02 Islington Academy, London
27th October 2025
Bow Wow Wow
Voodoo Daddy's, Norwich
6th November 2025
Hugh Cornwell
Norwich Epic Studios
11th November 2025
Warmduscher
Norwich Waterfront
23rd November 2025
Hotel Lux
Norwich Waterfront Studio
26th November 2025
Gary Numan
Cambridge Corn Exchange
29th November 2025
Pop Will Eat Itself
Norwich Epic Studios
1st December 2025
Lambrini Girls
Norwich Waterfront
9th December 2025
The Raveonettes
02 Islington Academy, London
10th December 2025
Wheatus
Norwich Epic Studios
