Often been surprised by a movie after what a film critic said about it? Ever felt cheated out of big bucks on the recommendations of a punk 24-year-old? Or really loved the ones they panned? Well, you no longer need to feel out of step with the current movie review band. Different Drummer is for you. Read more about our take on the film world. And get ready to relive your favorite movies with the recipes that follow each review. You can find many other great recipes in Different Drummer’s own Appetite for Murder: a Mystery Lover’s Cookbook, too.
This 1975 thriller has aged well. The classic paranoia and suspicion of government agencies seem particularly appropriate today. And while it still keeps you riveted to your seat, this thriller actually takes time for character development and great dialogue, unlike the frenetic features Hollywood currently puts out.
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Light and bubbly like dry vintage champagne, Amazon’s McDonalds and Dodds is one of the best mysteries to hit the screen. The opening says it all: A score as crisp and delightful as the vintage wine with the medieval city of Bath represented like a modern D.C. Escher graphic print. This mystery lover, classically trained violinist, and one time medieval scholar finds it irresistible.
Read MoreWho cares if you’ve never rowed in your life. It’s the middle of the Great Depression and you’re living in a rusted-out jalopy eating a can of beans. Making the Washington State rowing team may be the only way to get a roof over your head and a steady paycheck.
Read MoreThis film is what Different Drummer is all about – finding a superb little sleeper that is as extraordinary as it is little known. And this 1983 gem starring such greats as Gregory Peck, John Gielgud, and Christopher Plummer is that in spades.
Read MoreThat’s why we called them the greatest generation, pals. This war and the Depression before that shaped them. They didn’t complain. They just did their duty, and more than you can even imagine died, and died valiantly.
Read MoreThis classic submarine film is right up there with Das Boot and The Hunt for Red October. Well, almost. But it doesn’t get better than this cat and mouse game between the captain of an American destroyer and his counterpart, “the enemy below” him in the German U Boat.
Read MoreHow can you not love a submarine film? And Gerard Butler does some of his best work here as the taciturn newly recruited captain taxed with a nearly impossible mission. Besides, Hunter Killer has been banned in Russia. Do you need any other motivation to see it?
Read MoreArguably Hitchcock’s popular and critical masterpiece, this film has it all. Cary Grant is magnificent as the wrongly accused man on the run, handling his dire straights with dry humor and nonchalance. The action set pieces are riveting and so superior to the CGI we typically get today. While the romantic banter has a verbal wit we seem to have forgotten on screen.
Read MoreSee it again or for the first time to discover why Hitchcock bests them all, especially in what is purportedly his favorite film. Maybe because he embeds evil in such an innocent lair.
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In his first Western Director Howard Hawks captures the Wild West in a profound way. It’s not shootouts at the OK corral, but a desperate Texas cattle baron who will do whatever it takes to survive. If that means branding over a neighbor’s cows, shooting gunslingers who dispute his right to the land, or even horsewhipping his own cowboys and threatening to hang deserters, then so be it.
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Steve McQueen is mesmerizing is this brutal saga capturing man’s eternal yearning to be free. At the jungle labor camp he battles betrayal, disease, starvation, as well as encounters with unfriendly lepers, a pragmatically sadistic prison director, nuns with unusual ideas of Christian charity, and more than one person setting him up for certain death. But it is his unlikely alliance with fellow prisoner Dustin Hoffman that anchors this epic tale.
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This 1987 film is even better than I remembered. Action, adventure, and a superb cast of characters who gain courage from each other as they fight against entrenched corruption both inside and outside the law.
Read MoreThis 1945 classic delves into the unconscious to uncover a crime. All the clues are locked in the memory of a profoundly disturbed amnesiac who may or may not be a murderer.
Read MorePaul Newman, so young and gorgeous in this 1967 epic, fills the screen by trying not to in this tale of a likeable yet self-destructive rebel.
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Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook
Also available here
by Kathy Borich
A tantalizing slant on cooking and crime. Relive your favorite classic detective stories and then whip up the food that caught the culprit.
"Look, you don't have to go to law school to figure out there's something very, very wrong at Lady Bird Lake," Nancy Grace says in the episode's opening of her “Austin Serial Killer Fears” episode. She even derides the police who refer to the events as “unfortunate incidents.” Yes, she is a bit over the top, and some of her guests are so called experts not really familiar with the Austin area or the specific cases, but she does have a point.
Move along everyone. There’s nothing to see here. That seems to be the escalating nonchalance citizens are getting from the Austin Police Department regarding the 12 bodies that have been found in or very near Ladybird Lake in Austin Texas in the past 22 months. The last three - one February 6th , another April 9th, and a third on April 13th have not even been identified.
Different Drummer herself has noticed the weak city response in terms of safety measures as she and her husband ride past the Rainey Area near Lady Bird Lake. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. What good are some pallid lights and a split rail fence if there are big gaps with only a sign to warn those of danger? Certainly, someone drunk, as may or may not be the case, probably would or could not read it.
Update: They are beginning to install electricty along the path for better lightning as of April 2024
February 6, 2024
“A body was found Monday, Feb. 6, 2024, in a Texas lake, the same site where other deceased individuals have been discovered in recent months, authorities said.
“At least five people have been found dead at the lake, which is a portion of the Colorado River running through downtown Austin, since last year.” –Louis Casiano, Fox News
The body is that of a woman, which differs from the previous drownings, all of which were men around age 30. As usual, the police are mum and saying there are no signs of foul play, but what else is new? –DD
Different Drummer will keep you informed as further details emerge. Below is the area where the recent body was found.
In 2023 alone, five bodies have been found in in Lady Bird Lake, and according to local reports, as many as eight in the past 10 months.
Different Drummer and her husband Gary have been biking this trail around the lake for decades. They live in the thick of it, on a quaint tree-lined street across the river from the glittering Austin Skyline.
Follow our two Cycling Sleuths chronicle where their path crosses those who did not return home to their loved ones.
Smiley Face Connection: February 2024 Update: Another Body Found
The Serpent’s Tooth: A Texas Mystery
Austin is now the trendy number one city, but back in the eighties it was more laid back – not so many skyscrapers and urban hipsters. Just outside of town, you'd be likely to run into old cowboys, ranch hands, and a diamondback or two. And just maybe – an accidental death not as accidental as it seems…
Complete with Texas Recipes for the Oktoberfest Dinner where all is revealed.
An Illustrated Introduction to Classical Horsemanship: Concepts and Skills from A to Z
by Gary Borich
A comprehensive resource in a succinct alphabetical format that brings the beginning rider through every aspect of learning to train and ride for show and trail.
