While I am not a wannabe law enforcement agent or an individual who blindly condones their more outrageous excesses – corruption, racial profiling, accidental shootings, etcetera – I do find great pleasure in certain fictitious sleuths who have gained eternal notoriety in the annals of literature, TV, and film over the course of recent memory.

If you do not understand how or why I find enjoyment in following their pursuits, then I highly recommend picking any one of the following five detectives to examine in closer detail through the body of work that has given them their due reputation.

5. The Bad Lieutenant

I am well aware that this the name of the gritty crime flick from Abel Ferrara circa 1992, but the individual I am referring to is the depraved anti-hero portrayed so poignantly by Harvey Keitel in the above motion picture. With next to no interest in actually solving any real crime in the heyday of David Dinkins, the Lieutenant (how Keitel is actually credited, there is no other name for his character in the entire movie) gallivants around the sordid city ingesting large amounts coke, freebasing in Spanish Harlem, jerking off on the bridge & tunnel crowd, and making ill-advised bets against the Darryl Strawberry led LA Dodgers of 1991. This is Ferrara’s greatest character ever, hands down.

4. Jimmy McNulty

The Wire was such a seminal series in regards to so many different topics due to the unparallel character development that took place over the course of five seasons. Apart from possibly Omar, Homicide Detective Jimmy McNulty is the most original personalities to emerge from this classic series. Possessing any uncanny knack for true police work, despite his raging alcoholism/satyriasis, Jimmy McNulty constantly plays a fine mediating influence between pathological street thugs and hustlers, and career-driven stat flunkies in the oft-reviled Baltimore Police Department in The Wire. He is the glue that holds the whole thing together.

3. Inspector ‘Tequila’ Yuen   

The opening scene to Hard Boiled damn near made me want to move to Hong Kong and join the police force myself. All I have to say is that John McClane and Ray Tango have jack shit on Tequila Yuen’s gun skills.

2. ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan

The archetypal bad-ass detective: armed with a hand-cannon, a shitty attitude, and a lack of ethical scruples about Miranda rights, Dirty Harry is the truth. Although some of the later films ran a little thin on original plot lines, Clint could have carried this character for at least a dozen more features, no problem. Having already been canonized in popular Western culture as the quintessential vigilante cop, this pick is a shoo-in for at least the second spot on this list and would have reached the top if it weren’t for the mythical status of the next (and best) selection on this week’s five spot.

1. Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation of Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s was one of the greater moments of Victorian literature. How could you not like this character? Apart from having one of the greatest analytical minds in crime fiction history and deductive skills that would make those lame fucks on CSI turn to ash, Sherlock Holmes was also an amateur boxing champion who regularly injected cocaine, and upon faking his own death in 1891 by vanquishing his mortal enemy, Professor Moriarty, then traveled the world and hung out with the likes of the Dalai Lama. If you have never read a single on of these stories then I suggest you do, as Sherlock Holmes is without doubt the most profound fictitious detective I have ever come across.

By CLS

Although football (soccer) has yet to reach mainstream prominence in the US, I still feel compelled to write about the beautiful game on this website to hopefully broaden the horizons of some of our more ‘internationally challenged’ readers out there in Scribeland.

Hence this week’s Five Spot is about the five best, in my humble opinion of course, football (soccer) strikers in the world. For those who aren’t aware of what a striker is or does, it is roughly, one of the attacking forwards who generally plays ahead of everybody else on the field.

5. Thierry Henry, Barcelona, France:

4. Samuel Eto’o, Cameroon, Inter Milan:

3. David Villa, Valencia, Spain:

2. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Barcelona, Sweden:

1. Fernando Torres, Liverpool, Spain:

By CLS

While I know that many of our readers will be wondering why we decided to run a Five Spot on this topic, all they have to do is ask themselves one simple question: when have you seen James Woods in a movie where he did not make you aspire to greater anti-social behavior?

If you said ‘The Way We Were,’ then you need to calm the fuck down, as we all make unfortunate decisions when we are young. Regardless of his inherently misguided conservative beliefs, James Woods is one of the greatest character actors of his generation to ever grace the silver screen.

I don’t know quite what it is that makes his acting so effective. The bulging eyes perhaps? Or his wiry junkie frame? Most likely it is the pathological rage, which he channels into each and every character he portrays. Whatever it is, James Woods is street legal. Even if you robbed senior citizens for their medication and Social Security money, you would still never be as gutter as this prolific asshole.

For those of you who don’t celebrate James’ catalogue like I do, here are five of his finest roles that should catch you up to speed with the rest of us James Woods aficionados.

5. Once Upon A Time In America, 1984: 

In this flick, James Woods’ portrayal as Max, a Prohibition-era, Jewish bootlegger in the Lower East Side is arguably his finest. Starring alongside Robert DeNiro in famed Italian director Sergio Leone’s last motion picture, the original edit of this film is one of the greatest movies ever made. However, I can’t give any details of the plot here without spoiling the entire movie, but if you haven’t seen this epic yet, then you need to put this at the top of your Netflix queue immediately.

4. True Believer, 1989:

The bottom line is that James Woods performance in this movie should be seen for his rude mullet alone. Honestly, has anybody ever seen a hairstyle that actually looked like a chemo patient who has glued a Davy Crockett hat to their goddamn head? If that wasn’t incentive enough, this flick opens up with a racially inspired fight to the death between a Korean born member of a Latino prison gang and an Aryan Brother in the chapel at Sing Sing. How True Believer never won an Oscar is beyond me. Woods manages to navigate the tricky waters of a highly publicized appeal court case despite the fact that his legal aide de guerre is none other than junkie Robert Downey Jr. himself, and corrupt NYPD officers and deranged white supremacists are trying to bury him alive simultaneously. Not only that, but Eddie Dodd is also a chronic pothead; another classic James Woods role.

3. Salvador, 1986:

In the role of war photographer Richard Boyle, Woods not only garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this role, but he also perhaps gave his greatest portrayal as a low-life deadbeat to date. When scumbag photojournalist Boyle and his despicable crony Doctor Rock (played admirably by Jim Belushi) are faced with adversity in San Francisco in 1980, what do they do? As most of us would, they took a road trip…to El Salvador. What better remedy for two alcoholic buddies in despair than to drive 1500 miles to the nearest civil war? This movie itself is a testament to the lowest level of tourism imaginable for those in dire need of a cheap vacation. This flick is a must see for any self-proclaimed film buff, if for anything else to witness the dynamic relationship between Belushi and Woods on screen. (Note: apparently all of the Salvadoran characters in this film were conveniently played by Mexican actors with no attempt whatsoever to change their respective accents.)

2. Cop, 1988:

Now for those of you who are fans of the ‘on the edge-not afraid to violate your civil rights-eventually gets suspended but still ruins everybody’s shit by themselves’ cop flick genre, this movie is for you. Woods plays a moody, obsessive homicide detective in LA named Lloyd Hopkins who doesn’t seem to like the fact that some crazy fuck is going  around his town gutting gigolos and innocent women alike. Somewhere in this movie lies a plot, but I didn’t notice as Woods typically owns the screen in this one as even though this is an extremely shitty flick, it is an extremely shitty James Woods flick. With his usual sardonic humor, and ever present raging, alcoholic temper, Woods makes this junker palatable somehow through his unbelievable skill at being the biggest asshole around.

1. Casino, 1995:

Ahhhhhh… Lester Diamond. What more can I say? Men wanted to be him, women wanted to be strung out by him. Complete with the pervert ’stache, polyester suits, and a nasty coke habit to boot, James Woods somehow outperformed his fellow cast members which included grandmaster scumbags Frank Vincent, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci. Not only that, but somehow Lester still managed to win the girl, in the form of the skeezer, Ginger, played so acutely by real life dilettante Sharon Stone. While most remember the head in the vice scene, Nicky Santoro’s humorous mélange of profanity, and Ace Rothstein somehow surviving an attempted car bombing, real connoisseurs of this movie will no doubt have been wooed by Woods’ stunning portrayal as cokehead/pedophile/pimp Lester Diamond.

By CLS

While Heineken and Guinness have held the distinction of being Europe’s most famous beers for decades, this does not necessarily mean that they are the finest. This continent is renowned for its cuisine and wine, yet it also produces many of the finest lagers, stouts, and ales served the world over.

Although an exercise in subjective opinion, here are Scribe Culture’s top five favorite European beers:

5. Zywiec

Originally a brewery founded by ruling members of the Hapsburg Empire during the pinnacle of their empire in the mid-nineteenth century, ?ywiec was nationalized by the communist Polish government following WWII. Although Poles received the short end of the stick, ideologically speaking, during the Cold War, at least they had subsidized beer such as this to drink away the pain.

4. Peroni                    

Forget about an Italian red. Nothing accompanies a nice plate of caprese and prosciutto than a cold bottle of Peroni. Although lighter than the other beers listed on this Five Spot with 4.7% alcohol content, Peroni can still hold its own with any other pale lagers from the continent. An honorable mention goes out here to its main domestic competitor, Birra Moretti, which by far has the best packaged product in all of Europe – peep the old dude on the bottle.

3. Stella Artois

Until a year ago, Stellas would have been on the top of my list, yet the Belgian brew has fallen two spots on my list solely because I drank so fucking many of them that they lost their appeal. However, don’t let my excessive drinking habits fool you, Stella Artois can hang with the best of the rest throughout the world, a fact that many a boozehound will attest to.

2. Kronenberg 1664

The sexy bottle that this beer is served in is reason enough to imbibe them with great frequency. I don’t know how to describe the taste of this pale lager from France except for it tastes like a refined, more subtle version of the third selection in this Five Spot.

1. Carlsberg

This Danish pilsner is one of the finer pleasures in life. If you can find a place where these beers come extremely cheap (i.e. Langkawi, Malaysia, where they cost 40 cents/can), then I would suggest perhaps changing your country of citizenship.

Of course we like a good debate. Scribe Culture is open to any suggestions or revised lists from our readers. Feel free to post your top European beers in your commentary. We’re interested to read what our readers think.

Organized criminal organizations have always played a pre-eminent role in domestic and foreign cinema for over seventy years. From Howard Hawks’ groundbreaking gangster archetype Scarface in 1932, to the recent release Gomorrah, films have perennial showcased various societies and their accompanying criminal underclass to differing effects. With few exceptions between, these organizations function and flourish in almost every corner of this planet. 

With that said, there is an abundance of international films dealing with this often taboo subject matter through their particular vantage point. While most westerners are familiar with the more celebrated representations of this genre such as The Godfather Trilogy, Snatch, and City of God, there is a plethora of other less notorious, yet highly distinguished movies depicting organized crime in its many guises. This week’s Five Spot dishes out five organized crime flicks from around the world that warrant greater attention from the masses.

1) The Long Good Friday (United Kingdom, 1980)
This movie tops this list for its sheer lack of weaknesses, as The Long Good Friday is as close to cinematic perfection as one could hope for. With Bob Hoskins playing a cockney crime boss, a young Helen Mirren playing his moll, and subsequent internecine warfare between his mob and the IRA in the streets of London over a 36-hour period, you really can’t go wrong with this movie.

2) Sonatine (Japan, 1993)

When Tokyo gangster Murakawa’s crew falls out of favor with his yakuza boss and is transferred to do a job in the sticks of Okinawa, the result is a comical regional exchange of Japanese gangster customs and betrayals. Beautifully shot on location, this film demonstrates why lead actor and director Takeshi Kitano has dominated the Japanese film industry for the past two decades.

3) Little Odessa (United States, 1995)

From the violent opening scene to this movie’s tragic and unpredictable ending, Little Odessa is mandatory viewing for any cinematic aficionado solely for Tim Roth’s riveting performance as a volatile young Russian mobster in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. Also known as Little Odessa, this neighborhood is one of Russian organized crime’s major strongholds outside of the former Soviet Union, and its’ treacherous undercurrents are poignantly displayed in this excellent film.

4) The Show Must Go On (South Korea, 2007)

While The Sopranos has cornered the market on the familial dysfunctions of gangsters in the minds of most Americans, it is not the only, or best, representation of the dual lives that criminals are often forced to lead. Starring accomplished actor, Song Kang-ho, The Show Must Go On is a biting satire on the domestic and professional lives of a gangpae, or a South Korean gangster in modern day Seoul. Although comedic by nature, this movie displays an emotional side as well, particularly the bittersweet ending.

5) Mean Streets (United States, 1973)

Director Martin Scorsese has garnered an almost mythical status in the crime genre, yet one of his finest, and most overlooked, films was this debut in the early 1970s. Starring the likes of Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro, this is the flipside of the universe that Francis Ford Coppola depicts in The Godfather. Some readers might think that this is too celebrated a cult classic to be on this list, however Mean Streets has never truly received the attention it deserves for its brilliant portrayal of aspiring Mafiosi in Little Italy during the debauchery of the 1970s.