What would be interesting in that would be to see how many films are mentioned and at what level of analysis. There's a great deal to unpack there, and such an approach to annotating the contents of Film Noir File site would assist people in doing so. [EDIT: I am aware that the drop-down links at your site mention specific films in many cases, but there are also lists of films in other entries that are not annotated. I'm suggesting a full annotation, including the spy noirs that are mostly unaccountend for in other noir lists, to demonstrate exactly how much of the "noir canon" your site references--even if its in-depth coverage is mostly found in films named in links on your front page.]
As far as that criticism you refer to, it had to do with a link to your discussion of THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE in response to a thread dealing with the passing of Rhonda Fleming. Your short essay about the film (which, IIRC, was extracted from an edition of THE FILM NOIR ENCYCLOPEDIA) mentioned Ms. Fleming only in the credits list and not at all in the discussion of the film, which made the statement in your post a bit curious, given that it suggested that her performance in THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE was one of her "greatest presences." My point was that we didn't get any sense of Ms. Fleming from the reference or from the link, which made it seem superfluous.
(BTW, I don't think that's the case with a link to your writeup about A KISS BEFORE DYING, because the film is featured so prominently in the discussion of the Still Corners' upcoming release.)
If you go back and look at my comment re Fleming (back in October), it also praised your analysis of toxic masculinity as regards THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE--a theme/topic that is also pertinent to a discussion of A KISS BEFORE DYING. Tracing the origin of the "homme fatal" and the point in time when he moves from manipulation to "gaslighting" to serial killer would be an interesting exercise in determining if the "thriller" component in noir (based on what Mike Keaney called "character disintegration") is more essential to the development of the dramatic dynamics in these films than, say, a more "institutional" form of criminality (gangs, the Mob, blackmailers, etc.).
Re 2020: No question but that it's among the toughest 12-month periods that America has experienced...for those of us of a certain age, it might be approached only by 1968. The immediate result in America at the conclusion of that year was Richard Nixon, which didn't quite prove to be a salve for the nation's wounds. We can now at least hope for a better result on that score as we move beyond "The Plague Year." Fingers (and toes--and, occasionally, eyes) crossed for that to be the case...
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