On this day in music history - Nightscenes, by Michael Whalen (1996):

Nightscenes

Album by Michael Whalen,

released January 1, 1996.

Track list:

Evening Blurs Into The Neon; Close Your Eyes, The Right Approaches; Acquainted With The Night; Part One: Light-Sky-Stars; Part Two: Passages; Part Three: Faces; Part Four: Love; Into The Darkness Part One: The Heart Of Midninght; Into The Darkness Part Two: Journey Towards The Sunrise; It Happened On A Sunday.

On this day in movie history - Michael (1996):

Michael

directed by Nora Ephron,

written by Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, Peter Dexter and Jim Quinlan,

based on a story by Jim Quinlan and Peter Dexter,

was released in the United States on December 25, 1996.
Music by Randy Newman.

Cast:

John Travolta, Andie MacDowell, William Hurt, Bob Hoskins, Robert Pastorelli, Jean Stapleton, Teri Garr, Wallace Langham, Joey Lauren Adams, Carla Gugino, Tom Hodges, Catherine Lloyd Burns, Richard Schiff, Calvin Trillin, Donald J. Lee Jr., JoAnn Fregalette Jansen, David Harrod, Jane Lanier, John Hussey, Margaret Travolta, David M. Bernstein, Betsy Sokolow Sherman, Tracey A. Doyle, Blue Deckert, Deborah Nunez, Dell Aldrich, Kay Colvin, James N. Harrell, Peyton E. Park, Dianne Dreyer, Tim Harrison, Daniel Mimura, Mark Nutter, Thomas F. Evans, Jimmy Borto, Stephen Bruton, Dominic Paolo Testa, Tom Woodruff Jr.

Recommended reading - Film Noir Reader (1996):

Film Noir Reader

Edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini.

Published 1996.

Published by Limelight.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0879101970

ISBN-13: 978-0879101978

Description:

This bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

On this day in movie history - Mars Attacks! (1996):

Mars Attacks!

directed by Tim Burton,

written by Jonathan Gems,

based on the 1962 Topps Mars Attacks trading card series,

was released in the United States on December 12, 1996.
Music by Danny Elfman.

Cast:

Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Lisa Marie, Sylvia Sidney, Paul Winfield, Pam Grier, Jack Black, Janice Rivera, Ray J, Brandon Hammond, Joe Don Baker, O-Lan Jones, Christina Applegate, Brian Haley, Jerzy Skolimowski, Timi Prulhiere, Barbet Schroeder, Chi Hoang Cai, Tommy Bush, Joseph Maher, Gloria M. Malgarini, Betty Bunch, Gloria Hoffmann, Willie Garson, John Roselius, Michael Reilly Burke, Valerie Wildman, Richard Irving, Jonathan Emerson, Tamara 'Gingir' Curry, Rebecca Broussard, Steve Valentine, Coco Leigh, Jeffrey King, Enrique Castillo, Don Lamoth, C. Wayne Owens, Joseph Patrick Moynihan, Roger Peterson, John Finnegan, Ed Lambert, John Gray, Gregg Daniel, J. Kenneth Campbell, Rance Howard, Jeanne Mori, Richard Assad, Velletta Carlson, Kevin Mangan, Rebeca Silva, Josh Philip Weinstein, Julian Barnes, Ken Thomas, Darelle Porter Holden, Christi Black, Sharon Hendrix, Frank Welker, Jim Beatty, John Bradley, Colleen Ann Brah, Greg Bronson, JoAnn Bush, Mac Canepi, George Cheung, Maria Celeste Genitempo, Geri Gilmore, Matt Gulbranson, Roger Jackson, Anthony Kopczynski, Walter Ludwig, Johnny Mansbach, Stephanie Masoner, Scott McKinley, Bob Pepper, Kelly Lynn Richards, David Sherrill, William Victor Skrabanek, Alexandra Smothers, Jay So, Edward Tubbs, Carl Washington, Don Winsor.

Recommended reading - The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories (1996):

The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories

Edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert.

Published by Oxford University Press.

Published 1996.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0195085817

ISBN-13: 978-0195085815

Description:

"Certain to be the standard anthology of American detective stories for years to come." – Edward D. Hoch, editor of The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories.

"The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories is indispensable to anyone interested in the form." – Robert B. Parker, creator of the Boston private-eye, Spenser.

Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" launched the detective story in 1841. The genre began as a highbrow form of entertainment, a puzzle to be solved by a rational sifting of clues. In Britain, the stories became decidedly upper crust: the crime often committed in a world of manor homes and formal gardens, the blood on the Persian carpet usually blue. But from the beginning, American writers worked important changes on Poe's basic formula, especially in use of language and locale. As early as 1917, Susan Glaspell evinced a poignant understanding of motive in a murder in an isolated farmhouse. And with World War I, the Roaring '20s, the rise of organized crime and corrupt police with Prohibition, and the Great Depression, American detective fiction branched out in all directions, led by writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, who brought crime out of the drawing room and into the "mean streets" where it actually occurred.

In The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories, Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert bring together thirty-three tales that illuminate both the evolution of crime fiction in the United States and America's unique contribution to this highly popular genre. Tracing its progress from elegant "locked room" mysteries, to the hard-boiled realism of the '30s and '40s, to the great range of styles seen today, this superb collection includes the finest crime writers, including Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Ed McBain, Sue Grafton, and Hillerman himself. There are also many delightful surprises: Bret Harte, for instance, offers a Sherlockian pastiche with a hero named Hemlock Jones, and William Faulkner blends local color, authentic dialogue, and dark, twisted pride in "An Error in Chemistry." We meet a wide range of sleuths, from armchair detective Nero Wolfe, to Richard Sale's journalist Daffy Dill, to Robert Leslie Bellem's wise-cracking Hollywood detective Dan Turner, to Linda Barnes's six-foot tall, red-haired, taxi-driving female P.I., Carlotta Carlyle. And we sample a wide variety of styles, from tales with a strongly regional flavor, to hard-edged pulp fiction, to stories with a feminist perspective. Perhaps most important, the book offers a brilliant summation of America's signal contribution to crime fiction, highlighting the myriad ways in which we have reshaped this genre. The editors show how Raymond Chandler used crime, not as a puzzle to be solved, but as a spotlight with which he could illuminate the human condition; how Ed McBain, in "A Small Homicide," reveals a keen knowledge of police work as well as of the human sorrow which so often motivates crime; and how Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer solved crime not through blood stains and footprints, but through psychological insight into the damaged lives of the victim's family. And throughout, the editors provide highly knowledgeable introductions to each piece, written from the perspective of fellow writers and reflecting a life-long interest--not to say love--of this quintessentially American genre.

American crime fiction is as varied and as democratic as America itself. Hillerman and Herbert bring us a gold mine of glorious stories that can be read for sheer pleasure, but that also illuminate how the crime story evolved from the drawing room to the back alley, and how it came to explore every corner of our nation and every facet of our lives.

On this day in movie history - Star Trek: First Contact (1996):

Star Trek: First Contact

directed by Jonathan Frakes,

written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore,

was released in the United States on November 22, 1996.
Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

Cast:

Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, Jeff Coopwood, Dwight Schultz, Patti Yasutake, Michael Horton, Neal McDonough, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips.

On this day in movie history - Saint-Ex (1996):

Saint-Ex

directed by Anand Tucker,

written by Frank Cottrell Boyce,

was released at the BFI London Film Festival in the United Kingdom on November 17, 1996.
Music by Barrington Pheloung.
Based on the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Cast:

Bruno Ganz, Miranda Richardson, Janet McTeer, Ken Stott, Katrin Cartlidge, Brid Brennan, Eleanor Bron, Karl Johnson, Daniel Craig, Dominic Rowan, Anna Calder-Marshall, Joe Cottrell Boyce, Aidan Cottrell Boyce, Nicholas Hewetson, Alex Kingston, Lucy Abigail Kent, Hannah Taylor Gordon, Ravi Sunnak, Rosalie Crutchley, Gregory Chapman, Cris De La Rue, Michael Grey, Danny Laufer, Lance Roberts, Martin Sims, Nancy Zamit, Ruby Hodgson, Alistair Fulton, Melvin Gibbons, Steven Noble, Sam Riley, Esme Young, Curtis Cate, Madeleine Coust, André de Fonscolombe, Michel Gerez, Jules Roy.