An established experimental poet—the kind that comes with a beard and a fear of proper capitalization—was heard recently to denounce video art as “arty farty stuff.” As a writer and sometime video artist myself, I like to think of the two disciplines driving on the same motocross track, kicking up dust and heading for a glorious collision. Such a collision can be witnessed in all its elegance in Everybody Loves Nothing (Coach House), a collection of scripts by the Canadian video artist Steve Reinke.

Critical theory is not known to zing and hum with the menacing eloquence of Dashiell Hammett, but Double Cross: the Hollywood Films of Douglas Gordon (Art Gallery of York University/ The Power Plan) by Philip Monk, Canada’s most steely art curator and critic, comes close. Douglas Gordon, an artist and Turner Prize winner best known for his video appropriations of film noir, is gumshoed by Monk until all secrets are revealed.