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A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Death was only the beginning.
Filmmaker(s): Kenneth Branagh

Celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, reluctantly attends a Halloween séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.

The Influence of Inscrutability Christie based films are a sort of bellwether for me. I think the most important trend in our culture just now is how we play with awareness. The most obvious and experimental centre for that is long form film. The most...


Published November 15, 2023
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Billy’s Balloon (1998)
Filmmaker(s): Don Hertzfeldt

A balloon wraps itself around a young child's hand, bringing him higher and higher, much to the child's delight, but a sinister truth begins to unravel.

Inflated is a replacement comment. The original bothered a diligent reader, so I have made some expansion. Animation is like any film type: artists ally to certain philosophies, perhaps without realising it. In the case of animation, it bumps up against that great American invention, noir....


Published August 27, 2023
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The Big Sleep (1946)
The picture they were born for!
Filmmaker(s): Howard Hawks

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

Camera in the Head an enthusiast of film, the kind of film that uses the uniquely cinematic qualities of the medium. From time to time, I see a non-cinematic film which I like. This is one such. By non-cinematic, I mean that the film is not...


Published August 12, 2023
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The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Most Horror-Dripping TALE EVER WRITTEN!
Filmmaker(s): Terence Fisher

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

Mongrel was an invention of the times, following the new idea of evolution. The notion of pure reason being able to perceive and comprehend everything in life was especially novel. This was contrasted to the bumbling inductive logic of doctors like Watson. Handling Holmes is...


Published July 27, 2023
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The Big Clock (1948)
The Strangest and Most Savage Manhunt in History!
Filmmaker(s): John Farrow

Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.

Gears has a crackerjack beginning: you zoom into a city through a window (common today but rare then) tracking a man going into the inner workings of a giant clock, then we zoom from the inside of the clock top the outside, then focusing on...


Published July 27, 2023
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Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
No one was supposed to get hurt.
Filmmaker(s): Sidney Lumet

When two brothers organize the robbery of their parents' jewelry store, the job goes horribly wrong, triggering a series of events that send them and their family hurtling towards a shattering climax.

Space are from time to time successful presentations in the sense that the characters work. You understand them well enough to have some genuine acceptance of their reality as humans, but that means you realise that there are things going on that do not have...


Published June 29, 2023
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The Fashionistas (2002)
Filmmaker(s): John Stagliano

A famous fashion designer, searching for a hot new "bondage" look, comes across a design house called The Fashionistas. Unbeknownst to him, the firm's owner is determined to seduce him--not only to get him to buy her line, but also because she knows he can get her into the strange world of underground S&M clubs.

The Movie Within: Clockwork Peaches this is porn, with some real negatives. One of these is its perversion, pretty much all the pain, bondage and fetish you can imagine. But it is done as a parody. The watcher is being goofed on, tortured for fun. In...


Published June 20, 2023
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Fast X (2023)
The end of the road begins.
Filmmaker(s): Louis Leterrier

Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they've ever faced: A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who's fueled by blood revenge, and who is determined to shatter this family and destroy everything—and everyone—that Dom loves, forever.

Neonoir Reversed are three components to these kinds of products. Action scenes of some kind, a cosmology, and a story to weave them together. Characters and drama are irrelevant. For me, sometimes the cosmology was enough, like the middle ‘Wick’ projects. Sometimes it blows me away,...


Published June 20, 2023
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Æon Flux (2005)
The Perfect World Meets The Perfect Assassin
Filmmaker(s): Karyn Kusama

400 years into the future, disease has wiped out the majority of the world's population, except one walled city, Bregna, ruled by a congress of scientists. When Æon Flux, the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion, is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, she uncovers a world of secrets.

Credible World fiction movies are an odd thing. They and “detective” movies depend more heavily on literary conventions than other types of films. But you know, where detective movies have swallowed the form and adapted in rich ways, science fiction hasn’t settled gently into film. Its...


Published May 22, 2023
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The Dark Knight (2008)
Welcome to a world without rules.
Filmmaker(s): Christopher Nolan

Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.

The Noir Card things interesting about this for me. (I’ll let others talk about Heath.) One is how much more of a comic book it is than a film. I don’t mean that it is sillier or more fantastic, but that the values seem to be...


Published May 17, 2023
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