The Instigators (2024)
Worst. Heist. Ever.
Filmmaker(s): Doug Liman
Rory and Cobby are unlikely partners thrown together for a heist. But when it goes awry, they team up to outrun police, backward bureaucrats, and a vengeful crime boss.
A Caribbean Mystery (1983)
Filmmaker(s): Robert Michael Lewis
Aging Major Palgrave, an idiosyncratic but charming mystery writer, reveals to Miss Jane Marple that one of the guests at a luxurious Caribbean resort they're staying at is a Bluebeard-type wife murderer. Unfortunately, the Major succumbs to an apparently accidental overdose of alcohol and blood pressure medication before revealing the killer's identity. When it's discovered that the medicine belonged to another guest and the revealing photograph the Major was carrying is missing, Miss Marple realizes that the serial killer has struck again and more murders will follow.
22 Apr A Caribbean Mystery (1983)
Glass Eye To my mind, Christie’s novels are inherently cinematic. Most of them have key events: a murder or clue, that are spatially constrained, which is an attractive hook for a filmmaker. Here there are three such setups. A man tells a story about a...
20 Apr Lost in the Stars (2022)
Film within I think I have seen this plot twice before, and pretty sure one was a TeeVee movie. In that case, the orchestrator was the local police chief. What we have here is a combination of noir that turns out to be what I...
The Third Murder (2017)
Everyone has a truth to want to believe.
Filmmaker(s): Hirokazu Kore-eda
A lawyer tasked with defending a robbery-and-murder suspect begins developing doubts about what truly happened.
24 Mar The Third Murder (2017)
Wandering narratives You only have a few choices in film, alas. So when a filmmaker wants an adventure in narrative form, they are constrained. I come to these not for the experience, but to see the choices that have been made and whether they are...
Ten Little Indians (1987)
Filmmaker(s): Stanislav Govorukhin
A disturbing psychological thriller based on the classic novel by Agatha Christie. Ten strangers are forced to come face to face with their dark pasts after receiving an anonymous invitation to an isolated island off the coast of England.
03 Mar Ten Little Indians (1987)
Invasive You are not likely to find this easily. It is ‘Desyat negrityat’ in its original Russian (Десять негритят), being a comparatively faithful adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery. Some context why this is interesting. The book is allegedly the largest selling fiction book in...
Layer Cake (2004)
Filmmaker(s): Matthew Vaughn
When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...
23 Feb Layer Cake (2004)
Taking the Drugs One narrative form is the con story. All of these folding tricks are there to engage the viewer, to trick him or her into investing in the story. The idea is that some important things you understand about the story, your platform...
The Oxford Murders (2008)
There is no way of finding a single absolute truth
Filmmaker(s): Álex de la Iglesia
At Oxford University, a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.
23 Feb The Oxford Murders (2008)
Talk Around Her It is simply a fact that no film can stand by itself. Even when you deeply lose yourself in the experience, the cognitive machinery you use is different than in daily life — more toward directed dreamstate. Added to that is the...
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
A federal agent is dead. A killer is loose. And the City of Angels is about to explode.
Filmmaker(s): William Friedkin
A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.
22 Feb To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
Two Women Making a story that connects is a balancing act that rarely succeeds. You have to use the machinery of storytelling to engage, taking advantage of the power of the devices you select. But at the same time, you have to conceal that machinery....
Micmacs (2009)
Non Stop Madness.
Filmmaker(s): Jean-Pierre Jeunet
While standing in the doorway of the video shop where he works, Bazil is inadvertently shot in the head. Now homeless and jobless, he is taken in by a troupe of misfits who live in a giant mound of trash. There Bazil begins his quest for revenge against the people who produced the gun that shot him.
22 Feb Micmacs (2009)
A Very Short Engagement Span This is so very frustrating. Here we have a genius at cinematic space, a gentle, quirky imagination and the skill to know how to start a story. He has made one of the most essential films I know. But he...
The Next Three Days (2010)
What if you had 72 hours to save everything you live for?
Filmmaker(s): Paul Haggis
A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of murdering her boss. Her husband John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. When the strain of being separated from her husband and son gets to her, John decides to find a way to break her out.
