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The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)
Filmmaker(s): Brian Mills

Sir Charles Baskerville dies on the moor under mysterious circumstances and rumors abound about a demonic hound. When the American heir arrives to take charge, a family friend calls in Holmes and Watson to get to the heart of the mystery.

The Elusive Core of the Genre you want to understand film, you need to understand the three main narrative types: noir, that genre derived from the musical, and the detective story. While the detective story in film essentially means Agatha Christie, you can’t understand that unless...


Published November 25, 2022
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Poirot: Death in the Clouds (1988)

While Poirot sleeps on an airplane flight from Paris to London, a notorious French moneylender is murdered with a poisoned dart.

Intersecting Planes Christie was probably our most careful student of the genre. She was all over the map, so to speak, trying all sorts of variations. Her twists on the genre were intended to complement the twists within the story. The most interesting and adventuresome were...


Published November 25, 2022
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36 Fillette (1988)
Filmmaker(s): Catherine Breillat

Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third.

Evenings of Cabiria the late seventies, actress/writer Breillat made a film (“Young Girl”) about the nearly suicidal angst of female sexual discovery/fantasy. It is worth watching for the raw honesty, but it misses being a whole film. Five years later, she wrote a Fellini film,...


Published December 6, 2022
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Ishtar (1987)
Telling the truth can be dangerous business.
Filmmaker(s): Elaine May

Two terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime.

Farentheit am writing this at a time when George Bush is still president, Michael Moore’s film has just appeared and the American people are beginning to understand what has happened. We all grasp at the movie we live in. At the moment, the “Republican” movie is...


Published March 5, 2023
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Bad Taste (1987)
Watch out Aliens... here comes Derek!
Filmmaker(s): Peter Jackson

A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service (AIaDS) is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters.

The World as Hamburger if we are lucky, a film plants itself deep in our souls and thrives there. Other times, a film is something different: an invitation to a party in the world of the filmmaker. In that case, it cannot touch you and...


Published May 16, 2023
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April Fools Day (1986)
Guess who's going to be the life of the party?
Filmmaker(s): Fred Walton

As soon as Muffy St. John and her college friends arrive on her parents' secluded island, someone starts trimming the guest list... one murder at a time.

The Opening now you probably know that the meat of this is quite ordinary. It has an “it is all a joke“ sort of Scooby-doo ending. And this casts the whole thing retrospectively as a spoof of the genre. Not particularly interesting on that basis...


Published May 1, 2023
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Thirteen at Dinner (1985)
Filmmaker(s): Lou Antonio

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.

Suchet Sachet Suffers new batch of old TeeVee Christie adaptations have become available on DVD. I’ve been marching through them valiantly, looking for anything of value. Here it is. This one is good. The story on which it is based is one of Christie’s more interesting...


Published November 26, 2022
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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.

Two Women 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. This...


Published February 22, 2024
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Amadeus (1984)
...Everything You've Heard is True
Filmmaker(s): Miloš Forman

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Ratty Accident of God things just come together for no apparent reason. And when they do, they are either of the Mozart type or Salieri types. Here's how to tell in films: no chances are taken -- no experiments are made -- everything is extremely...


Published August 9, 2025
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Krull (1983)
A world light-years beyond your imagination.
Filmmaker(s): Peter Yates

A prince and a fellowship of companions set out to rescue his bride from a fortress of alien invaders who have arrived on their home planet.

Organic may still be people who watch projects like this for adventure. Heck, there are even people who get their theology from such stuff, currently “Rings” and “Matrix.” But for me, the allure is a matter of style. This film was conceived in the shadow of 1979s...


Published February 26, 2023
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