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An Inspector Calls (1954)
Is he real... or the creature of conscience?
Filmmaker(s): Guy Hamilton

An upper-crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?

Inspecting the Story If you want to understand film, the first thing on the list is narrative structure, specifically cinematically structured narrative. If I were teaching in film school, I would introduce this subject in a semester’s worth of detective narrative. Nowhere are more tricks pulled, more...


Published November 24, 2022
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Appointment with Death (1988)
An invitation to murder !
Filmmaker(s): Michael Winner

Emily Boynton, the stepmother to three children, blackmails the family lawyer into destroying a second will of her late husband that would have freed the children from her dominating influence. She takes herself, the children, and her daughter-in-law on holiday to Europe and the Holy Land. At a dig, Emily is found dead and Hercule Poirot investigates.

Multiple Appointments You can come to films for the bubble of the film, as it presents itself. Or you can enjoy the film as a character in your life, your personal film and the narratives that change you. In this case, I chose the larger film. That’s...


Published November 23, 2022
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The Bone Collector (1999)
Two cops on the trail of a serial killer. They must see as one... They must act as one... They must think as one... Before another victim falls.
Filmmaker(s): Phillip Noyce

Rookie cop, Amelia Donaghy reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme – formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury – to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed 'The Bone Collector'. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes.

About Being About This thoroughly mundane film is based on a story woven around a very intelligent idea. Many films these days are written by writers writing about writing. And so it is here. The detective story is a modern invention, invented by Poe and popularized by...


Published November 22, 2022
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The Amityville Horror (2005)
What happened over the next 28 days has never been explained.
Filmmaker(s): Andrew Douglas

In 1974, a family of six was brutally murdered. A year later, George and Kathy Lutz and their children move into the site of the horrific event, which is haunted by a murderous presence.

The House I don’t know why writers and filmmakers so often miss the point. The genre is the haunted house movie, and it exists for a very good reason. The most primitive fears are not of things or people but of situations. Of situations, and the ones...


Published November 22, 2022
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A Single Man (2009)
Filmmaker(s): Tom Ford

The life of George Falconer, a British college professor, is reeling with the recent and sudden loss of his longtime partner. This traumatic event makes George challenge his own will to live as he seeks the console of his close girl friend Charley, who is struggling with her own questions about life.

Julianne’s Floating There’s something offensive about this, and it is a rather delicious experience finding out what it is. Of course, there is the feint, the whole business about gay love being unremarkable. Even ten years ago, most of the American public would have struggled a...


Published November 22, 2022
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Memento (2000)
Some memories are best forgotten.
Filmmaker(s): Christopher Nolan

Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.

Skin as Photograph I rate this very high on my scale, primarily for its ambition and intellect. Usually I get annoyed at IMDB comments that report the story as if it were important, but it is here: ---Lenny's home is attacked, wife raped, him injured. He develops this...


Published November 22, 2022
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Animal Factory (2000)
On the inside the rules are brutal and the stakes are high.
Filmmaker(s): Steve Buscemi

Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

Realistic Shmealistic Somewhere in the movie business there really are people who think that the more real a film is, the better. And I mean literally real. We’re not talking here about “Godfather” being the first mafia movie made by Italians, but a prison movie being...


Published November 22, 2022
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8 Women (2002)
Living in a house full of women can be murder.
Filmmaker(s): François Ozon

Eight women gather to celebrate Christmas in a snowbound cottage, only to find the family patriarch dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.

3 Women Really I had a lot of trouble with this film. I get what it is trying to do and particularly appreciate the notion. The distance between the story and the music is like that great bowling alley scene in “Buffalo 66” (and the similar...


Published November 22, 2022
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Three Days of the Condor (1975)
His CIA code name is Condor. In the next seventy-two hours almost everyone he trusts will try to kill him.
Filmmaker(s): Sydney Pollack

A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.

Books, Binding Sidney Pollack recently died, and I dredged this up to watch. It is a strange relic of a time when we really liked these spy stories — and the stories were allowed to be simple. The characters had no life outside the confined story....


Published November 22, 2022
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An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000)
Filmmaker(s): Douglas McCarthy

It's all extreme sports and a life of freedom as Max sets off for college -- but Goofy misses Max so much he loses his job and goes to finish college alongside Max and his friends. But as Goofy tries to get closer to Max, both must go to the extreme to learn how to live their own lives together.

Three Goofs There are three things about this little cartoon that should get you up-out-of-your-chair mad. And not just huffing mad, but pounding walls mad. The first is elusive. Walt Disney created Goofy and indeed all of his characters with a single notion: that they would be...


Published November 22, 2022
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