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Limitless (2011)
Everything is possible when you open your mind.
Filmmaker(s): Neil Burger

A paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this darkly comic and provocative film.

Constraints There are two things here to recommend. The first is that the screenplay is based on a fresh idea that springs from the kind of gangster genre typified by Snatch. I’ll characterise this as an anti-genre film because it uses that genre as a...
Published December 24, 2022
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1408 (2007)
The Dolphin Hotel invites you to stay in any of its stunning rooms. Except one.
Filmmaker(s): Mikael Håfström

A man who specializes in debunking paranormal occurrences checks into the fabled room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel. Soon after settling in, he confronts genuine terror.

Shined Up I decided to watch this after Polanski’s “The Tenant” and that was probably a bad choice, because that film is precious. This one consists of three elements, typical of the King formula. The first is the expression of terror, shaped safely so that...
Published December 15, 2022
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Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days (2012)
Filmmaker(s): José Luis Garci

Film based on the characters of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle. It tells a hypothetical meeting in Madrid between the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.

Fight Clubs Holmes, the literary creation, is important in the development of film, yet films that use his character do so without mining the cinematic possibilities. Now here is a film that does just that. It is by a famous Spanish literary figure, who has...
Published December 12, 2022
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Holmes & Watson (2018)
They don't have a clue.
Filmmaker(s): Etan Cohen

Detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson join forces to investigate a murder at Buckingham Palace. They soon learn that they have only four days to solve the case, or the queen will become the next victim.

Deductions This did not make me laugh. Apparently it had the same effect on almost everyone. But I credit these folks with taking risks. Humour is an evolving quality, and some brands of humour demand being on an edge between the unexpectedly awkward and the...
Published December 12, 2022
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The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Anything But Elementary.
Filmmaker(s): Billy Wilder

Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments.

Tamer Wilder I like the fantasy of a superartist, someone who knows what they are doing, someone who knows where the levers to my soul are. But I know that’s extremely rare, that most art that I see as art is the result of someone...
Published December 12, 2022
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Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple: 4:50 from Paddington (1987)
Filmmaker(s): Martyn Friend

Travelling on the 4.50 from Paddington, Mrs McGillicuddy witnesses a murder on a passing train - but where is the body?

Missed Train The Marple stories — many of them — are lessons in narrative placement. We start with the basic notion of the mystery narrator shuffling through multiple created realities looking for what makes sense. Marple turns that into the clever notion of detection as...
Published December 12, 2022
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The 39 Steps (1935)
Handcuffed to the girl who double-crossed him
Filmmaker(s): Alfred Hitchcock

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

Step By Step Performances All but two Hitchcock films are cursed by the transcended achievement of those two. So the remainder will always seem pale in comparison while unfairly having elements of those retroactively applied. But I believe that the early Hitchcock was a simply...
Published December 8, 2022
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Rehearsal for Murder (1982)
Where the curtain comes up on Terror
Filmmaker(s): David Greene

A year after his fiancée's death, a playwright schedules a rehearsal for his new play, which proves to be a trap for her killer.

Mixed Audiences God I love this stuff. What happens here: a playwright has his wife murdered. He assembles the suspects to read a new play, and this play concerns events that implicate each of them. Each of these suspects is placed under increasing pressure by...
Published December 6, 2022
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Transcendence (2014)
Yesterday, Dr. Will Caster was only human...
Filmmaker(s): Wally Pfister

Two leading computer scientists work toward their goal of Technological Singularity, as a radical anti-technology organization fights to prevent them from creating a world where computers can transcend the abilities of the human brain.

Behind the Screens One of my angels die when I encounter a film like this. It has a mix of things that disturb and disappoint. A minor but essential problem is that the actors do a bad job. All of these men at least has...
Published December 6, 2022
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The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)
Filmmaker(s): Leslie S. Hiscott

Holmes, retired to Sussex, is drawn into a last case when his arch enemy Moriarty arranges with an American gang to kill one John Douglas, a country gentleman with a mysterious past. Holmes' methods baffle Watson and Lestrade, but his results astonish them. In a long flashback, the victim's wife tells the story of the sinister Vermissa Valley.

Inserted Americans This is the second of the early Holmes film experiments. In The Sign of Four, they messed up by showing us the entire history before Holmes appears. Here, they do something similar. While Holmes interviews a woman about her recently dead husband, we...
Published December 6, 2022
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