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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.

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 knowledge...


Published February 23, 2024
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Chloe (2009)
If the one you love was lying to you, how far would you go to find out the truth?
Filmmaker(s): Atom Egoyan

A doctor hires an escort to seduce her husband, whom she suspects of cheating, though unforeseen events put the family in danger.

The Son Thinking about film and how it works is made easier when you have two films that in some way are similar. Here we had an original French film that was really quite effective. It powerfully gave us the inner dance of two conflicting souls...


Published February 23, 2024
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A Film with Me in It (2008)
A black comedy about screenwriting and slightly fatal accidents
Filmmaker(s): Ian Fitzgibbon

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.

Interesting and Uninteresting Muddles Once again, we have a script concept that is promising enough to matter. Once again, we have an inept film built on that idea, inept because the writer wanted to be in it. The overall shape is an ordinary, explicit fold: one buddy...


Published February 22, 2024
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The Grocer’s Son (2007)
Filmmaker(s): Eric Guirado

Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old young man, left his village ten years before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that his father, a traveling grocer, is in hospital after a stroke, he more or less reluctantly accepts to come back to replace him in his daily rounds.

Background Clouds Some films are just ribbon. They do not intend anything beyond being a simple palliative. You’ll find these in the ‘feel good‘ section. In this case, we have our man, unhappy with himself and with father and girlfriend problems. By the end he will...


Published February 22, 2024
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Let the Right One In (2008)
Eli is 12 years old. She's been 12 for over 200 years and she just moved in next door.
Filmmaker(s): Tomas Alfredson

Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.

Choosing Vampire (and werewolf) films have always been built on a foundation of sex, some approach to sex. Often the reference is blunt and the sexual issues unsophisticated, as in the ‘Twilight‘ franchise. Here we have something rather extraordinary, a well made film with a novel...


Published February 22, 2024
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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.

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 just...


Published February 22, 2024
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The Machine Girl (2008)
It's Payback Time!
Filmmaker(s): Noboru Iguchi

The life of a young, Japanese schoolgirl is destroyed when her family is killed by a Ninja-Yakuza family. Her hand cut off, she replaces it with various machines-of-death, and seeks revenge.

Borrowing There’s something disturbing about American filmmakers going to other cultures to borrow porn tropes. ‘Kill Bill‘ just never seemed right, like a traditional Jewish grandmother making Tacos for her goyim daughter-in-law‘s brownie troop because she thought that’s what it was all about. Today, when we watch...


Published February 22, 2024
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The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009)
Where is Alice Creed?
Filmmaker(s): J Blakeson

A rich man's daughter is held captive in an abandoned apartment by two former convicts who abducted her and hold her ransom in exchange for her father's money.

Expectations No one can know, can they? But we always seek to. This small project explores that notion. It is highly abstract: there are four characters, three of whom we see. There is a literal and disturbing kidnapping, but this connects because the universal analogies are more...


Published February 19, 2024
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Cold Souls (2009)
A soul searching comedy.
Filmmaker(s): Sophie Barthes

Paul is agonising over his interpretation of 'Uncle Vanya' and, paralysed by anxiety, stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by extracting souls. He enlists their services—only to discover that his soul is the shape and size of a chickpea.

Hummus This is depressing, because it is not merely bad, it stomps on some very precious ideas. The fault is in trying to be Woody Allen; even he fails most of the time. There is a deep concept here, but it is obscured by the attempt to...


Published February 16, 2024
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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009)
Why would a man frame himself... for murder?
Filmmaker(s): Peter Hyams

Remake of a 1956 Fritz Lang film in which a novelist's investigation of a dirty district attorney leads to a setup within the courtroom.

Fixing, after the Fact Here is a project for film students: take this film, a loser, and make a great movie from it. I think I would add new footage about the hidden story here (the hooker), present the thing nonlinearly, shift the narrator and the...


Published February 16, 2024
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