Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.
One rule though: Auteur themes like
‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.
Theme: (Murder) Mysterie
Everybody in the world has committed a crime at
least once in their lives. Stealing cookies from the jar, using some kind of
drug, not flicking your turn-signal. We’re all criminals. This time ‘round I
wish to talk about crime and especially (as the day moves on) murder. It’s a
big theme and yes there are a lot of movies I won’t mention. So I’ll limit
myself to the mystery element of it. One person tries to uncover the truth.
That has to be part of the story.
08:00-10:00
No deposit, no return: This is one of those movies that,
when you re-see it after several years, you suddenly get some things you missed
the first time. The story is quite simple: kidnappers and kidnapped bond while some real villains come into play. Plus it got an adventurous skunk.
10:00-12:00
Candleshoe: The great David Niven is in this one too. A
young Jodie Foster is a street kid who’s brought into a scam to pretend to be
an elderly lady’s long-lost granddaughter. Why? Because there is a hidden
treasure somewhere in the old lady’s mansion and the bad guys wish to find it.
Naturally Jodie bonds with the lady and the other kids around the house (and
yes they do find the treasure in the end and defeat the villains).
12:00-14:00
Young Sherlock Holmes: “The game is on”, is the phrase
commonly used by Sherlock Holmes. Yet, in this movie, they use “The game is at
foot.” And I always preferred it. To
cinefiles this movie is known for being one of the first (or maybe the first)
movie to use a full CGI character – namely the stained-glass-knight. But apart from that gimmick it is also one
hell of a story that sets Holmes (Nicolas Rowe) and Watson (Brian Cox’s son Alan Cox) on an adventure involving Egyptian cults, human sacrifices and murder
most horrid. This mystery is brimming with excitement and we get the ultimate
portrayal of Moriarty to boot.
14:00-16:00
Just ask for Diamond: A fun (but slightly forgetable film) about a private investigator investigating a case with the help of his little brother.
16:00-18:00
Clue: Sometimes a movie just strikes a chord with a
person. Clue did that to me. Twenty times after I first saw it and it never gets
old. Based on the board game Clue the movie introduces all the characters and
the crime to solve with such humorous slapstick glee that it’s infectious. It
is also so quotable:
“Why did
you kill you husband?”
“Well it
was a matter of life and death.”
“Life and
death?”
”Yes, now
that he’s dead I’ve got a life.”
And my
personal (morbid) favorite:
“I. AM.
Your singing telegram!” *BANG*.
18:00-20:00
The radio land murders: I’m a big fan of screwball
comedies, farces (preferably with at least three doors on stage) and the little
movie niche of lighthearted murder comedies. The radioland murders is the
perfect combination for me. It deals with a series of murders at a radio station
and the main writer trying to solve it. Of course he is quickly suspected of
the crimes…
20:00-22:00
Guilty conscience: A wonderful little thriller starring Anthony
Hopkins. His character wants to murder his wife and he discusses his
hypothesizes with an imaginary barrister as if he were in court. Through this
mind-game he quickly finds the faults in his planning and is, as such, forced
back to the drawing board. So you get several ideas presented (e.g. a robbery
gone awry). The plot thickens because the wife/would be murder victim finds out
and then a cat-and-mouse game begins. Who’s the cat, and who’s the mouse.
22:00-00:00
Ten little Indians: I assume we all know the story by now. Ten
strangers are invited to a mansion on a deserted island where a mysterious
voice on a record accuses them of murder. Then, one by one, they die. Who is
the killer? The last one standing?
Anybody
who’s seen this movie knows why it is on the list. It has this great Ellery
Queen break near the end where you, the audience, are invited to sit back and
pinpoint the killer. Sixty seconds to be precise. It’s one of the few movies
who actually dares to break the fourth wall and ask the viewers to figure
things out (it’s much more common on television).
00:00-02:00
M: What I
liked about the movie M isn’t necessarily the brilliance of the movie or Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre respectively. But that I was told about this
movie by my mother when I was quite young. She told me about a villain who was
so evil that the mafia/underworld itself decides to hunt him.
Imagine it,
being so evil that even the evildoers want you caught. Food for thought when
you are a kid.
It plays
out a little bit different in the movie but still this basic cat-and-mouse game
prevails.
02:00-04:00
Silent Fall: Again a movie is saw way before my time.
There’s a whole abuse sub story going on that – when I first saw it - went right over my head. But what I did get
was the basic idea of ‘telling the audience just enough to get away with it’.
Which is -I think should be- the basis of a good story.
The
villain, in this movie, feeds Richard Dreyfuss’s character (a psychiatrist)
just enough information for him to form certain conclusions. Thus forcing him
off the true scent of the crime committed.
Whilst
other professionals (a wonderful evil
John Lithgow) in this movie draw their logical conclusions that appear right;
to Richard (and the viewer) it doesn’t. The fact that –in the end- he’s smarter
than the villain just makes you root for your hero more, regardless of the
realization that he’s been quite the fool.
Honorable mentions: I hated to leave Gosford Park out of this one
(spot the famous actors). But I did! Because, to be honest, this movie isn’t
the least about the murder or the mystery; it’s about the characters. That is
why you can see it and re-see it. Every single time these characters become
more and more alive to you once you understand their motivations.
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