Home Video

1974 – Murder on the Orient Express

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
  • IMDb: link

Murder Mystery Monday takes us back to the 1930s and another case for the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is one of the rare instances where I prefer the Kenneth Branagh version than the classic telling we received in 1974. Director Sidney Lumet assembles a well-known cast who all board a train for murder. However, from the very beginning of the film I have issues with how Lumet chose to frame the story revealing the importance of the Armstrong tragedy in several scenes and newspaper front pages that go on ad nauseam.

…

1974 – Murder on the Orient ExpressRead More »

1974 – Murder on the Orient Express Read More »

(Herbie) The Love Bug

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Love Bug
  • IMDb: link

1969’s The Love Bug introduced audiences to Herbie, a sentient 1963 Volkswagen Beetle who comes into the possession of washed-up racecar driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones). Douglas regains confidence driving the remarkable little car, finds love in the unlikely assistant (Michele Lee) to his villainous rival (David Tomlinson), and finally learns to accept and appreciate Herbie as far more than a car.

…

(Herbie) The Love BugRead More »

(Herbie) The Love Bug Read More »

Lust, Caution

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Lust, Caution
  • IMDb: link

One of my favorites from the extremely strong slate of films released in 2007, director Ang Lee‘s Lust, Caution earned praise winning Lee his second Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival but also backlash for the film’s explicit sex scenes causing it to be released in America under a NC-17 rating. Loosely inspired by an attempt to kill a Japanese collaborator during WWII, Tang Wei stars as the most naive member of a group of radicalized college students who plan to kill a collaborator (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) set in power by the Japanese occupation in China.

…

Lust, CautionRead More »

Lust, Caution Read More »

Nine Guests for a Crime

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Nove ospiti per un delitto
  • IMDb: link

The 1977 giallo film, an Italian subgenre featuring both murder mystery as well as slasher and thriller elements, offers up 9 rather unlikable members of a dysfunctional rich family who start being killed off one by one when they gather at their family villa on a private island far removed from the prying eyes of the rest of the world. The family of the authoritative Ubaldo (Arthur Kennedy) include his disturbed sister Elisabetta (Dana Ghia), his second wife Giulia (Caroline Laurence), and his children Lorenzo (John Richardson), Michele (Massimo Foschi), and Patrizia (Loretta Persichetti) and their their mix of oversexed or frigid spouses Greta (Rita Silva), Carla (Flavia Fabiani), and Walter (Venantino Venantini).

…

Nine Guests for a CrimeRead More »

Nine Guests for a Crime Read More »

Arabesque

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Arabesque
  • IMDb: link

Hitchcock-lite, director Stanley Donen‘s 1966 spy thriller Arabesque stars Gregory Peck as a college professor in over his head after being pulled into a world of intrigue involving an Egyptian cypher which killers, the government, and foreign officials all want translated. For a film that doesn’t do anything great, other than properly framing Sophia Loren as the film’s femme fatale whose true loyalties are always in question, Arabesque is only mildly diverting.

…

ArabesqueRead More »

Arabesque Read More »