Mystery Films
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The Passenger (PG-13)
“I used to be someone else, but I traded him in.” In Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, Walker Percy posits that although modern man understands the world around him better than ever, his failure to understand himself renders him desperate to escape himself. Percy cites modern fiction’s common use of amnesia as a plot device as […]
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Werckmeister Harmonies (Not Rated)
“Space travel makes you realize just how small we really are. When you see Earth as a tiny blue speck in the infinite reaches of space, you have to wonder about the mysteries of creation. Surely we’re all part of some great design, no more or less important than anything else in the universe. Surely […]
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The Lady from Shanghai (Not Rated)
Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai begins with the sea, roiling and foaming beneath the opening credits. Many films noir are laden with existential anxieties; indeed, fatalism and cynicism are as commonplace in the genre as stylized lighting, bantering innuendoes, and convoluted crimes.
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Hail, Caesar! A Tale of The Christ (PG-13)
Early in Hail, Caesar!, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, protagonist Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) speaks to a room full of religious figures: a Protestant preacher, a Catholic priest, an Orthodox clergyman, and a Jewish rabbi. Mannix, a fixer for the fictional Capitol Pictures studio, explains that their biggest release of the year […]
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Left Behind: A Good Premise for a Lousy Movie (Not Rated)
Blessed be Netflix, that magical website which allows one to watch terrible movies without feeling guilty about paying for it. After all, you already dished out $8 for the month. The only problem is that sometimes the movies aren’t just bad. They are horrid. Left Behind is a perfect illustration. One will, no doubt, walk […]
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Mr. Holmes: When Logic Fails (PG)
From the beginning, Sherlock Holmes stories were as much about the interplay between logic and emotion as about ash-dust and ciphers. Holmes symbolizes the pinnacle of reason and remove, yet he comes to need the compassion and friendship of Watson. Mr. Holmes playfully snubs the Watson accounts as exaggerations, but the titular detective needs friendship […]
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Ex Machina (R)
Ex Machina derives its title from the Latin “Deus ex machina,” meaning “god from the machine.” The film’s removal of God from its titular equation is apropos, as is the allusion to classical tragedy. In this polished directorial debut, Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine) has crafted something of a modern Greek […]
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A Simple Plan (R)
“The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist,” writes Baudelaire. It is the greatest trick of modernity, beginning with the Enlightenment, as well. And, if the various modern social projects from capitalism to communism had anything in common, it was their motivation to convince all of us that […]
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North by Northwest (Not Rated)
North by Northwest is the first of its kind. Released in 1959, it is the story of advertising executive Robert Thornhill (Grant) being mistaken for one George Kaplin by a powerful crime lord. Within the first 15 minutes Thornhill is kidnapped, questioned, blackmailed, forced to drink an entire bottle of bourbon, and placed drunk in […]
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The Grand Budapest Hotel (R)
With special thanks to Jon Paul Pope, who talked this film over with me, helped draw out my own ideas, and whose own ideas are variously represented here. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. These may or […]
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Non-Stop (PG-13)
There was a time when Liam Neeson seemed to need such a foreign-sounding name. He played Oskar Schindler, the sensualist-turned-saint who saved a thousand Jews from Hitler’s hands. He played Michael Collins, the fiery revolutionary, and the strangely pious Rob Roy. Anymore, though, I think Liam might as well be a Jack or a John, […]