Crime

  • Shane Meadows – This Is England (2006)

    2001-2010CrimeDramaShane MeadowsUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Set in the Midlands of Britain in the summer of 1983 and scored to the exhilarating reggae bounce of Toots and the Maytals, This Is England is a classic coming-of-age story.
    Shane Meadows’ semiautobiographical film, The 400 Blows, is as timely today in any inner city as it was a quarter of a century ago in Yorkshire, where unemployment and restlessness were high.Read More »

  • Barbet Schroeder – La virgen de los sicarios AKA Our Lady of the Assassins (2000)

    1991-2000Barbet SchroederCrimeDramaFranceQueer Cinema(s)

    Quote:
    A Colombian writer returns to his native Medellín to mourn his lost youth and, while he’s at it, pick up a new one. That, more or less, is the tale that Barbet Schroeder’s new movie has to tell. Schroeder has made some spicy pictures in his time, but this one feels lacklustre by comparison, and the two main performers-Anderson Ballesteros as the hustler and German Jaramillo as his aging mentor-tend to drift through their scenes, trying not to notice the hellfire around them. Whether they are genuinely ground down by the woes of the world or simply exhausted by years of casual sex is hard to work out; to be fair, few directors could make a film about moral anesthesia without sinking into glumness, and Schroeder does a pretty good job of insuring that no one in the audience will book a Colombian vacation in the near future.Read More »

  • Don Siegel – Dirty Harry (1971)

    1971-1980ActionCrimeDon SiegelUSA

    Quote:
    When a madman calling himself “the Scorpio Killer” (Andrew Robinson) menaces the city, tough as nails San Francisco Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is assigned to track down and ferret out the crazed psychopath.Read More »

  • Dae-min Park – Geu-rim-ja sal-in AKA Private Eye (2009)

    2001-2010CrimeDae-min ParkSouth KoreaThriller

    Synopsis:
    The story takes place in occupied Korea at the start of the 20th century, where a young student in medicine discovers the murdered body of the son of a government official. Being scared of being accused, he decides to hire Hong Jin-ho (a detective) to help him find the murderer before the police accuse him of the murder.Read More »

  • Romolo Guerrieri – Liberi armati pericolosi AKA Young, Violent, Dangerous (1976)

    1971-1980CrimeItalyRomolo GuerrieriThriller

    Synopsis:
    Paul, Joe and Louie go on a bloodthirsty and pointless crime spree, much to the dismay of Paul’s girlfriend (Eleonora Giorgi) and the local police commissioner (Tomas Milian) . The group starts by robbing a gas station where Paul guns down three people. They later rob a bank and a grocery store where Paul kills off an entire other gang that was helping him rob the place. It isn’t long before the entire police force is out to nab the 3 criminals, who pick up the girl and proceed to hightail it to the Swiss border.Read More »

  • Robert Hamer – Kind Hearts and Coronets [+commentary] (1949)

    1941-1950ComedyCrimeRobert HamerUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Film Forum writes:Poor relation Dennis Price, ninth in line to the Dukedom of Chalfont, coolly narrates from prison his ascent to the peerage via serial murder, bumping off one D’Ascoyne after another, from an arrogant playboy, to a bullet-headed general, to a stiff-upperlipped Admiral, to a dotty reverend, to a formidable dowager — all, plus three more, played by Alec Guinness.Read More »

  • John Paddy Carstairs – Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

    1941-1950CrimeJohn Paddy CarstairsThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Espionage agents Valya (Jean Kent) and Zurta (Albert Lieven) break into an embassy in Paris to steal a diary filled with crucial political secrets. The spies pass the diary on to accomplice Karl (Bonar Colleano) — who then double crosses them, fleeing on the Orient Express to sell it abroad. The agents go after Karl to regain the diary, and a police inspector pursues the agents — while on the train, an unfaithful couple, a writer and a bird-watcher become unwitting participants in the drama.Read More »

  • Roy William Neill – The Scarlet Claw (1944)

    1941-1950CrimeMysteryRoy William NeillUSA

    Quote:
    When a gentlewoman is found dead with her throat torn out, the villagers blame a supernatural monster. But Sherlock Holmes, who gets drawn into the case from nearby Quebec, suspects a human murderer.Read More »

  • Pierre Chenal – Crime et châtiment aka Crime and Punishment (1935)

    France1931-1940ClassicsCrimePierre Chenal

    Pierre Blanchar plays the murderer Raskolnikov, and Harry Baur is the police inspector on his trail…

    Quote:
    Crime et châtiment is one of the overlooked masterpieces of 1930s French cinema, an early and almost faultless adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s celebrated 1866 novel Crime and Punishment. One of the reasons for the film’s comparative obscurity is that it was released in the same year as Josef von Sternberg’s better known American adaptation which starred Peter Lorre and Edward Arnold. The French version appears to have been heavily influenced by an earlier silent adaptation Raskolnikow (1923) from the renowned German filmmaker Robert Wiene, whose best-known work – Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920) – is powerfully evoked in this film’s staging of the pivotal murder scene.Read More »

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