Tag: perpetrator

Weapons

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 August 2025
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Director – Zach Cregger – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 128m

****

One night, all but one of the children in one class in the town school disappear into the dark, leaving the townsfolk baffled as to what happened to them… – Fortean-sounding mystery is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 8th

One night at 2.17am, the 17 other kids in Alex’s class got up out of their beds, went downstairs, opened their front doors, and ran out into the night. As a child relates the incident, we observe it in flashback. The kids run with arms half outstretched at an angle, as if playing at being aeroplanes in the school playground. If you’ve seen the film’s poster, this strange angle of the arms is also apparent. As it also is in the film’s trailer, which starts with this flashback. But what is in the mind of these kids? Where are they going? To what purpose?

For that matter, why the title Weapons? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ll know the answer once you’ve seen the film.

Thus begins one of the most intriguing cinematic mysteries of recent years. To unpack his prologue, writer-director Cregger opts for an astute, six-part, character-based structure.… Read the rest

Tags 17, 2.17am, addresses the meeting, Alden Erhenreich, Amy Madigan, angry, angry mob, assault, Austin Abrams, baffled, banging on her door, bar, beaten up, Benedict Wong, booze, break and enter, breaking and entering, builder, bully, business, car chase, catch, caught, character study, chase sequence, checking car doors, children, class, class teacher, classmate, Clayton Farris, confused, covered with newspaper, criminal, cutlery, dash cam, daughter of the boss, disappear, disappeared, domesticity, door paint, dream, drifter, drug addict, enigma, evening, family home, fantasy, father-in-law, fence goods, file a complaint, follow, Fortean, gang of kids, Gary Christopher, graffiti, Great Aunt, home, hordes of children, horror, human quarry, Information, interpersonal drama, into the dark, intrigue, Jennifer Garner, Josh Brolin, June Diane Raphael, kids’ rucksack, lipstick, liquor store, living room, low life, lucrative haul, Luke Speakman, missing children, missing kids, motionless people, mystery, newspaper, next fix, night, nightmare, obsession, offender, on foot, parents, parked cars, patrol, patrol car, perp, perpetrator, persons outside the house, plot the trajectory, point of view, police chief, police station, property, prying eyes, pursuing cop, pursuit, puzzle, queers his pitch, red herring, red paint, relationship, relentless, reward, reward money, rifle, rime? science fiction, school, school authorities, school. class, sci-fi, security video, sex, SF, small talk, small town, spokesman, spouse, street, swarming, Toby Huss, unperturbed, US, ushered out, vanish, Weapons, windows, witch, youth, Zach Cregger

Features Live Action Movies

Zodiac

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 5 August 2025
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Director – David Fincher – 2007 – US – Cert. 15 – 158m

Two cops, a crime reporter and a geek working on the same paper attempt to solve the identity of San Francisco’s 1970s Zodiac Killer – engrossing crime thriller / character study is now out on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Fincher’s feature filmography is a fascinating hit-and-miss affair, debuting with the middling Alien³(1992) then covering gems Se7en (1995, make sure you see a silvered print), Fight Club (1999) and The Social Network (2010) plus lesser outings The Game (1997), Panic Room (2002) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Zodiac concerning a serial killer, you’d be forgiven for pigeonholing it as similar to Se7en – but in fact it’s something rather different. Se7en is a fictional thriller concerning cops hunting a serial murderer – or, you might argue, the murderer himself – whose killings are inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins and an exercise in avant-garde visual style.

Zodiac is based on the unsolved case of the real life Zodiac Killer who terrorised San Francisco in the seventies. It spans decades, focusing on the four men attempting to solve the case. Attempting to stay true to the facts, it avoids a wrapped up, neat ending, presenting instead the contradictory evidence and leaving you to draw your own conclusions – or make your own guess as to the killer’s identity.… Read the rest

Tags 1970s, alcoholism, Anthony Edwards, art direction, book, burn out, cartoonist, city and country, city and countryside, coded letter, construction, contradictory evidence, cop, counting the cost, crime, crime movie, crime reporter, David Fincher, dead end leads, draw your own conclusions, facts, fall by the wayside, four men, geek, genre, historical period, homicide, homicide inspector, inspector, investigators, Jake Gyllenhaal, jurisdiction, keep going, key witness, killer’s identity, killings, Mark Ruffalo, movie buff, movie reference, murderer, Pauline stamina, perpetrator, personal life, puzzles, quit or don’t quit, real life, red tape, Robert Downey Jr, running the race, San Francisco, serial killer, seventies, slaying, solve the case, terror, the San Francisco Chronicle, time-lapse photography, TransAmerica Pyramid building, unsolved case, Zodiac, Zodiac Killer

Features Live Action Movies

Only the River Flows
(He Bian de Cuo Wu,
河边的错误,
lit. Mistake (or Mistakes)
By the River)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 August 2024
No Comments on Only the River Flows
(He Bian de Cuo Wu,
河边的错误,
lit. Mistake (or Mistakes)
By the River)
Sticky post

Director – Wei Shujun – 2023 – China – Cert. 15 – 101m

A cop must solve a complex murder mystery his chief believes to be an open and shut case – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 16th

A small boy with a toy gun plays cops and robbers in a deserted building, He opens doors like the protagonist of a Hollywood cop movie, looking for an armed criminal. And then he opens the door at the end of the corridor to reveal… a drop. The edge of a half demolished building, a building site with diggers.

This bravura opening is the high point of a film that combines a number of disparate elements in an attempt to construct a gritty police procedural murder mystery. However, it gets rather too caught up in many of these elements, and they swamp the narrative, which becomes incredibly tough to follow as a result. (This reviewer went back a second time to see if he liked it more on second viewing. He didn’t.)

A police chief (Tianlai Hou), who is also a keen table tennis player, encourages his force to get their merit recommendations in. This offers a fascinating glimpse into Communist China’s concept of community – you point out those who are making a useful contribution so that they can be rewarded.… Read the rest

Tags Beethoven, building site, cassette tape, censor, censorship, China, Chloe Maayan, Communist China, community, contribution, cop, cops and robbers, decommissioned cinema, demolition, detective, diggers, drama, film frames, fire, force, frames, good husband, Howard Shore, in car listening, indecency, investigate, investigation, killer, Linkai Tong, love letters, marriage, married life, merit recommendations, movie equipment, murder, murder mystery, natural darkness, office, open and shut case, perpetrator, ping pong, play, police, police chief, police force, police procedural, pregnancy, previous conviction, rains, red herring, reward, river, riverside, roll of movie film, secret love affair, small boy, soundscape, suspect, table tennis, Tianlai Hou, toy gun, train whistle, victim, Wei Shujun, Yu Hua, Zhu Yilong