True Crime Movies

[Mike Covell]

Thanks for the information Evilina.

Kensei-That Ed Gein is very good, I agree. I might even have it around here somewhere. Gein was supposedly the inspiration for a character in Silence of the Lambs as well.

Mike-I don't remember seeing that one. My favorite caper movie, although there is a murder in it, is Fool's Gold about the Brinks Mat robbery. Sean Bean is outstanding in this, even though the first time I watched the movie, I needed closed captioning to understand half of what he was saying.

The Bank Job has only just been released in the UK on DVD, not sure of it's release details across the pond.

I am a Yorkshireman and can't understand a bloody word Sean Bean says!! I like him as an actor though, always raw and unforgiving, with a severe intensity from his eyes!!

I saw him in Essex Boys, which was about the drugs trade and based on the landrover shootings many years ago. He played quite a charector, and at one point through a guy from a first floor window, out onto the street. He also through acid over some guy who had testified against him!

[Celesta]

Celesta,

You're right; I had forgotten this one.....SMALL SACRIFICES, that is. Farrah Fawcett really surprised me and it's very true to the book, which also surprised me! Except for the tweaking the director did to tighten up her Yes, I surrogacy and relationship with the husband, the basics are there, and Downs is one scary killer. Her story reminds us that the female can be deadlier than the male, and quite frequently is!

ALL MALES TAKE NOTE...........

Cheers,

Judy

Hi Judy,

Yes, I also thought it was pretty true to the book. Fawcett surprised a lot of people with her acting skill in Small Sacrifices and in Burning Bed and in that movie where she turns the tables on her rapist. She also did a good job in---just went blank here!---the movie about the Houston horsewoman who married John Robinson, the plastic surgeon. (I used to ride my bike through the ritzy neighborhood, where they lived. It's a big white house on a corner. They never did prove he killed her. Mind you, I didn't live in that neighborhood, just near it. It was perfect for bicycling.) It's as if everyone was thinking "Oh, she's so cute and wholesome-looking, she just has to be an air-head and thus a poor actor." Wrong. I had read the book, Small Sacrifices, before the movie came out, and I can't visualize anyone else playing that part, now. A strange woman that Diane was. She enjoyed being pregnant and she was so man-crazy, she got rid of her children. That's a simplistic way of putting it, I know. It's been a long time since read the book or saw the movie.

Best,

Cel

[sdreid]

Thanks for the information Evilina.

Kensei-That Ed Gein is very good, I agree. I might even have it around here somewhere. Gein was supposedly the inspiration for a character in Silence of the Lambs as well.

Mike-I don't remember seeing that one. My favorite caper movie, although there is a murder in it, is Fool's Gold about the Brinks Mat robbery. Sean Bean is outstanding in this, even though the first time I watched the movie, I needed closed captioning to understand half of what he was saying.

[evilina]

I haven't seen the Bogle Chandler one. Is that an Australian release?[/QUOTE]

Yes from the ABC - starring Rhys Muldoon and with Hugo Weaving as the narrator

[Mike Covell]

Not a serial killer movie but True Crime nonetheless, "The Bank Job"!!

I bought this as it was pretty cheap and watched it recently with the wife, who also enjoyed it.
Set in London during the 1970's during the 1971 Baker Street Bank Robbery and is a plot worthy of Guy Ritchie, with the MI5, MI6, Royal Family, Revolutionaries, Porn Kingpins, Coppers, Bent Coppers, And our unlikely rag tag bunch of hero's!!

There is a cast list worthy of the gods, starring Jason Stratham, David Suchet, and just about every BBC/ITV star from years ago!

Check the IMDB page here,

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200465/

[kensei]

[QUOTE
Kensei-Is that Ted Bundy film the one with the rather graphic electric chair prep scene?[/QUOTE]

Yes, with Michael Reilly Burke as Bundy. That scene was obviously meant as a treat for people who really wanted to see Bundy suffer.

I should also mention a movie for people who've heard that Ed Geine was the inspriation for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Psycho" and would like to see his real story. A surprisngly good straight-to-video film simply titled "Ed Geine" (I think by the same producers as did the Bundy film) stars Steve Railsback as Geine. He played Charles Manson in "Helter Skelter," and had a brief recurring role on "The X Files," an actor who's been around a long time but never really became a big star. He plays crazy very well.

[needler]

Small Sacrifices

Celesta,

You're right; I had forgotten this one.....SMALL SACRIFICES, that is. Farrah Fawcett really surprised me and it's very true to the book, which also surprised me! Except for the tweaking the director did to tighten up her surrogacy and relationship with the husband, the basics are there, and Downs is one scary killer. Her story reminds us that the female can be deadlier than the male, and quite frequently is!

ALL MALES TAKE NOTE...........

Cheers,

Judy

[sdreid]

Hi Celesta,

I remember that one and it was good.

Throw in Westerns and Gangster films based on actual crimes and I could probably come up with a top one thousand list - NO THANKS!!

[Celesta]

I know it's an old one, but I liked Small Sacrifices with Farrah Fawcett, about the woman who killed her kids because they were inconvenient.

[sdreid]

Hi Evilina,

Yes, I love those and have the box set. I think my favorite is the one on Duff-Sidney but all of them are great.

I haven't seen the Bogle Chandler one. Is that an Australian release?

[evilina]

There was also a good tv movie about the bogle chandler case last year.

[evilina]

Not movies as such - but i really enjoyed Julian Fellowes a Most Mysterious Murder series. It didn't always agree with him, but i thought that the show was really well done

[sdreid]

My favorite made for TV movie here is Murder In the Heartland about Starkweather and Fugate. It would be just outside my top ten.

[KatBradshaw]

Yes they were.
I also enjoyed Zodiac which was out recently.

[sdreid]

Kat-Those were all good made for TV movies as I recall.

Kensei-Yes, how true is true crime? The recent big budget Zodiac was pretty good and I understand that the retail DVD has a lot of good extras in it. I've found about 500 films that were in some way based on an actual case although I haven't seen them all. That Black Dahlia movie wasn't that bad in my view but I doubt that it would make my top 50 list. Deliciously low budget is The Town That Dreaded Sundown and wonderfully creepy sometimes too. Is that Ted Bundy film the one with the rather graphic electric chair prep scene?