Over & Overs: "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974)

by Cláudio Alves

To celebrate the Sidney Lumet centennial, I reflected on the director's filmography and tried to surmise which of his films had the biggest impact on me. In retrospect, I wish that exercise led to one of his many masterpieces. Yet, to choose something like Dog Day Afternoon or Network would be dishonest. As much as I adore those pictures, they're not works I tend to revisit that often. Certainly not to the point where music cues, editing choices, singular line deliveries, and shot compositions are so ingrained in my mind that re-watching them is a jolt of muscle memory. You could call my relationship with the film what some folk feel for their favorite comfort foods.

When the mood is blue and the soul needs a pick-me-up, Lumet's 1974 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is a reliable treat, just frivolous and hearty enough to appease the spirit with whodunnit shenanigans. Or it could be a warm blanket of a movie, the soothing embrace of an old friend. Is it great cinema? Not really, but I wouldn't trade it for the world…

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Happy Halloween with Hercule Poirot

by Cláudio Alves

I don't know about you, but after the double whammy of Belfast and Death on the Nile, I was ready to give up on Kenneth Branagh as a director. Yet, like Michael Corleone famously said: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

Turns out that what Branagh and, more specifically, his Agatha Christie adaptations needed was a healthy shot of nonsense plus the spooky seasonings of horror. A Haunting in Venice, now streaming on Hulu, succeeds by untethering itself from literary fidelity, twisting Christie's Hallowe'en Party out of shape in pursuit of maximum entertainment. Though a sense of melancholy pervades, self-serious prestige is abandoned, or mayhap sacrificed at a witches' altar. And from its deadened carcass, Hercule Poirot emerges as the center of a ghostly storm, the skeptic anchor keeping this Hammer Horror resurgence from floating away on the Lido tide…

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Almost There: Angela Lansbury in "Death on the Nile"

by Cláudio Alves

From Gaslight to Glass Onion, Angela Lansbury had one extraordinary career whose sheer grandeur is hard to overstate. For almost 80 years, she entertained people worldwide, be it on the stages of Broadway or on TV as Jessica Fletcher, from roles of unspeakable villainy to cherished nurturers in children's media. So to read news of her death was shocking, even though Lansbury was almost 97 – she passed less than a week before her birthday. It just seemed like she would live forever, a primordial force eternally present in our lives. Lansbury worked to the end, maintaining a last vestige of Old Hollywood alive with her. How can one come close to articulating what a loss this is for show business? There was simply no one else quite like Angela Lansbury.

To honor the star, let's recall one of her most colorful film creations, a foray into Agatha Christie's world of murder mysteries that almost nabbed Lansbury a fourth Oscar nomination – the 1978 Death on the Nile…

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Was Peter Ustinov the best Poirot?

by Cláudio Alves

Growing up in a house furnished with the complete written works of Agatha Christie made me a fan of the whodunnit genre from a young age. My mum, an unabashed fan of criminal narratives and detective stories, made sure I was familiar with the figure of Hercule Poirot and, eventually, I too became a fan. While we've long spent joyful evenings sharing our love for the adventures of Belgium's most excellent fictional investigator, we don't always agree about this entertainment.

For instance, our idea of who the perfect on-screen Poirot  differs significantly. Her heart belongs to David Suchet's book-faithful incarnation, while I prefer Peter Ustinov's joyful take on the same character. On the centennial of the the two-time Oscar-winning thespian, I thought I could elaborate on why Ustinov is my perfect Poirot…

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