On truTV! Murder by the Book: "David Baldacci"
Saturday, April 12 at 9:00pm E/P
Go behind the show. Read the Crime Library story now
Saturday, April 12 at 9:00pm E/P
Go behind the show. Read the Crime Library story now
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People often view crimes committed by a mob as the results of an inexplicable force that overtook decent citizens and briefly turned them into monsters. In actuality, anger, fear, and a wicked desire to punish lurk in all our hearts, decent or not, and sometimes to activate them requires only the right trigger. 
Excellent dialogue and controlled performances in this fact-based account of the assasination of Jesse James yield some truly stunning moments. Its luxuriant dialogue recalls the best episodes of Deadwood, and the controlled performances yield some truly stunning moments. This film deserves a standing ovation.
This film is not just about payback or escalating gore. It's about the pervasive sense of feeling vaguely and perpetually unsafe. Jodie Foster ably plays Erica Bain, a small-time radio host in Manhattan engaged to be married, who is brutally attacked one night. Eventually she heals on the outside, but on the inside she's changed forever.
Ever since the 
There are no special effects here, just a solid mystery unfolding through intelligent story-telling. Such movies are rare these days, but Clooney sees their potential and brings them to life. 
Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is like most of us. He goes about life trying to succeed, caring for his family and basically being oblivious to the world of gangs and crime that closely intersects many cozy suburbs. But if it's true that one out of every hundred of us are psychopaths, as experts estimate, and that a good percentage of them won't hesitate to harm someone if it brings something to them, then there's a good chance that even the most protected citizen will cross paths with such people. 
Reportedly, screenwriter Christopher Landon got the idea for Disturbia from being "disturbed" by the apparent perfection of suburban life in the San Fernando Valley; he imagined that a serial killer might just as easily operate in this environment as in a large city or on lonely stretch of road. "One night, as I was driving home from my sister's place," Landon states in the film's production notes, "this idea just popped into my head — a story about a kid who is stuck in his house and begins to notice bizarre things happening across the way. He eventually comes to suspect that his neighbor is a serial killer."
One thing about director David Cronenberg: you never know what he's going to do but you know it will make you squirm. A midwife seeks justice for a dead girl and finds herself caught between two men. Like a tireless Dostoevskian heroine, she keeps intruding where she's not wanted.
It's difficult to imagine making a film about a person as perverse and demented as 
If you look closely, everything has a flaw a fault line or fracture that weakens it. Fatal flaws arise in most good stories and New Line's "Fracture," directed by Gregory Hoblit, is no exception. In fact, such flaws provide the film's overt and covert themes, and watching how they intertwine provides its aggressive momentum.
An Excellent Blending of Good And Evil. Ben Affleck's tough, gritty movie delves freely into moral ambiguity. Welcome to Our Town...the Dark Side. The South Boston neighborhood setting for this film sets up a claustrophobic atmosphere of people who remain in one place, body and soul, their whole lives. Some deteriorate, which is evident in their substance abuse, situational morality, and neglect of hearth and home.
The American traitor once said the best way to hide a lie is by wrapping it in
layers of truth. It's a trick that not only serves spies, but also clever Hollywood scriptwriters. Such is the case with The Good
Shepherd, a cloak-and-dagger thriller that purports to tell the story of
the Central Intelligence Agency's early days as seen through the eyes and career
of Edward Wilson, the movie's main character. Played by Matt Damon, Wilson is
patterned after the legendary spy-catcher, 
We've seen in recent news reports that even life in idyllic towns can be shattered in an instant. The bizarre raid on the home of a Connecticut physician, Dr. William Petit, Jr., which left his wife and two daughters raped and murdered, is a case in point. No amount of right living will protect us from the random predator bent on wreaking havoc. In part, that's the subject of the latest serial killer horror flick. 
Controversial O.J. Simpson book is the disgraceful creation of a reckless narcissist just to make money. He thinks he set the record straight with this book, but he most definitely does not. The tumultuous story behind the book is an echo of deeply felt anger by the public about this case. 
An intense CSI-type police procedural and a
slam-bam rescue thriller. And remarkably the filmmakers manage to pull off both
with style and skill.
While svelte actress Salma Hayek is no 
Can serial killers pass on to their progeny a compulsion to kill? That's a question raised by the film," Mr. Brooks," starring Kevin Costner as Earl Brooks. Brooks is a seemingly normal, successful businessman with a family and a desire to help others, as well as an evil alter ego, Marshall (William Hurt), that urges Brooks to kill. 
Although the character of Nancy Drew was first created in 1930, she's shifted and changed with each new generation. While she remains a role model for young girls, this film, with Emma Roberts as the girl sleuth, aspires to make her relevant for the post-CSI 21st century. 
DVD presents a more extraordinary serial killer than Hannibal Lecter. Unique and visually extravagant historical movie features vampiric serial killer obsessed with a woman's scent. 
Not A Simple Case of Good Versus Evil. A steely Meryl Streep declares that no terrorist is going to slip through the cracks on her watch. Rendition, which bends over backwards to present all sides of the issue, is an up-close look at one case of extreme rendition in America's ongoing war on terror.
People
often view crimes committed by a mob as the results of an inexplicable force
that overtook decent citizens and briefly turned them into monsters. In
actuality, anger, fear, and a wicked desire to punish lurk in all our hearts,
decent or not, and sometimes to activate them requires only the right
trigger. 
Famous trial and execution of two Italian immigrants for 1920 robbery & murder is a classic case of bias against one ethnic group and a continuous source of anger and irritation in the Italian-American community to this day. While it is not possible to determine forensically whether Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were innocent or guilty, it is clear that the two men did not get a fair trial.
It's unfortunate to utilize three talents like Duvall, Phoenix and Wahlberg in such a superficial tale, but it's fortunate for viewers that they took the roles. Duvall, Phoenix and Wahlberg elevate the film to a moderately successful story of family values and personal standards.
"Sleeping with a baseball bat under the bed, constantly looking over our shoulders, school buses with police escorts, and wondering just who among our
neighbors might be a serial killer..." So said a reporter who had lived in Vallejo, California during the late 1960s era of the