Mystery

A Haunting in Venice

  • Title: A Haunting in Venice
  • IMDb: link

Kenneth Branagh stars and directs in his third adaptation of a Hercule Poirot mystery, this time Agatha Christie‘s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party. Quite different from the novel, screenwriter Michael Green plays up a supernatural element to the story allowing the film to make use of a host of horror tropes. Relocating the story to Venice, where Poirot (Branagh) has apparently retired, the detective gets dragged into attending a Halloween party and séance by old friend and mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) who made them both famous after basing her fictional detective off of Poirot.

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Amsterdam

  • Title: Amsterdam
  • IMDb: link

Loosely based on real events, David O. Russell‘s uneven film follows the travails of three friends and survivors of World War I (Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie) who for a time lived together in Amsterdam before being reunited later in New York and embroiled in a murder mystery involving a poisoned general (Ed Begley Jr.) and the daughter (Taylor Swift) who police mistakenly believe the two men pushed in front of a moving car. True events involve a mysterious organization and their plans to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Only Murders in the Building – Grab Your Hankies

  • Title: Only Murders in the Building – Grab Your Hankies
  • wiki: link

The first episode of the season to stay completely in the present moves forward the threads of both the play and murder as Oliver (Martin Short) works furiously to turn his failed Broadway return into a musical, Charles (Steve Martin) hunts for a cast member without their hanky, and Mabel (Selena Gomez) spends a little time with documentarian Tobert (Jesse Williams) when the pair catch each other snooping for clues to Ben‘s (Paul Rudd) death. By the end of the episode, the show has new life and the podcast has a new suspect in Kimber (Ashley Park) who, given how early the season is highlighting her, suggests she is likely not the killer despite evidence of jealous rage, potential motive for the crime, and a missing handkerchief. 

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Only Murders in the Building – The Beat Goes On

  • Title: Only Murders in the Building – The Beat Goes On
  • wiki: link

“The Beat Goes On” offers flashbacks to early days of rehearsal while in the present events surrounding Ben‘s (Paul Rudd) funeral put Charles (Steve Martin) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) in harms way chasing down leads to the murder. Meanwhile, the failure of Oliver‘s (Martin Short) comeback brings on a heart attack. The episode is notable for revealing the issue Ben had with Charles, Oliver’s dream sequence leading to an epiphany and a way to save the play, and Charles and Mabel deciding that (once again) the police have the wrong man and the true murderer is part of the theatrical production Oliver has now saved. I’m just guessing, but I don’t think this was the low-stress situation his doctor recommended.

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Scooby-Doo! – Revenge of the Swamp Monster!

  • Title: Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? – Revenge of the Swamp Monster!
  • wiki: link

Scooby Sunday takes us back to the first episode of Scooby Doo and Guess Who? which used a similar concept to The New Scooby Doo Movies in providing a guest-star of the week to help solve a mystery, first up was professional basketball player Chris Paul (voiced by Paul). The concept around the episode is a bit convoluted, but it shakes down in Paul asking for Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) to be his caddy in a charity golf tournament which benefits the funding of a local school. Sadly, a Swamp Monster has been terrorizing the tournament and either kidnapping or scaring off several of the golfers.

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