{"id":2319,"date":"2013-03-18T17:05:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T17:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/?p=2319"},"modified":"2013-03-18T17:05:24","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T17:05:24","slug":"lost-review-the-oxford-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/revblogs\/geekcurmudgeon\/2013\/03\/18\/lost-review-the-oxford-murders\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost Review: The Oxford Murders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay \u201cGorilla of Your Dreams\u201d (the\u00a0substantially\u00a0update and\u00a0revised\u00a0version\u00a0appears in\u00a0The Apes of Wrath<\/em><\/a>), I regularly contributed to\u00a0Moving Pictures Magazine<\/em>. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for\u00a0MPM<\/em>\u00a0disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and article.<\/p>\n

This time I’m dusting off my review of\u00a0The Oxford Murders<\/em><\/a>, a fairly obscure mathematical murder mystery, based on the book Cr\u00edmenes imperceptibles<\/em>\u00a0by\u00a0Guillermo Mart\u00ednez. It is available for streaming via Netflix.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Oxford Murders<\/i><\/p>\n

Review by Rick Klaw<\/p>\n

Directed by Alex de la Iglesia
\nStarring Elijah Wood,\u00a0John Hurt,\u00a0Anna Massey,\u00a0Julie Cox,\u00a0Burn Gorman, and\u00a0Leonor Watling<\/p>\n

Wood\u00a0plays Martin, an American student at the\u00a0University of Oxford\u00a0who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his\u00a0thesis supervisor. He\u00a0idolizes\u00a0Seldom and has learned all about him. He takes rooms in Oxford at the house of an old lady, Mrs. Eagleton (Anna Massey), who is an old friend of Seldom. Also in the house is the old lady’s daughter, Beth (Julie Cox), who is her full time caregiver \u2014 which she resents bitterly \u2014 and a musician by occupation.<\/p>\n

In a public lecture, Seldom quotes\u00a0Wittgenstein’s\u00a0Tractatus\u00a0to deny the possibility of absolute truth. Hoping to impress his idol, Martin disputes this, asserting his faith in the absolute truth of mathematics: “I believe in the number\u00a0pi.” Seldom humiliates him, ridiculing his arguments and making him look foolish in front of the audience. Disillusioned, Martin decides to abandon his studies and goes to his office to collect his belongings. There, he encounters his office-mate, a disillusioned mathematician Podorov (Burn Gorman), who also failed to become a student of Seldom’s.<\/p>\n