Murder 24/7 has returned to screens for its third run, once again plunging viewers into real-life murder investigations in the UK. Following West Mercia Police, viewers have so far witnessed chilling murders as detectives work against the clock in their pursuit of justice.
Last night (August 4), the first of a two-part special aired on BBC One at 9pm delving into the murder investigation of Jamie Gawler. Jamie was found dead by police in an armchair in a flat, with a towel draped over his face.
Officers were stunned to hear the horrific post-mortem results as their investigation led them miles away in South Wales and a potential suspect.
The second episode will air tonight (August 5) on BBC One at 9pm, with episodes also available to stream on BBC iPlayer. However, viewers have been left sickened by the latest instalments.
Taking to TikTok, one true crime fan admitted their “jaw was on the floor watching this show”. In the video, they added: “Wow. Absolutely brutal…. I couldn’t believe them episodes, they were brutal.”
One person commented: “Omg I’m addicted to this one bet my leccy bill sky high.” Another replied: “It was horrific”, as a third said: “It was a hard watch.”
A fourth wrote: “Just watched them both this afternoon absolutely shocking.” A fifth added: “I love watching this programme but those two were brutal.”
Another branded the latest instalment as “sickening” as one person said: “It was absolutely horrendous.” One viewer echoed: “It was about the worst of that series.”
The second part of the two-parter, titled Natural Born Killer, will return tonight at 9pm as detectives continue to build their case against suspect Matthew Jonathan.
A BBC synopsis reads: “A critical forensic breakthrough comes when analysts match an incomplete, bloody footprint from the scene to Jonathan’s rare boots via a national database. Soon after, investigators recover a series of phone videos that reveal the true extent of the assault.”
A separate case featured also sees a woman fighting for her life after a brutal assault with a meat cleaver as her partner is arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
A hypnotizing deep dish of star wattage, family meltdowns, racial tensions and Texas-sized steaks served for breakfast, George Stevens’ 1956 drama was taken extremely seriously in its moment — 10 Oscar nominations seriously. The most notable of those were for Rock Hudson and, competing against him in lead actor, a posthumously honored James Dean. Taken together, the two represent a fascinating dichotomy that was happening in screen acting, a burrowing into psychology that was leaving other more traditional stars behind. (Elizabeth Taylor and Mercedes McCambridge make for another great pairing in the movie.) Roughly 25 years later, the film would inspire the TV series “Dallas,” even down to having a main character with the initials J.R. Go luxuriate in the original epic.
“Giant” is playing Sunday at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
July is another month absolutely packed with essential repertory screenings at venues all over Los Angeles. It’s genuinely impossible to attend everything that feels like a must-see. Joshua Rothkopf and I compiled a list of the 10 movies you need to see in L.A. this month to help in making some tough decisions.
On Monday at the Academy Museum will be a 30th anniversary screening of Wes Anderson’s debut feature, “Bottle Rocket,” which introduced the world to his still-evolving mix of whimsy and melancholy with an unmistakably specific sense of style. Anderson will make a rare Los Angeles appearance at the event, along with actor Luke Wilson and producer James L. Brooks.
The New Beverly will have a double bill on July 9 and 10 of Paul Brickman’s “Risky Business” and Steve De Jarnatt’s “Miracle Mile,” two neon-drenched artifacts of the 1980s that both feature scores by the German electronic group Tangerine Dream. (Be sure to also note the screening of “Sorcerer,” featuring another of their pulsing scores, below.)
John Travolta in Brian De Palma’s 1981 thriller “Blow Out.”
(Criterion Collection)
On July 10 there will be a 35mm screening at the Academy Museum of Brian De Palma’s paranoid 1981 thriller “Blow Out,” starring John Travolta as a sound recordist who accidentally captures a political assassination. Anyone who still hasn’t gotten enough from the Fourth of July will want to see this for the thrilling fireworks display as part of its finale.
On July 12 at the American Cinematheque’s Los Feliz Theatre will be a screening of Alexander Mackendrick’s show-biz noir “Sweet Smell of Success” in 35mm with an introduction from filmmaker Shane Black, who presumably learned a thing or two about snappy, acid-drenched dialogue from the film. Black will also be appearing at the Culver Theater on July 22 for a 10th anniversary screening of his crime comedy “The Nice Guys.”
As part of the American Cinematheque’s ongoing 70mm festival, on the 22nd there will be a screening of Damien Chazelle’s 2022 “Babylon,” a bold and ambitious look at the early days of Hollywood starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt. It was a box office disaster when it came out but has already seen a passionate fan base grow around it.
Have a killer holiday
Richard Dreyfuss, left, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw in the 1975 movie “Jaws.”
(Universal Pictures)
There is something rather wholesome about the fact that Steven Spielberg’s 1975 seaside horror-thriller “Jaws” has become the official unofficial movie of the Fourth of July. Set amid a beach community suddenly beset by a great white shark as the town prepares for the holiday, the movie is a mix of ’70s-style ramshackle, good-natured ease and precison-tooled action that prefigures the blockbuster era of the ’80s. Even now at more than 50 years old, there is something undeniable about the movie’s ability to entertain, delight and terrify an audience.
An image from Ken Jacobs’ 2004 movie “Star Spangled to Death.”
(Los Angeles Filmforum)
When acclaimed avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs died last year at age 92, the world lost one of its most singular voices. In tribute to Jacobs and as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of America, on Sunday at 2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles Filmforum will show his “Star Spangled to Death,” a six-and-a-half-hour masterpiece that took decades to complete.
Beginning work on the project in the 1950s, Jacobs would eventually premiere the film in 2004. It is an epic compilation of his own imagery, some of it of his longtime friend and colleague Jack Smith, along with found footage that coalesces into a grand statement on nothing less than the state of the nation. Jacobs himself described the film as a portrait of “a stolen and dangerously sold-out America, allowing examples of popular culture to self-indict.”
A tribute to Marjane Satrapi
An image from the 2007 movie “Persepolis,” directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.
(Sony Pictures Classics)
In tribute to Iranian French cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, who died at age 56 last month, the Los Feliz 3 will have a 35mm screening of her 2007 animated film “Persepolis” on Thursday. Director Ana Lily Amirpour will introduce the movie, which was nominated for an Oscar for animated feature.
Based on Satrapi’s own autobiographical graphic novel, “Persepolis” is about a young girl coming of age during Iran’s Islamic Revolution told with bold line drawings and a belief in the freedom of the imagination.
Love, crime and sweat
Katy O’Brian, left, and Kristen Stewart in the 2024 movie “Love Lies Bleeding.”
(Anna Kooris / A24)
Some movies arrive seeming ready made as cult revival objects. Ross Glass’ 2024 “Love Lies Bleeding” was overlooked when it was first released but seems ripe for rediscovery. In a story that knowingly plays with the motifs of classic film noir and crime dramas, Kristen Stewart plays a hapless, easily manipulated loner in a small dead-end town who falls in with a mysterious and charismatic drifter played by Katy O’Brian. Their chemistry is electric and gives the film a real charge.
The film will show on Thursday at the Frida Cinema as part of its ongoing Nu-Classics series, along with a conversation between actors and online personalities Maggie Mae Fish and Abigail Thorn.
In an interview at the time of release, Glass talked about the film’s appeal, saying, “It’s people meeting each other and falling in love for the first time and those whirlwind sort of first few weeks. Going into it, I don’t think I was specifically thinking of it as horny, but I definitely knew going into it that I wanted it to feel sweaty and intense.”
Road to nowhere
An image from William Friedkin’s 1977 adventure movie “Sorcerer.”
(Criterion Collection)
Though it is a movie we have talked about here before, it is always worth mentioning when there is a screening of William Friedkin’s 1977 “Sorcerer.” It will be playing tonight in the main room at the Academy Museum in a recent 4K restoration, which should be big and loud. The score by Tangerine Dream should be even more brain-rattling than usual in that venue.
The film notoriously first opened a week after “Star Wars” in 1977 and was left in the dust, though it has more recently become revered as one of Friedkin’s best — a movie of relentless, ratcheting tension. An adaptation of the novel that also inspired 1953’s “Wages of Fear,” Friedkin’s film is about a group of desperate men, each on the run from something, who must transport a truckload of nitroglycerine through a dangerous South American jungle.
New this week
Amy Nicholson found “Minions & Monsters” to be a “delightful dingbat homage to Tinseltown set during the transition from silents to sound.”
Carlos Aguilar spoke to Minions creator Pierre Coffin about all the old-school movie homages in the new film and its cameo from no less a film figure than George Lucas.
Katie Walsh reviews Jon Erwin’s “Young Washington,” calling it “propaganda in the form of a history lesson wrapped in a summer blockbuster.”
Tim Grierson reviews “Romería,” an autobiographical tale from Spanish writer-director Carla Simón starring newcomer Llúcia Garcia, noting “Simón and her star bracingly recall the electricity of youth.”
