It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for the Thursday Movie Picks feature. This series is hosted by Wandering through the Shelves and offers you a weekly prompt to post some movie recommendations/talking points according to the theme. Usually, you are supposed to post about 3-5 examples, which I find a very manageable amount.
This week the theme is Police Detective, which, again, isn’t one of my strong suits if I am being completely honest here. Maybe it’s because I just generally am not the biggest fan of the thriller and crime genre, but we shall see what I can come up with. (I was gonna put Knives Out there because of Benoit Blanc, but then … I realized he wasn’t an actual police detective, but a private investigator, so … yeah). Maybe it won’t have to be about detectives, but they could just be in the movie? This is going to require some pondering.
Kindergarten Cop
I want to make one thing clear for today and that’s that these movies (and shows) aren’t really recommendations so much as my brain trying to think of ANYTHING cop related I have watched. Also, as a fellow Austrian, I guess Arnold Schwarzenegger is just someone at the back of my mind? I’ve seen this movie so many times since I was a kid, but it’s still so cheesy.
Hollywood Homicide
It’s a ridiculous film but the Josh Hartnett and Harrison Ford combo worked for me. Bear in mind that this was early 2000s and so inappropriate at times, but a cop who’d rather be an actor is funny to me.
Young Wallander (TV show)
Because I am unable to think of many more cop movies, I have decided to just list shows … well, frankly because this is my blog and I can.
My dad likes watching the Kurt Wallander movies and this is basically a more aesthetically pleasing prequel series about how Kurt became a high ranking detective. It’s filmed in Sweden with Swedish actors, but in the English language. I guess they wanted that international appeal.
Frequency (TV show)
I KNOW that there’s also the Frequency movie, but I haven’t seen that and I am therefore not sure if the show was a reboot or a sequel, but it’s cancelled either way? I did enjoy it while it was on though. I guess I liked that it wasn’t just crime, but also had a supernatural element to it.
Life and Other Disasters 
I know a couple of cops that are aspiring actors. One of them is really working hard to make that happen.
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it feels like there’s such a huge difference between those two jobs. What made him pursue a career as a cop instead of something more media or theater related? Stuff like that intrigues me.
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He was a Marine first, and then became a police officer afterwards. I think he likes helping people.You never know who might get bit by an urge to perform. Some find themselves compelled to act, write, sing, or, as in your case, art and international blogging fame.
Happy Trails!
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I suppose that does make sense and people like Adam Driver made that career jump too. How kind of you to think that I have any sort of international blogging notoriety haha
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Oh yeah, as far as detective movies I would recommend, Here are my top three, in reverse order.
3 – Sleuth {1972}
2 – ‘Evil Under the Sun’ {1978, I think}
1 – ‘The Maltese Falcon’ {1939}
Happy Trails!
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Sherlock Holmes, Die Hard (technically John McClane never held the rank of detective in any of the movies, but whatever), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
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I mean, I have seen all of those. I am not a huge Die Hard fan and as you said, he’s not a detective, and I just mentioned the movie a couple posts ago. As for Sherlock … I mean, he wasn’t a police detective either. He always worked as a liaison, unless you want to focus on Lestrade
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You have a point there. Still, as far as I’m concerned, he’s honorary.
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Oops! ‘Police’ detective. I missed that.
I’ve got one! Peter Faulk as ‘Colombo’. 🙂
Peter Faulk is consistently fantastic in everything he does.
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The police part is what made this post so hard!
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So Frequency is a really annoying series, in a very niche American pop-culture New York City kind of way. I’m a NYC guy, this is my territory. I’ll explain.
Frequency the movie takes place, in part, in 1969. A son in the present day relives the World Series with his deceased father. 1969 was a magical year in New York sports. We have two baseball teams (at present), Yankees and Mets. Yankees have been around since 1903 and have 27 World Series titles; their fans are arrogant and everywhere. The Mets didn’t exist until 1962 and they were horrible from 1962 through 1968 — but in 1969 they won the World Series, out of nowhere, and that was a magical year. The Mets have only won the World Series once since then. The movie came out in 1999 and touched on an important moment in the cultural life of NYC.
Frequency the TV series takes place, in part, in 1996, where the Yankees won the World Series (ho hum, and they’ve won it three more times since), and a daughter relives it with her deceased father.. The series came out a few years ago and touched upon a fairly insignificant moment in the cultural life of NYC. Plus, the Mets are beloved underdogs; the Yankees are an overhyped behemoth. I’m a Mets fan (if this post wasn’t obvious enough).
Frequency the movie was special and nostalgic. Frequency the TV series (I only watched the first episode) was just trying to cash in on the Yankees brand, spoke to nobody, and didn’t last long.
And that’s more information than you need about why Frequency got canceled. 🙂
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So, I hear you and I can see how this would be something different for a New Yorker/sports fan, but … shouldn’t the show still hold value for everyone else who is not as involved? I have watched the entire series and I could not, for the life of me, remember more than one or two lines said about sports and it really did not matter one bit. It was about family and temporal repercussions, which I found really intriguing. I can completely understand that there was no nostalgic value to it, but I personally didn’t need it? I don’t know, I think we were looking at this show from really different angles.
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Oh, I don’t disagree that it needs to have value for the audience in general and not just me — but for me it was just too big a change for me. Like, if a movie is made out of your favorite book but the point of the book is inverted and the ending is changed – that movie might still find a wide audience but the book fans will feel left out.
Then again, I have been known to overthink these things. 🙂
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