The Oxford Murders (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Álex de la Iglesia (Acción mutante, The Day of the Beast, 800 Bullets, El Crimen Ferpecto, The Last Circus)
	Actors: Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings, Sin City), John Hurt (Alien, V for Vandetta, 1984), Leonor Watling, Dominique Pinon (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
	Country: E, GB, F
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 29.10.2012, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: A PhD student (Wood) comes to Oxford with the idea of meeting a master mind of philosophy and mathematics (Hurt). This confrontation will be helped by a series of murders revolving around mathematics.
Review: I love the work from Álex de la Iglesia and he didn't dissapoint me this time either. All his previous movies, although small budgets, have something special. 8oo balas might be my favorite. I am looking forward to watch The Last Circus in Blu-ray, and am trying to find the DVD of his TV series Plutón B.R.B. Nero. The Oxford Murders is his first movie made outside of Spain and in English language. It is based on a book that might be the source of the intense mathematical and philosophical discussions, which are interesting if you are at ease with some mathematical notions. Unlike in The Big Bang Theory TV-series, those notions are not used for humour but to explain humain behavior. The best part in the movie is not the police investigation, but the couple of lead actors which is pleasant to follow (Wood makes it easy for us to forget his character of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings trilogy). It was the first time that I  watched a movie through a VOD provider, Maxdome.de as it happens, supposedly the number one in Germany. The Pros are that you can watch the movie immediately (or within 48 hours), in HD and original version. I had a cheap offer to start with but normally I should have paid 6 euros for it, which is not cheap. The Cons are that it is only TV-HD (720i and not 1080i), the colors are not as vibrant as on a Blu-ray, the sound is only 2.0, the images gets jerky when the camera pans (maybe due to my laptop video card), and there were no subtitles available. Overall a good first contact with VOD.
Rating: 7 /10