Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
| 01 August 2011 (USA)
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles Trailers

An urban mystery unfurls as one man pieces together the surreal meaning of hundreds of cryptic tiled messages that have been appearing in city streets across the U.S. and South America.

Reviews
Solemplex

To me, this movie is perfection.

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Ensofter

Overrated and overhyped

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BoardChiri

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

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Geraldine

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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torbi-2

The mystery is interesting—I've seen the tiles in NY and wondered what they could mean but they were so obscure that I would usually forget about them as soon as I walked past. These 3 amateur detectives wanted the real story so they spent years tracking down the slimmest threads...which miraculously lead them where they wanted to go. My issue with this doc were all editing choices—the music and video fading out every 30 seconds after someone finished a thought got obnoxious very quickly. The inclusion of Justin's juvenile lapses and his love of pigeons was placed in oddly, and overall I thought it could have been laid out better. I also wish they talked to someone about the psychology of why someone would do this and how exactly the tiles were made (are they ceramic? rubber? how do they stick and become basically embedded in the roadway?) I wasn't as fussed by the "inconclusive ending" as many were; I actually appreciate them leaving the tiler in his privacy. But! It's a very interesting mystery and a fun watch.

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okulo

I wish I had some knowledge of the Toynbee tiles before I had watched this, simply so that I could have felt more of the emotions that the filmmakers must have felt. But even knowing nothing, I was completely consumed by the subject and although part way through I started to wonder if I actually wanted to know the answers to the questions being asked, the end satisfied both my curiosity and my reservations.It would be difficult to describe without giving too much away but I experienced an exquisite moment when my mind slipped half a second ahead of the narrative as a penny dropped momentarily before the narrator spoke. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the film.I'm sure that this will not suit many people but for me it was wonderful and inspiring.

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AMichaelL

I found this documentary to be an interesting investigation into a very obscure mystery. The toynbee tiles were well known to me before this documentary, and their message was also clear to me. The thing which always made me wonder was 'why'. Why put this message on random tiles in seemingly random places? To a lesser extent, I also was curious if the person involved was either insane or enlightened. This movie does a great job of showing a thorough investigation into the mystery, and without giving anything away, I can say they did an amazing job, and they do determine who the original tiler (most likely) is.I am kind of curious how the investigators make a living, as it seems as though they spent an inordinate amount of time on this. Either way, props to them - because without their efforts we would ALL be in the dark about this very intriguing idea.

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jdesando

"TOYNBEE IDEA IN Kubrick's 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER."Stanley Kubrick's 2001 provides the catalyst for a decades-long planting of tiles in streets all over the US and South America with the above message. The documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles is director, writer John Foy's attempt to chronicle Justin Duerr's search for the author of these tiles and their meaning.The film is not as compelling as it might be as Wikipedia already lists the perpetrator, whom Duerr identifies after a process of elimination to be Philadelphian Severino "Sevy" Verna, aka James Morasco. He purportedly placed the tiles through a hole in the floor of his car while broadcasting a message via short wave radio about his theories.Thus the suspense is a surface affectation with the film really being about the process of identifying the artist of the tiles. Actually, the deconstruction of the tiles' meaning is more interesting than the hunt for the author, the meaning resting squarely on Toynbee's theory that the body's molecules after death could be reassembled on Jupiter as Kubrick had hinted in his denouement imagery.In addition to 2001, a 1983 short play by David Mamet, 4 A.M., depicts a Larry King-like radio host taking a call about 2001, Toynbee, and plans to populate Jupiter with those reconstituted molecules. Mamet has been flattered thinking the tiles were inspired by the play.Too many talking-head sequences mask the lack of evidence beyond the tiles themselves. Visits to the alleged perpetrator's hood are cold leads that only hint at disclosure and certainly add little to the hunt. Artfully moody original music by Foy lends atmosphere to what ends up an amusing account of two nerds searching out another nerd. I have enough of that experience visiting Com-Con and Star Trek conventions.

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