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RIP to Mike Hodges, director of Croupier.
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Dec 21, 2022 04:18
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Chas McGill posted:Any recommendations for Xmas/new year adjacent noir? Sunset Boulevard is the obvious one. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang takes place around Christmas.
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Dec 21, 2022 13:39
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 Payback (1999), dir. Brian Helgeland  Mel Gibson, along with Gregg Henry and Deborah Kara Unger, steal some money. Gibson is betrayed by his fellow criminals and left for dead, but he isn't. He sets out for revenge which involves Mario Bello, a prostitute for whom he used to work; Lucy Liu, a prostitute with whom he was not previously acquainted; Bill Duke and Jack Conley as crooked cops; and others.  I watched the director's cut, which is quite different from what eventually came out, which featured a lot of reshoots the director wasn't involved in in order to make the movie more like Lethal Weapon and less upsetting. This more noiry version features Gibson beating the poo poo out of his ex-wife about 5 minutes in, although it does have some Lethal Weapony stuff. Anyways it's kind of whatever. Gibson just moves from place to place, hurting or killing people, withotu displaying much emotion or anything.  There's a dog, so that's nice. And there's the world's most '90s drug dealer so congrats on that. 72/100
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Dec 21, 2022 14:54
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James Coburn was great in that.
AFewBricksShy fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Dec 21, 2022 |
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Dec 21, 2022 15:15
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TychoCelchuuu posted:
I saw this back when it was new, on VHS, so my memories are positive but dim. What did you think of the opening vignette where he quickly acquires the "magnum" and the steak dinner? It seemed like the coolest thing to me as a teenager and I'm wondering how it fares in a more sophisticated viewing? Also, thanks for posting all these, I like noire but don't watch it enough, I'm trying to read back through your posts but I'd appreciate any recommendation for a very good noire film that doesn't appear in most online top ten lists; I'll make a point to watch it soon.
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Dec 21, 2022 15:19
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Jack B Nimble posted:I saw this back when it was new, on VHS, so my memories are positive but dim. What did you think of the opening vignette where he quickly acquires the "magnum" and the steak dinner? It seemed like the coolest thing to me as a teenager and I'm wondering how it fares in a more sophisticated viewing? Jack B Nimble posted:Also, thanks for posting all these, I like noire but don't watch it enough, I'm trying to read back through your posts but I'd appreciate any recommendation for a very good noire film that doesn't appear in most online top ten lists; I'll make a point to watch it soon.
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Dec 21, 2022 15:22
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 The Yards (2000), dir. James Gray  Mark Wahlberg has just gotten out of prison and he returns home to Queens. Waiting for him are his cousin, Charlize Theron; his friend (and her boyfriend) Joaquin Phoenix; his mom Ellen Burstyn; his aunt Faye Dunaway; her new husband James Caan, and so on. Wahlberg goes to work with Phoenix, for Caan, who runs a train/subway company. Turns out the whole business is sort of crooked and so stuff happens.  Pretty dece. (That's short for "decent.") Wahlberg is nobody's favorite actor and here is no exception, but his job is relatively straightforward here so it works out. Phoenix and Theron are nice, Caan is great as a wheeler and dealer, etc.  If you look closely at one point you can see a cat. Theron is definitely dressed for the year. 83/100
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Dec 22, 2022 14:21
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Chas McGill posted:Any recommendations for Xmas/new year adjacent noir? Sunset Boulevard is the obvious one.
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Dec 23, 2022 05:54
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 Femme Fatale (2002), dir. Brian De Palma  In an absolutely insane opening setpiece, Rebecca Romijn, the titular femme fatale, steals some diamond jewelry along with Eriq Ebouaney and Édouard Montoute. This is all in Paris. Things get insanely complicated and later Romijn ends up involved with Peter Coyote, an American businessman, and we cut to seven years later when we're back in Paris because Coyote is now the ambassador to France. Antonio Banderas co-stars as a photographer who gets drawn into the insanity.  This was kind of panned when it was released but later became a cult classic. I'm sorry to say I am not yet able to see what others see in it and I'm on the side of the panners. I sort of can understand some of what people might like: the plot is absolutely insane, bordering on parody, and it really dives head first into the whole idea of a femme fatale. But for my money it's just too silly to be good straight up and too serious to be good as a joke. Maybe someday I'll be able to get on its wavelength. For now it's pretty mediocre in my eyes.  It's De Palma so of course you get stuff like split screens and split diopter and whatever this is. Ryuichi Sakamoto did the music. During the heist it's really loving weird. The rest is pretty normal. One of the twenty reasons the heist is insane is that there's a completely inexplicable cat just hanging out in the power station. There are a lot of women in various states of undress so if you're into that, then I have great news. 69/100
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Dec 23, 2022 11:46
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Raymond Chandler's The High Window (Kindle) is on sale on Amazon today if anyone's interested. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBFM5C It was made into a movie twice, Time to Kill (1942), and the Brasher Doubloon (1947)
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Dec 23, 2022 15:19
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Very cool, Chandler is too good. Been meaning to read that and Lady in the Lake soon, used bookstores around here have a lot of good stuff like those. The Big Sleep is the only one I've read so far, ruled.
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Dec 24, 2022 05:29
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 I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003), dir. Mike Hodges  Mike Hodges, who died because I reviewed his movie Croupier a few days ago, is back, and he's again directing Clive Owen, who is in full on forest hobo mode, as he's living in a van out in the wilderness of the UK. He is drawn back to London by business involving his brother Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, a lovable scamp who deals some drugs. Also involved are Charlotte Rampling, Owen's former girlfriend; Jamie Foreman, as Owen and and Rhys-Meyers's friend; and Malcolm McDowell, who sells cars.  It's decent. It's kind of a strange movie because almost nothing happens. Most of what's important happened before the movie started, and a few other important things happen offscreen. Mostly it's a mood piece where Owen walks around the shittiest parts of London with a scraggly beard.  The ending is kind of interesting. Wikipedia stupidly says it "bears striking similarities to Hodges' directorial debut, the classic 1970 crime drama Get Carter." The similarities aren't striking, you stupid encyclopedia. It's not some sort of coincidence. Hodges doesn't get assigned to randomly direct scripts. Presumably he picked this one in part because he's interested in this sort of stuff! Anyways there's a dog and a bird. The soundtrack is nice and the movie talks a lot about rape so, content warning. 79/100
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Dec 24, 2022 15:02
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Watching I'll Sleep When I'm Dead made me want to leave my flat, job and family and go live in a van in the woods somewhere.
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Dec 24, 2022 15:57
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We take a break from the neo-noir for a Christmas noir: Christmas Holiday (1944), dir. Robert Siodmak  Robert Siodmak, veteran noir director, directs this film about Dean Harens, a newly-promoted lieutenant who is about to fly to San Francisco to marry his woman during his Christmas break from the army. Right before he hops on a plane she telegrams him to say she's married someone else. Undeterred, he heads to San Francisco, but rough weather forces his plane to land in New Orleans on Christmas Eve, where he meets Deanna Durbin, whose husband Gene Kelly is in prison for murder. Much of the movie consists of two extended flashbacks depicting Durbin and Kelly's relationship before he got locked up.  I don't love it. The flashback structure makes things feel kind of thin and perfunctory for much of the running time, since you already know where things are headed, and Harens is kind of a blank slate. Kelly is pretty decent and Durbin is not so bad but it's not enough to salvage the movie. Briefly near the end it gets kind of good but never great.  There are a couple scenes that are pretty impressive in scope, one set in a midnight Christmas mass and another in a giant concert hall. Durbin sings a few songs in the movie and she's quite good. It's fun to see Kelly as a jerk but aside from that I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone except those who really want a Christmas noir. 70/100
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Dec 25, 2022 16:43
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Back to the neo-noirs! Blow the Man Down (2019), dir. Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy  In a small fishing town in Maine, Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe's mom has just died, leaving them in a difficult position in terms of keeping the house, although I'm not sure why Saylor cares because she wants to get the hell out of town. Saylor encounters Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who is so hot right now, touching off a series of noirish events involving Margo Martindale, who runs the local brothel; Gayle Rankin, who works there; and June Squibb, Annette O'Toole, and Marceline Hugot as three old women who are all up in people's business.  It's pretty decent. There aren't really any surprises or other things that would push it into the territory of excellence, like basically any movie made by the Coen brothers, which this is definitely drawing inspiration from. But it's well-acted and mostly well-plotted, aside from a couple of people tossing around the stupid ball once or twice when the plot requires it. The ending you can see coming but it's pretty good, so, points for that.  I guess maybe the one thing it does that isn't straightforward is that it has a sort of intermittent Greek chorus of fishermen singing sea shanties, but they rarely show up and frankly only the lead guy can sing and thematically it's all pretty thin so, no points for that. Twice in the movie people who are being served food at someone's house loving gobble it up like they haven't eaten in ten years. As someone who does his fair share of gobbling but who would never do that in someone else's house eating someone else's food this struck me as absolutely demented, but then again I've never lived in a small town in Maine. Do people act like that there? 80/100 TychoCelchuuu fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 12:58
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As we reach the end of the month we're getting into this year's batch of neo-noirs. Vengeance (2022), dir. B. J. Novak  B. J. Novak writes, directs, and stars as a New Yorker writer who gets a call from Boyd Holbrook, brother of one of the 600 girls he hooks up with. That girl has died back in her tiny Texas hometown and Holbrook is telling Novak he's got to come to the funeral. When he arrives, Holbrook tells him that she's been murdered. Novak doesn't buy it, but he sees a chance to make a podcast out of it, so he pitches the idea to podcast producer Issa Rae, who loves it, and we're off to the races. Ashton Kutcher plays a record producer.  It's pretty good. There's some bad: I think maybe it's a bit too long, most of the characters are ridiculous stereotypes, and there aren't a lot of surprises. But there's plenty of good: it's basically a comedy half the time, and so although the characters are broad it's for the sake of making funny jokes, so that's nice. A lot of its satire is aimed at true crime podcasts which I loving hate, so that's nice.  The soundtrack is really cool. Sometimes the lighting looks absolutely terrible; like, what the gently caress is this? And the ridiculousness of the characters sometimes gets stretched a little far. Novak's character, a New Yorker writer, has never heard of Abilene, Texas; doesn't know that the Texans lost at the Battle of the Alamo; and has to use Shazam to look up "Deep in the Heart of Texas." 81/100
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Dec 27, 2022 10:01
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BJ Novak spent the largest part of his off screen career being a writer and producer (and occasional director) on The Office, so some flat lighting should probably be expected.
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Dec 27, 2022 10:10
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 헤어질 결심 (Resolution to Break Up)/Decision to Leave (2022), dir. Park Chan-wook  Park Hae-il is a detective in Busan investigating the potential murder of a mountain climber who fell from the mountain. The suspect is his wife, Chinese immigrant Tang Wei, whom we last saw in Long Day's Journey Into Night last year. He's also on the lookout for two suspects in another murder that has been hanging around a while. Noir things ensue.  Pretty good. The plot is okay - it's interesting the whole way through and pretty straightforward. The real standouts are the acting, especially on Tang's part, and the cinematography and editing, which are stupendous, although rarely they get a little too flashy for the movie's good. It's all pretty Hitchcockian and there are some fun touches of humor. Like a lot of Park's movies things are pretty bleak in parts, but with an undercurrent of mystery.  There are lots of animals, like this bird, this fish, this cat, etc. At one point they are making seoklyu-cha - pomegranate tea - which looks nice. 84/100
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Dec 28, 2022 14:53
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I said I wasn't going to do this movie but the other movie I was planning turns out not to have been a neo-noir in the slightest. Windfall (2022), dir. Charlie McDowell  Jason Segel is some guy who breaks into the empty Ojai vacation house of billionaire Jesse Plemons and Plemons' wife, Lily Collins. Then Plemons and Collins come back. Oops!  It's fine. There's hardly anything to say about it. It's a pretty spare movie: barely any characters, barely any locations, and barely anything happens. It doesn't have a lot of overt stuff to say, which is maybe a blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it.  Maybe the nicest thing about the movie is the nice hosue in a gorgeous location. If you're ever a billionaire and you want to live in Ojai, check out that house. 74/100
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Dec 29, 2022 12:49
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 Stars at Noon (2022), dir. Claire Denis  Margaret Qualley, some kind of journalist maybe, is stuck in Nicaragua during COVID. She meets Joe Alwyn, a mysterious British man, and noir events ensue.  I liked it a decent amount but your mileage may vary. It's very spare: for a while you barely know what's going on and by the end you're still not sure about some stuff. There are political undercurrents which the movie doesn't even begin to explain. And sometimes the performances are a little awkward, I think perhaps on purpose for the sake of verisimilitude. It's definitely got mood out the rear end, though.  You can file this movie with Azor and The Limits of Control in the "extremely obscure international-esque thrillers with lots of Spanish." As with many Denis movies it's got a great soundtrack. Briefly we see [url=https://i.imgur.com/pYuZT1L.jpga cat[/url] and some birds. 83/100
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Dec 30, 2022 14:18
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Last day of Neo-Noirvember! Emily the Criminal (2022), dir. John Patton Ford  Aubrey Plaza is in LA with a job that doesn't pay a lot, a bit of a criminal history (DUI and felony assault), and a lot of student loans. For these reasons she becomes the titular criminal. She starts out with some light credit card fraud under the tutelage of Theo Rossi, who is running a small little criminal empire sort of thing. Gina Gershon has a cameo and Megalyn Echikunwoke plays Plaza's friend.  Pretty decent. No surprises or anything but Plaza turns in a nice performance and nothing ever rings false or seems silly. It's decently gritty and Plaza is doing a bit of a New Jersey accent.  There's a dog. See you next Noirvember! 83/100
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Dec 31, 2022 13:10
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March Boiled coming up. Hard March. Feb-noir-uary 2: Street Tales. Any fav noir or crime movies involving a boss's wife? Especially the protagonist having to take her out etc? I was listening to Tarantino talk to Robert Rodriguez on YouTube, and he mentioned how Mia and Vince's story is based on this old standard. "Look but don't touch" he said etc. They also mentioned how the Butch part of a boxer told to throw a fight is a classic staple of course. Maybe like The Set-Up (still meaning to see that). Any good movies with the taking out the gangster's wife thing, or stuff like that? There's Married to the Mob, fun comedy take, similar in a roundabout way. And looks like The Big Combo invokes a boss's wife, but I was thinking not from a cop angle as much. Still meaning to see that though. And for a bonus topic, any fav crime fiction books? Especially ones that go down smooth? Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Feb 25, 2023 |
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Feb 25, 2023 09:29
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The only "gangster's wife" noir I can think of off the top of my head is The Chase (1946). For neo-noir there's Against All Odds (1984).
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Feb 25, 2023 14:21
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Elevator to the Gallows for French Noir Oh you meant gangster boss, go watch elevator to the Gallows anyways
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Feb 25, 2023 16:19
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Will do! Thanks folks.
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Feb 25, 2023 23:35
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The Big Heat and Pushover might qualify.
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Feb 27, 2023 19:51
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Rewatching continues: I just watched this whole movie for the first time on Amazon the other night (I saw parts of it on TV when it aired back in the 70s). I loved it. I couldn't figure out what the director was going for - comedy, drama, satire, or all three. Somehow that made for a great watch.
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Apr 3, 2023 16:07
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Cat Army 
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MightyJoe36 posted:I couldn't figure out what the director was going for - comedy, drama, satire, or all three. Somehow that made for a great watch. That's like half of Robert Altman's work. Very few of his movies are like each other, but they're all obviously Robert Altman.
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Apr 4, 2023 11:32
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Air Skwirl posted:That's like half of Robert Altman's work. Very few of his movies are like each other, but they're all obviously Robert Altman. Yeah, I definitely got some M*A*S*H* and Nashville vibes from it.
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Apr 4, 2023 13:19
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Harry Belafonte's death is a nice occasion to check out Odds Against Tomorrow, an excellent Robert Wise-directed noir he started in.
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Apr 25, 2023 17:18
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Uh would you believe I almost forgot it was time for Noirvember? I was sitting around wondering what movie to watch and then I realized today is November 1st! It's going to be a month of noir for me, folks! I'm so excited. Suspicion (1941), dir. Alfred Hitchcock   Joan Fontaine, some upper class lady in 1938 England, meets Cary Grant, lovable scamp who is ostensibly British but whose accent comes and goes, this despite Cary Grant having grown up in England. Dunno what's up there. Anyways, sparks fly, but sparks soon turn to suspicion when Fontaine comes to suspect Grant is not all on the up-and-up.  Sadly another dud from Hitchcock, a director who misses more than he hits for me. Although the movie does its best to zig and zag so you cannot guess the ending, you absolutely can guess basically every single scene from the beginning until the last 15 seconds, and it keeps repeating the same beats over and over. Even that part is better than the first 15-30 minutes, though, which is entirely devoid of drama as the movie just leisurely takes its time pairing up Fontaine and Grant, this despite the fact that it'so nly once they're together that anything even remotely interesting can start happening.  In virtue of zigging and zagging it does manage to keep the ending a surprise, albeit in the sense of "is it going to be obvious answer X or obvious answer Y," and although you have to subtract points for wrapping everything up in about 15 seconds, you can add some points for having a relatively ambiguous ending, which is pretty nice. And of course you can't really get upset at watching Cary Grant act. Hitchcock also does manage a little bit of the trademark psychodrama, albeit far from enough to save the film overall. Watchable but no great ride, if you ask me. 68/100
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Nov 1, 2023 15:38
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The host of a local movie club liked my idea for noir movies for the two weeks that we'll be meeting. We agreed on watching one (1) original noir, and one (1) neo-noir. We're pretty set on Chinatown for the latter. This gives me the impossible choice of selecting a single movie to introduce people to noir as a style/genre/whatever. I've narrowed it down to three:
Anti-Big Sleep: unless I'm misremembering the film, it doesn't have as much of the moody noir cinematography that I love so much. Pro-Touch of Evil: famous opening tracking shot, great visuals throughout, Welles is terrifying Anti-Big Sleep: some people think it's racist, idk, can't think of anything else Pro-The Third Man: one of my favorite movies ever. Maybe the ultimate noir plot in its complexity and confusing nature. Has the cuckoo clock speech. Anti-The Third Man: not American, which is a silly "problem," but noir is thought of as a very American genre so it might be weird to introduce people to it with a British movie. Also considered: The Sweet Smell of Success, also one of my favorite movies ever, but idk it doesn't have that crime/detective nature that seems so central to a lot of noirs. Love the movie more than I can describe, though. Thoughts?? If you feel strongly that there's another classic noir that deserves to be people's intro, make yr case kingcobweb fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 20:38
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My pick for a good intro to noir is Double Indemnity because the evil chemistry between MacMurray and Stanwyck is saucy
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Nov 1, 2023 20:46
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Going to see Third Man tonight at the local theatre. One of the best movies of all time easily, as for intronoir I'd go with The Big Sleep. It might not have amazing cinematography but it's got some of the best dialogue I've heard in film and Bogart and Bacall are a revelation together. Sweet Smell is great. But not as an intro. You really need a Detective and a Dame especially playing it off Chinatown.
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Nov 1, 2023 20:57
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I'd go with Big Sleep, because Bogart/Bacall are amazing, it's not 100% great cinematography but there's some great shots in it and, assuming you do discussion afterwards, it has the best loving follow up question of any noir film. who killed the chauffeur? Edit: Also Touch of Evil is an amazing film, but Charlton Heston plays a Mexican and wears dark makeup for it, which might offend people. Double Indemnity is a good alternate if you can't decide between the three you've already thought of. Double Edit: Third Man is great, but it isn't sexy, and I think for an intro to Noir you need to show off how Hayes Code films got away with being sexy. Air Skwirl fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 21:02
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kingcobweb posted:Thoughts?? If you feel strongly that there's another classic noir that deserves to be people's intro, make yr case I'd vote for The Big Sleep between those three but that's just a personal preference. There are so many to choose from. When I think of noir my mind does instantly gravitate towards Detour as a prime example.
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Nov 1, 2023 21:23
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This is my Noirvember list https://boxd.it/pVlA0
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Nov 1, 2023 22:20
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kingcobweb posted:The host of a local movie club liked my idea for noir movies for the two weeks that we'll be meeting. We agreed on watching one (1) original noir, and one (1) neo-noir. We're pretty set on Chinatown for the latter. This gives me the impossible choice of selecting a single movie to introduce people to noir as a style/genre/whatever. I've narrowed it down to three: For all that it's the standard idea of the genre (or mode or style or however you define it), I'm not so fond of the idea that noir equals hardboiled. Chandlersque conventions often work against how feverish and nightmarish the best noirs can get, particularly in Big Sleep. The purest marriage of them for me is Murder My Sweet where Marlowe spends so much time getting knocked the gently caress out and the expressionist cinematography goes so hogwild that it has a whole dreamworld vibe to it, but I don't know that it's the best intro, necessarily. Touch of Evil or Third Man are solid choices because there's still the detective/mystery premise people might expect, plus Orson must have the most name recognition after Bogart. I'd lean Touch of Evil even if it's sort of skipping to the end of the classic era of noir. The other two I'd think of as solid intros would be Double Indemnity and The Killing, which give you the respective key examples of devious lust- and greed-driven plots that go to poo poo.
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Nov 1, 2023 23:43
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The Killing is undoubtedly noir, but its lineage is Heist films. I'd feel it much more comfortably in a lineup with Rififi, Le Cercle Rouge, and Heat. If you're looking at doing a series of films to induct people into the Noir world the antecedents must take as much in the calculation as the ancestors. Touch of Evil might also play bad to a crowd if they aren't primed for its styling. People can take the woman being terrorized by the greasers as scary or comical and a man off the street who is not primed for it might lean towards the latter.
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Nov 1, 2023 23:51
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I'd put in another vote for Double Indemnity.
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Nov 2, 2023 04:40
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