Okay, so when I first heard the concept of Brick, I was not a fan. Oh goodie, I thought, a Film Noir set in a high school. There will be teens in fedoras and talking fast like their trying to be Jimmy Cagney, despite the fact that Cagney never made a film noir because he was too big a star to be in those b movies. To be perfectly frank, I was expecting a high school version of Bugsy Malone, complete withy pie shooting machine guns. However, I heard some things and someone sent me the movie as a gift and I had to watch it then. So I watched it and was pleased to discover that my fears were misplaced. This wasn’t a bunch of teenagers playing at film noir, it was film noir playing with a bunch of teenagers. That probably sounds like I said the same thing, but it’s the difference of “I mean what I say is the same thing as I say what I mean.” If you get my drift. To put it in a short, declarative sentence: These guys got what film noir means rather than just trying to ape what it looks like.
Showing posts with label Film Noir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film Noir. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Movie Review: Brick
Okay, so when I first heard the concept of Brick, I was not a fan. Oh goodie, I thought, a Film Noir set in a high school. There will be teens in fedoras and talking fast like their trying to be Jimmy Cagney, despite the fact that Cagney never made a film noir because he was too big a star to be in those b movies. To be perfectly frank, I was expecting a high school version of Bugsy Malone, complete withy pie shooting machine guns. However, I heard some things and someone sent me the movie as a gift and I had to watch it then. So I watched it and was pleased to discover that my fears were misplaced. This wasn’t a bunch of teenagers playing at film noir, it was film noir playing with a bunch of teenagers. That probably sounds like I said the same thing, but it’s the difference of “I mean what I say is the same thing as I say what I mean.” If you get my drift. To put it in a short, declarative sentence: These guys got what film noir means rather than just trying to ape what it looks like.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Movie Review: Blade Runner
There isn’t much to say about the movie Blade Runner really. Well, there isn’t much new to say at any rate. It’s not a movie that has been ignored as a discussion point over the years, so why review it? Well, I’m going to go from the angle I went with for the recent review of Jurassic Park and compare it to the source material, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. I’ll be honest now and say that I enjoy both the movie and the book, so I won’t attack one using the other as a bludgeon. I will say I enjoy them both in different ways, and I hope to explore that in this review. So let’s have a look at the two and hopefully get you to either read one or watch the other. As another note, there are several versions of this movie running around. Instead of picking this version or that version, I decided to review the two major versions. As well as the book, I’ve decided to review The International Cut and The Final Cut for this review. I could have done some of the others, but the review is already late as it is so let’s just go with that.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Movie Review: The Spirit
Title page!
The Spirit (2008 Lionsgate Dir. Frank Miller)
Get out your manliest whiskey for this one kids. Not because you like it, but because that's what a Real Man® is supposed to drink. Yes, once again, my love for the silly and the stupid comes through. Here’s a controversial statement for you, The Spirit is actually pretty good. Okay, yes, the movie is bad. BUT! It’s a good kind of bad. It’s a “Saturday night with friends and a bottle” bad. In fact, it’s a lot of fun if you watch it with the right mindset. Yes, that mindset is that this is going to be a fun, campy, adolescent thrill ride, but I will point out it is based on a comic book.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Movie Review: The Two Jakes
The opening title card!
The Two Jakes (1990 Paramount Dir. Jack Nicholson)
I seem to be doing this a bit lately. Sitting down at my desk with a movie I’ve never seen ready to pound out a review. Strange to relate, I seem to have bought a copy of the movie that originated in Canada. Everything on the packaging is in both English and French. That’s Amazon’s marketplace for you I guess. I’m not complaining or anything, I just find it a little odd. I figure it has to be okay with a movie that has the reputation of this thing. So should we start with a recap of Chinatown? Probably not. As I understand it, this is one of those sequels that’s barely connected to the original. Since this takes place in 1948 and Chinatown took place in 1937, there wouldn’t be a lot of reason for them to be connected to each other. Actually, while eleven years of movie time had passed, sixteen years of real time had passed. I’d like to take this time to point out that The Godfather III also came out in 1990 and it had also been sixteen years since the last installment. I only point this out so that I can tell the Die Hard, Rambo, Rocky, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Roger Rabbit* people that we knew a long time ago that waiting more than 15 years for a sequel was a bad idea. Although Stallone seems to have done quite well with his.
*Don’t laugh, they’re planning it right now.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)