Tuesday, May 01, 2007
FREARS FEST TWO
Every film director has to have his/her hand at film noir and today we saw Frears'
This almost perfect story by Jim Thompson was adapted by Donald Westlake and set in the 'noirest' place of all—LA, CA.
The almost perfect cast includes John Cusack, his moll mom Anjelica Huston and his date, Annette Bening.
The film is like clockwork and has some delightful side paths with great character actors to take us down the paths.
We have seen it several times now and somehow the film still manages to trick the mind into believing another end will happen. Actually, one is disabled from remembering the end.
It is all a great con job and will get the usual 5 out of Netflix5.
Friday, April 06, 2007
NEO NOIR
Today's Best NYTimes 1176 Best Films was John Boorman's
in which Lee Marvin pursues an amount of money owed him while, at the same time, working a thug elimination project with "cop" Keenan Wynn.
I love both these men and to watch them work together is prime.
The film is a bit challenging as Boorman plays with time and dreams and reality.
Angie Dickenson takes the screen whenever she is on. What a moll.
You will like it and it will keep you on the edge of your seat for 90 minutes—the perfect movie length—the time I grew up with as a kid.
This will be a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films, noir
Friday, March 30, 2007
MIDEAST CRISIS
Today's Zero Mostel film (festival, remember?) was
with Humphrey Bogart and Lee J. Cobb,
Mostel does his obsequious guy routine. He is pretty good.
But not good enough to overlook the quality of the film which is pretty low.
It is pulp for the eyes.
Bogart plays an anti-hero.
It is OK.
I wanted to see the range of Mostel's career and he was in some stinkers.
This is one.
I got a great photo out of it though. Unaccountably, Wikipedia had this one in his profile.
Labels: films, noir, Zero Mostel
Saturday, March 24, 2007
ZERO SUM GAME
I am holding a
Film Festival.
I first saw Mostel as a kid. It would have been around the early fifties. Maybe earlier.
It is possible that I saw Dubarry Was a Lady because my first recollection is that he was funny.
That film is not on disc.
We will never know.
From the minute I saw him I thought of him as very special. In my heart.
His history (at the link) is really fascinating. I love the story of his painting in the museum.
All this was brought about by seeing him again in The Producers. Mesmerizing.
So I am going back through some of the films.
Today's film was
This is a Humphrey Bogart noir police procedural. It is pretty good, actually. It is one of those that you could have figured out the answer to the riddle yourself because the clues we see are the same as the ones Bogart sees.
The film also has some other favorite character actors; Everett Sloane and Ted Di Corsia.
Mostel plays a nebbish thug. He is apprehended inside a church and we see him being brought out forcefully; a cop at each arm and leg with him roaring his unique roar.
He soon quiets down and becomes a bit of a sad sack. Somehow he tugs at our hearts even as he talks about his willingness to off someone (with an ice pick). He is a key witness.
He holds all his scenes. Bogart has to push him around and yell to stay on top.
The Mostel imp is inside the character and you can see it.
In a way he is using his nebbishness as protection. I had no doubt but what he would have used the ice pick if given a chance.
The photo above is at about the same time as this film.
It is a good look at the kind of yoeman's work Mostel used in the movies before he got blacklisted and well before his return as a major theatrical star.
I am not going to bother rating these films as there is no point. I am watching Zero not the movie.
Labels: films, noir, Zero Mostel
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
NEO NOIR
13 Tzameti (2006)
I took a leap of faith in the Netflix 'recommendations' algorithm today and watched
It was recommended highly based on my past rentals so I ordered it.
This thriller will have you at the edge of your seat.
It is not for the faint of heart.
Superviolent.
Only not.
It is fully in the noir tradition and is great to look at while the puzzles are being solved and the suspense is spinning along.
It even has the requisite noir ending.
On the other hand, nothing about the film is conventional.
I will give it a high but yet undetermined rating.
I want to think about it and I don't want to get in trouble with my viewing partner for liking it immoderately when he did not.
I should add that the suspense was jiggered by a short power failure during the viewing.
I had to go back and flick the chapters to get back to the spot we fell out.
OH. The film is in black and white. Perfect.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
PLOT TWISTER
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was the film version of the James M. Cain novel
The Postman Always Rings Twice
with John Garfield and Lana Turner.
It is an encyclopedia of bad behavior; a classical noir template.
We saw the same story earlier in an Italian version; Obsessione (1942).
The film is famous. It is considered one of the best.
There is no denying that there is a lot to it but the plot twists keep coming back to bite themselves in the ass.
If you can get over that, the acting is quite good. Cecil Kellaway is the husband to be bumped off. A stretch. He and Lana? Come on!
Leon Ames and Hume Cronyn are battling lawyers and the sublime Alan Reed is a thug. Reed seemed to be everywhere when I was a kid; radio, television, movies. I loved the sound of his voice.
His later career was a voice artist and he ended up being the voice of Yogi Bear!
If you just let it all go and sit back and watch the thing the movie works pretty well. It is hard to believe some of it but a little wishing will make it so.
I liked it. I especially enjoyed seeing John Garfield who had a brilliant early career cut short by trouble over his politics and an early death from lifelong heart problems.
Lana Turner is a pretty good actor but you have to overlook the platinum hair and makeup. No hash slinger ever looked like that. Ever.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5. It has great pieces yet the whole is wanting.
Labels: best films, noir
Sunday, February 11, 2007
NOIR
So, I wondered where the term 'film noir' came from but was always afraid to ask.
As it turns out, few people know the answer as the term is retrospective.
It was invented to categorize a whole class of films made in France and then here; the dark, the pulpy, the downer.
According to the Book Section of the LATimes, the term derives from from the paperback editions of hard boiled crime fiction that Gallimard published in postwar Paris under the title Série Noire
Many films were made or influenced by these books. The 'film noir' category was formalized with Paul Schrader's 1972 article "Notes on Film Noir".
I have cribbed this from a review of another book on the subject.
Go here if you want to know more:
John T. Irwin's 'Unless the Threat of Death Is Behind Them'
Labels: best films, noir
