Get off the grift, Roy. You don't have the stomach for it.
Wow. It's very dusty in here. Creepy, almost. Hard to believe my last post was about freakin' Zathura, of all things. What was I thinking?
I'm back. Not that I went anywheres, just took a break from the horrific grinding pace of 1 to 2 posts per week I was maintaining there for a while. It's been four weeks since I was here. Not much has happened, but here's what's going on.
My super secret project has progressed to the point where it might just barely be finished in time. More on that in a later post, but I did want to publicly declare that I have in no way become completely pedestrian in my time away from the blog. I am working on something, dammit.
My car thought we crashed. Turns out when you move the passenger seat forwards as fast as you can, the car thinks you just crashed and turns on the warning light for the airbag. All of which is hilarious if you're just driving around and suddenly notice the airbag light is on. All I could think about was the airbag just suddenly firing off and breaking my jaw for no good reason.
I drove to hell and back. Or through hell, at any rate. Last week's super insane freezing rain-o-rama found me going to Cobourg and back to watch my dad play (what else) the dad in Brighton Beach Memoirs. There was a moment there, coming back at night (this is pre-DST) with the rain whipping us and the bus in the next lane sending up terrific amounts of spray, when I suddenly just could not see anything. Yup, 110k, passing lane, zero visibility for 3-5 seconds. That'll put cream in your coffee. (In this metaphor, the "coffee" is my underpants.)
The play was good, especially (what else) my dad, who seems to be the one elevating everyone else to their best work. When he's on stage, everything is ok, everyone is engaged, and what is happening seems real, immediate and true. Please, if there is a design to this universe (which I am sadly aware that there isn't) let him have a crack at a singing Gimli :)
Celebration is fast approaching. Less than 2 weeks until 4 not so young guys get in a station wagon and drive 1000 miles to be in a room with George Lucas and Peter Mayhew. My dream of this is that you'll all be able to see me on the tv, preferably in a two shot with Triumph, the insult comic dog. Also, we'll be trying to stop only at places completely filled with dirty truckers, for that authentic Middle America Stephen King nightmare feeling. I got my membership card in the mail this week, so I am an official card carrying member of the Star Wars fan club. My first, and only fan club membership ever.
My dvd collecting has turned singular, as I am focused with laser like precision on completion of my film noir section before turning my attention elsewhere. At last count I have over 40 noir titles, and By the time it is all over there should be more than 100.
That was why Sin City was such a great kick in the ass. For the first time in more than 2 years, a movie didn't just exceed what I thought it could be, it blew me completely away. Since the end of the real film noir era (and its discovery as an actual film genre) we've been in the midst of self conscious film noir. The great thing about noir was its truly organic development. It is simply a group of filmmakers and writers being hit in the collective unconscious by the war, the holocaust, the blacklist, and all the other parts of america's end of innocence. Once post war Europe was opened back up to american movies, critics there thought all these dark little detective and murder stories were being done in a coordinated way and gave them a name. Film Noir. Black, like the shadows at every turn. Check Paul Schrader's essay for the definitive say on the subject.
Since then, people have been trying to keep making them, but once it became conscious, it also became harder to pull off. Way, way harder. In the 50 years since we found out what noir was, there's been at least 3000 attempts to recapture the glory. There's been about 5 that worked, roughly one every ten years. Riffifi, in 1958 was Jules Dassin's last noir, and qualifies as conscious simply because it was made in France at the height of the discussion. Dassin is a bona fide noir auteur, with Brute Force, Thieves Highway, Naked City and Night and the City to his resume. Riffifi is the DNA of the heist film, writ large, and it's silent centre is the 30 plus minute heist played out in agonizing detail.
Touch of Evil is Orson Welles materpiece of corruption, and in my mind his best film, outdoing even Kane in its brilliance.
There isn't another noir worth a damn until 1972. It's Chinatown. Murder, incest, facial disfigurement, the Los Angeles water commission.
Body Heat. 1981. Double Indemnity with the gloves all the way off. Does anybody play big and dumb better than Bill Hurt? How about slinky and slimy better than Kathleen Turner. Uh uh, didn't think so.
The Grifters is maybe the best of them all, effortless, uncaring, black and right as rain. Watching it again last night I realized I had also forgotten all about Elmer Bernstein's score, maybe the best noir score I've ever heard. He out Bernard Herrmann's himself and makes the movie a classic from the get.
You can add Sin City to the list. Period. It belongs right up there, by not fighting its self consciousness, but revelling in it. Like Matt said, when 2 different bad guys get their equipment shot off in the first ten minutes, you're in for something special. And if you can't appreciate how truly cracking good that last statement signifies the movie to be, don't go, you won't get it.
I'm truly glad I got it.
I'm back. Not that I went anywheres, just took a break from the horrific grinding pace of 1 to 2 posts per week I was maintaining there for a while. It's been four weeks since I was here. Not much has happened, but here's what's going on.
My super secret project has progressed to the point where it might just barely be finished in time. More on that in a later post, but I did want to publicly declare that I have in no way become completely pedestrian in my time away from the blog. I am working on something, dammit.
My car thought we crashed. Turns out when you move the passenger seat forwards as fast as you can, the car thinks you just crashed and turns on the warning light for the airbag. All of which is hilarious if you're just driving around and suddenly notice the airbag light is on. All I could think about was the airbag just suddenly firing off and breaking my jaw for no good reason.
I drove to hell and back. Or through hell, at any rate. Last week's super insane freezing rain-o-rama found me going to Cobourg and back to watch my dad play (what else) the dad in Brighton Beach Memoirs. There was a moment there, coming back at night (this is pre-DST) with the rain whipping us and the bus in the next lane sending up terrific amounts of spray, when I suddenly just could not see anything. Yup, 110k, passing lane, zero visibility for 3-5 seconds. That'll put cream in your coffee. (In this metaphor, the "coffee" is my underpants.)
The play was good, especially (what else) my dad, who seems to be the one elevating everyone else to their best work. When he's on stage, everything is ok, everyone is engaged, and what is happening seems real, immediate and true. Please, if there is a design to this universe (which I am sadly aware that there isn't) let him have a crack at a singing Gimli :)
Celebration is fast approaching. Less than 2 weeks until 4 not so young guys get in a station wagon and drive 1000 miles to be in a room with George Lucas and Peter Mayhew. My dream of this is that you'll all be able to see me on the tv, preferably in a two shot with Triumph, the insult comic dog. Also, we'll be trying to stop only at places completely filled with dirty truckers, for that authentic Middle America Stephen King nightmare feeling. I got my membership card in the mail this week, so I am an official card carrying member of the Star Wars fan club. My first, and only fan club membership ever.
My dvd collecting has turned singular, as I am focused with laser like precision on completion of my film noir section before turning my attention elsewhere. At last count I have over 40 noir titles, and By the time it is all over there should be more than 100.
That was why Sin City was such a great kick in the ass. For the first time in more than 2 years, a movie didn't just exceed what I thought it could be, it blew me completely away. Since the end of the real film noir era (and its discovery as an actual film genre) we've been in the midst of self conscious film noir. The great thing about noir was its truly organic development. It is simply a group of filmmakers and writers being hit in the collective unconscious by the war, the holocaust, the blacklist, and all the other parts of america's end of innocence. Once post war Europe was opened back up to american movies, critics there thought all these dark little detective and murder stories were being done in a coordinated way and gave them a name. Film Noir. Black, like the shadows at every turn. Check Paul Schrader's essay for the definitive say on the subject.
Since then, people have been trying to keep making them, but once it became conscious, it also became harder to pull off. Way, way harder. In the 50 years since we found out what noir was, there's been at least 3000 attempts to recapture the glory. There's been about 5 that worked, roughly one every ten years. Riffifi, in 1958 was Jules Dassin's last noir, and qualifies as conscious simply because it was made in France at the height of the discussion. Dassin is a bona fide noir auteur, with Brute Force, Thieves Highway, Naked City and Night and the City to his resume. Riffifi is the DNA of the heist film, writ large, and it's silent centre is the 30 plus minute heist played out in agonizing detail.
Touch of Evil is Orson Welles materpiece of corruption, and in my mind his best film, outdoing even Kane in its brilliance.
There isn't another noir worth a damn until 1972. It's Chinatown. Murder, incest, facial disfigurement, the Los Angeles water commission.
Body Heat. 1981. Double Indemnity with the gloves all the way off. Does anybody play big and dumb better than Bill Hurt? How about slinky and slimy better than Kathleen Turner. Uh uh, didn't think so.
The Grifters is maybe the best of them all, effortless, uncaring, black and right as rain. Watching it again last night I realized I had also forgotten all about Elmer Bernstein's score, maybe the best noir score I've ever heard. He out Bernard Herrmann's himself and makes the movie a classic from the get.
You can add Sin City to the list. Period. It belongs right up there, by not fighting its self consciousness, but revelling in it. Like Matt said, when 2 different bad guys get their equipment shot off in the first ten minutes, you're in for something special. And if you can't appreciate how truly cracking good that last statement signifies the movie to be, don't go, you won't get it.
I'm truly glad I got it.
posted by Mattvideo at 9:53 AM
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