It's pretty hard to believe that Roman Polanski's «Chinatown» almost went home empty - handed at the 1975 Academy Awards (it ended up winning Best Original Screenplay), because it's not only one of
the best film noirs ever made, but it's an American classic.
The New York Film Academy is a purveyor of great cinematography of any genre, but faculty staff at the filmmaking school particularly enjoy
a good film noir, especially when using it to teach students the nuances of expressionism.
Cain was once a singer, with aspirations to opera, and here, one of his novels became a movie vehicle for Mario Lanza — a superb natural tenor, whose own meteoric career and untimely death might make
a good film noir.
One of the all - time
best film noirs, from Gerald Kersh's London novel.
Not exact matches
The
best thing about the
film is the way Berke manages to shape genuinely suspenseful
film -
noir elements around an otherwise simple yarn.
Rian Johnson's first feature was the
well received, low - budget indie titled «Brick» (2005), which told a high - school story in a
film noir style, narrated by Gordon - Levitt.
An over indulgent and often confusing stab at
film noir, The Black Dahlia leaves little to be desired as director Brian De Palma continues to prove that his
best days are behind him.
Another successful Hitchcock
noir isn't as
good as some of his
best work («Rear Window» to name one), but it is still a really skillfully done movie that goes by fast and has one of the more exciting conclusions to a Hitchcock
film that I have seen.
Actors were great, and yes they quoted from the very
best of
film noir but it was not copycat.
Well,
film noir literally translates as «dark
film» so that means that this is really as dark as you can get outside of the Holocaust (and no, I don't wish the Coens made a comedy about the Holocaust).
Recruited by an old chum (Peter Boyle) to help find an exotic prostitute missing in Chinatown, Hammett enlists his implausibly gorgeous neighbor (Marilu Henner) to play Girl Friday as he matches wits with colorful actors including Jack Nance («Eraserhead» and other David Lynch works), David Patrick Kelly (whose strangled voice is an interesting counterpart to his iconic «Come out to play - yi - yay» taunt from «The Warriors»), Roy Kinnear and a few old - timers from
film noir's heyday (the scene with Sylvia Sidney is especially
good).
It has a great
film noir style atmosphere and music that compliments that atmosphere
well.
Though
well acted and beautifully crafted, «Devil in a Blue Dress» falls short of being something special because, although the concept of an African American
film noir is commendably original and the background climate - of racial prejudice and the post-WWII hangover in L.A. - is fascinating, the actual mystery is pretty run - of - the - mill.
«Nightcrawler» is a great Los Angeles
film and a great media
film and a great
noir, powered by a supremely creepy performance from Jake Gyllenhaal in what is perhaps the
best work of his eclectic career.
Despite Blade Runner's modern day status as one of the greatest
films ever made, the 1982 sci - fi
noir was not as
well - received upon its initial theatrical release as many fans might think.
This edition of Now Stream This brings you a highly underrated and very recent Todd Haynes movie, a new Netflix horror flick, a gloriously over-the-top action movie, a cynical
noir loaded with snappy dialogue, the first Hannibal Lecter
film, a romantic horror movie, a Steven Spielberg adventure, a cringe - inducing social media comedy, and some
good old fashioned body horror.
In addition to the three - day «Citizen Kane» workshop, I did a Q&A with the actor Jason Patric after a screening of James Foley's «After Dark, My Sweet» (1990), a modern
film noir that made both of the
Best Ten lists on «Siskel & Ebert,» but sank so quickly at the box office that it never played Chicago and grossed less than $ 2 million.
Seamless
noir mystery, moral fable and, yes, Disney animal cartoon, Zootopia is the
best animated
film of the year.
Somewhere among all this mish - mash of ideas is a
good film, and it seems that
film was the original
noir gem.
Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale
noir «The Shape of Water» tied with Greta Gerwig's coming - of - age directorial debut «Lady Bird» for
best film of the festival.
John M. Stahl's stylish adaptation of Ben Ames Williams»
best - selling novel of romance and suspense is one of the most unusual of all» 40's
film noirs.
Others might remember him as a familiar face in Film
Noir and numerous crime
films made in America as
well as Europe.
A
good story gets stuck in a puddle of mood in «Dark Crimes,» a
film that strays from its fascinating source - a real - life murder case - into a less successful attempt at
noir.
Anthony Mann's T - Men (1947) is a significant entry in the classic American
film noir cycle and, arguably, the
best of the subcycle of «docu -
noirs» that was released by Hollywood in the wake of the...
The Big Heat (Twilight Time) is one of the masterpieces of
film noir, a
film of subdued style, underplayed brutality, and a
well of rage boiling under a surface of calm corruption.
THE MAN WHO WAS N'T THERE A faithful resurrection of the
film noir genre, The Coen Brothers» The Man Who Wasn't There is a shoo - in for Roger Deakins's fifth Oscar nomination as
best cinematographer.
The
film garnered rave reviews for its layered psychodrama within a
noir genre piece, as
well as its complex, interwoven metaphors involving survivor trauma, denial in the face of unspeakable horror, and the instability of love.
Part graphic novel, part Western, part David Lynch, with some
film noir thrown in for
good measure, it brings together a plethora of visual references to create something that's much greater than the sum of its parts — and its parts, for the record, are indelibly memorable.
He is the title character of The Man Who Wasn't There is the Joel and Ethan Coen's homage to
film noir, and garnered them a shared
best director award with David Lynch (for Mulholland Falls) at the 2001 Cannes
Film Festival.
A heartrending love story tops our list of the year's
best films, which also features a kids» - eye view of Florida, political horror, erotic thrills, sci - fi
noir, ghosts, grief and communism
It's a
film entirely of the seventies New American Cinema in that way — a
noir - cycle picture that shares a
good deal with its Yankee contemporary Chinatown (also 1974).
As
well as the murkier corners of classic
film noir, Boorman drew inspiration from art photography and the French New Wave, including Jean - Luc Godard's Breathless, which was itself «speaking back» to American crime movies.
Its
film -
noir style makes the detective mystery very compelling as
well.
The picture might be the most overt iteration of
film noir as a genre about emasculation ever put to celluloid, and trying to puzzle out whether Waldo's for real and chief gumshoe McPherson (Andrews) buys any of his honeyed hooey constitutes a
good portion of what's fun and maddening in equal measure about it.
Russell and Rivers propose utopian communities and spiritual / aesthetic ecstasy as alternatives; Reichardt's approach is more cynical and existential: she reinvigorates
well - worn conventions from
film noir and heist pictures to analyse the problems of radical political action in the era of late capitalism.
There was
film noir aplenty at the TCM festival as
well as special guests, panels, a poolside screening and parties.
Among the
film's countless offspring, count, too, the Coens» double - bill of
noir - infected border westerns Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, as
well as the oeuvre of Cormac McCarthy.
It's directed by Robert Siodmak, who made more
film noirs than any other director, and it is one of his darkest, a gangster drama seeped in shadows, corruption, and psychosis, with Victor Mature (in what I believe is his
best noir role) a as Lt. Candella, an Italian - American police detective who takes the pursuit of small - time gangster Martin Rome (Richard Conte) personally.
And fittingly, since the fest's theme was style, there were
film noir screenings as
well as events devoted to both
noir and fashion.
And if the cinema is Nicholas Ray, then the cinema, especially
film noir, is Gloria Grahame as
well.
What's seldom observed is that
films like Taxi Driver and The Godfather don't look the way they do without pioneering pictures like The Wild Bunch first understanding how colour could be used in
noir to glorious, nasty effect.4 The Wild Bunch does it
well enough that it was threatened with an NC - 17 rating upon its re-release twenty - five years later in 1994.
If the
film feels Old Hollywood in that the stars are pretty, the heroes are tough, and the sex is
good but the brutality is
better, then excavate the ways that this period in our history dissolves into period
noir: shells of men entrusted with the rebuilding of our society, with dangerous women and effete men (abortion rights and gay marriage vs. the evacuation of civil rights and ground wars in the Middle East) embodying the greater peril.
A much
better rare treat was the definitive British
film noir «It Always Rains on Sunday,» (1947, Robert Hamer), set in London's East End, featuring a Jewish family and starring John McCallum as prison escapee Tommy Swann and tough yet oddly dainty Googie Withers as his ex-gf.
In this period, he tackled an Oscar - winning drama about alcoholism (The Lost Weekend), two
well - regarded
film noirs (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard), a war drama (Stalag 17), two light - hearted rom - coms (Sabrina, Seven Year Itch) a gripping murder - mystery (Witness for the Prosecution) and perhaps the funniest American movie of all time (Some Like It Hot).
Murder My Sweet (Warner Archive, Blu - ray) is not just the most faithful screen version of Raymond Chandler's hard - boiled hero Philip Marlowe from the classic era of
film noir, it's also one of the
best.
The Big Heat — One of Fritz Lang's
best American
films is this
noir starring Glenn Ford as a cop out to revenge himself on the people who murdered his family (among them Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame).
After all the movie is too downright weird for mainstream tastes but appeals instead to the type of viewer familiar with
film noir conventions, German expressionism in
film as
well as the art of Edward Hopper.
Best Short Subject: Steve De Jarnatt's superb
film noir takeoff Tarzana had more moxie than most of the new features I saw last year, and was informed enough about the subject of its parody to be fascinating in the same ways the classic straight jobs are.
We at
Film Noir Blonde are very pleased that film noir's popularity continues to grow and so our favorite genre was well represented at the fest, which ran March 26 - 29 in Hollyw
Noir Blonde are very pleased that
film noir's popularity continues to grow and so our favorite genre was well represented at the fest, which ran March 26 - 29 in Hollyw
noir's popularity continues to grow and so our favorite genre was
well represented at the fest, which ran March 26 - 29 in Hollywood.
The result, U-Turn, is a derivative, trite
noir that resembles
better films and
better stories, with Stone trying his
best to distract you from that sameness by dangling lots of flashy things and big name actors in small cameos resulting in a melted banana split; very colorful with no substance whatsoever.