Month: June 2015

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

bryancyr British Noir, Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Red Riding Trilogy is an interesting concept, which I like very much.  This Trilogy is based on the books by the same name written by David Peace.  I’ve read the books years ago after watching these movies when they came out on DVD.  There is actually 4 books but they cut one of the books out of this series to make it 3 films.  The books are also very good and worth checking out.  The other thing about this trilogy is that all 3 films were made in the same year, by three different directors.  The directors all have a different feel and look for each of the films.  All three screenplays are written by Tony Grisoni so there is continuity throughout the films.  This works really well, since every film is from a different year and all look unique.

1974 is directed by Julian Jarrold and stars Andrew Garfield as our main character for this installment. As we go we meet what seems to be minor characters, but pop up in the next two films as key parts to the continuing plot.  This installment has a very distinct Yorkshire accent by all the characters.  This can make some parts hard to understand what they are saying and/or what the slang means.

This story revolves around Garfield’s Eddie Dunford who is a rookie journalist.  He is on his way to his Father’s funeral, but stops off first for a press conference for a missing young girl.  He gets assigned to the story and starts to put together that this may be a serial killer.  Two other girls around the same age have gone missing before this one.  He starts to link the three cases and is warned by a co-worker played by Anthony Flanagan to watch his step.  Soon this co-worker is killed in an auto accident, Dunford doesn’t think it’s an accident.  He starts looking into this story as well and finds the two stories may be connected.  The story involves corrupt cops, and corrupt journalists, as well as a business man, played by Sean Bean, that this all revolves around.  Dunford also falls for the mother of one of the little girls that has gone missing, played by Rebecca Hall.  She is definitely Dunford’s femme fatale for this film.

Some of the other character’s you will want to pay attention to in this first installment are Maurice Jobson played by David Morrissey, BJ played by Robert Sheehan,Jack Whitehead played by Eddie Marsan,Michael Myshkin played by Daniel Mays, Martin Laws played by Peter Mullan and Bob Craven played by Sean Harris as well as others.

This film and the other two are well worth your time.  A well sorted out trilogy always designed to be a trilogy and not just a good first film followed by two sequels.  This is something unique to noir, I can not think of three films designed to tell one big story like this in the noir genre.  I think all fans of noir will enjoy these.  They do take some effort to follow but that is part of the joy of these.  I will return with a review of the second film tomorrow.

My First Award: Dragon’s Loyalty Award

bryancyr Uncategorized

So James over at backtotheviewer.wordpress.com  has nominated me for my first Blogging Award, The Dragon’s Loyalty Award. Since I’ve only been in the blogging world for about 4 months, this is all new to me. I started this blog to bring together all elements of the noir world. I’ve always liked noir, even before I knew what it was exactly, I’m still not sure what it is exactly. I started searching the internet and found some excellent sites on classic film noir, a lot of film sites that covered neo noir films, but also covered other genre films, some great sites that cover noir fiction and crime fiction, but not movies. So since I loved all three worlds of noir equally and could not find a site that covered them all, I thought I would just do it myself.

I had no clue what I was doing or what I was getting into and still don’t! I got on WordPress and just went for it. Now my WordPress Reader is full of great blogs covering every kind of entertainment! I can’t even keep up with all the great blogs I’ve found.

I’ve also learned so much about noir since I’ve started this blog. One thing I’ve learned is nobody has the same definition of what noir is! The classic film noir crowd really gets in an uproar on what films are and are not a film noir. I also recently re-blogged a site’s “Best 75 Neo-Noir Films” and though I didn’t get any arguing on my blog, when I put it on a few Facebook pages the conversation got real interesting. Some people read the first paragraph, disagreed with the author about neo-noir and wouldn’t even look at the list. Another person said there wasn’t even one “true neo-noir film on the whole list.”

So the more I learn about this obscure subject called noir the more confusing it gets! I keep my definition of noir pretty wide and vast and I’m sure I upset more than a few noir fans when I review a film or book that “Isn’t noir” by their definition. I also started an online class on Classic Film Noir in conjunction with The Summer of Darkness on TCM. So in two months I will be college educated in film noir!

I have connected with some amazing people through my blog and on my Facebook page. I have got some books sent to me that are amazing reads, books I may have never even heard about if it wasn’t for this blog. I have become familiar with a lot of great authors, to many to name here. When I got a friend request last week on Facebook from an author I loved before I even started this blog, I was honored and shocked.

I want to thank everybody that has checked out my blog so far and hope you have enjoyed it. I want to thank James for the nomination as well. So visit his blog for some information on some great films.

https://backtotheviewer.wordpress.com/

So here are the rules for this award:

  1. Display the Award Certificate on your website
  2. Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
  3. Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers
  4. Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
  5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself.     

Four months is a short time to really dive into all the blogs I’ve found so I’m going to nominate the ones that have really stood out to me in this short time.

https://noirencyclopedia.wordpress.com/

Honestly if I found John Grant’s blog before I started mine, I may not have done it. This is a great source of noir information and worth visiting. I bought his book and use it all the time to determine what I want to watch next.

https://garethrhodes.wordpress.com/

If you are looking for a good movie to watch, check out Gareth Rhodes, he has very good taste in film in my opinion.

https://bnoirdetour.wordpress.com/

Talks about some great classic film noir, a lot I have never heard of!

http://mikestakeonthemovies.com/

Mike Perry is a film fan and it shows!

https://yellowedandcreased.wordpress.com/

If you want to discover some forgotten fiction, this is the place. I find all kinds of genre books here and I have added a few old noir and pulp titles to my “To Read List” from this blog.

https://cinematemple.wordpress.com/

The Mad Monk reviews a movie a day so you can always find a new film to watch based on his reviews.

http://hardtickettohomevideo.com/

Brian and Brad add a good sense of humor to their movie reviews, and hey, anybody that loves Hard Ticket to Hawaii this much can not be all that bad.

https://diversfilms.wordpress.com/

Dude the Cleaner covers some great genre films including film noir, and has lots of guilty pleasure movies to check out.

http://pauldbrazill.com/

Paul D. Brazil is a noir author who I look forward to reading really soon. He covers a lot of other authors on his blog as well, so there is always somebody new to discover over there.

Now I have to post 7 interesting things about myself.

1. I’m not that interesting

2. I love to watch movies

3. I love to read good books

4. I love to mountain bike

5. I love sports cars, especially Porsche

6. I love Rock and Roll music and going to good concerts

7. I love to travel

Thanks for taking the time to read all this and hope you check out all these blogs I’ve listed.

Review: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , ,

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is a classic film noir from 1956 starring Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine.  The real story here is this is the last American movie from noir great, Fritz Lang.  I got to say Lang went out with a bang.  This is an intriguing story with a great ending.  This story is written by Douglas Morrow and is amazing.

Dana Andrews is a novelist and ex-newspaperman.  He is dating Fontaine who happens to be the daughter of his ex-boss. His ex-boss and future father-in-law is the owner of a large newspaper.  His future father-in-law is played by Sidney Blackmer.

We open the movie with an execution, yes somebody goes to the chair in the opening scene.  The next scene has Blackmer and Andrews having a drink and discusses capital punishment.  They meet Philip Bourneuf who plays the D.A. responsible for the death sentence we witnessed at the beginning of the film.  Bourneuf and Blackmer are on opposite sides of the capital punishment fence.  Blackmer talks about ways to convert the public to his side of the subject, he only needs the right circumstance.  The right circumstance soon comes up!  A burlesque dancer is found murdered and there is no suspects.  Blackmer talks Andrews into framing himself with the crime.  Then when he is sentenced to death, they will bring out all the evidence they planted and of course the how, when and where they did it.  This proves they sentenced an innocent man to death and will show the public how capital punishment is a bad idea.  Well if your like me, this whole thing sounds like a bad idea!  Will they plant enough evidence to get arrested?  If he does get convicted will they be able to reverse the verdict before it is too late?  What will Andrews’ girl Fontaine think of this when she finds out what is going on?

This is another great noir from Fritz Lang, he was definitely on his game for his last American film, before he goes back to his homeland of Germany.   It is worth watching for any of his fans and fans of classic noir.  Fontaine and Andrews fans will love this as well.  This film has an amazing ending that you will not see coming.

Re-watching: The Lookout

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , ,

“Who ever has the money has the power.”

The Lookout is from 2007 and written and directed by Scott Frank.  Frank hasn’t done a lot of directing, but he did do this movie and A Walk Among the Tombstones.  Two really good neo noir films isn’t a bad start for him in the directors chair.  Here is a link to my review of A Walk Among the Tombstones:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/03/03/review-a-walk-among-the-tombstones/

This film has a great cast with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a brain-damaged young man who has some memory loss issues.  Jeff Daniels plays his roommate who is blind.  Matthew Goode plays our top bad guy and leader of a gang of bank robbers.  Isla Fisher is our femme fatale as part of Goode’s crew.

Our story starts with Gordon-Levitt driving his Mustang down a country road, full of his classmates.  He turns off the headlights, doing what young people do, and wrecks into a combine.  We flash forward 4 years to Gordon-Levitt working at a bank as the night janitor.  We get a sense of his frustration with his memory loss.  He has trouble remembering things and writes them down in a notebook.  We meet our bad guys in a bar where Gordon-Levitt is having a beer.  He soon hits it off with one of the girls in the gang.  This is of course Fisher, being our femme fatale.  We soon find out our gang wants to befriend Gordon-Levitt because then know of his disability and job, he will be an easy mark to help them get into the bank.  Will our hero help our robbers?  Will he stop the robbery before it happens?  With his diminished brain power, will he still be able to out smart the bad guys?

This movie came 2 years after Gordon-Levitt’s other great neo-noir film, Brick.  I think that is why when somebody talks about one of these films somebody will always bring up the other one.  Both are excellent films, but Brick was something special.  These would make for a great double feature next time you want to see a couple of neo-noir flicks in one night.  Here is my review of Brick:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/01/31/my-review-of-brick/

This is a film any neo-noir buff will love and most film buffs in general will enjoy.  If you have already seen this and Brick, what one do you like better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZi3u7jM7M

Favorite Tidbit:  David Fincher and Sam Mendes where both attached to direct this film.  When both fell through, Frank decided to direct it himself.

“Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller Talks TCM’s Summer of Darkness

bryancyr Uncategorized

Great Interview! I’m reblogging this to Everythingnoir.com.

Kristen Lopez's avatarTicklish Business

EddieMullerAnyone who’s watched a noir on TCM knows the name Eddie Muller, the “Czar of Noir.” Founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation and the co-programmer of the San Francisco Noir City Film Festival (he’s also from my neck of the woods!), Muller has become TCM’s go-to man for all things dark, gritty, and noirish. This year he’ll be the host of TCM’s Summer of Darkness, introducing nothing but noir titles for two months this summer. He was gracious enough to do an interview with me in promotion of this Saturday’s upcoming premiere, talking about the event, his time with TCM and more.

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Taste of Cinema has “The 75 Best Neo-Noir Movies of All Time”

bryancyr Best of Lists, Movie, Neo-Noir, News

Taste of Cinema put together a best of list that will cause many to argue over what is on the list and what is not. Sure I have a few movies I’m surprised didn’t make the list, but I also found quite a few I have not seen yet. Worst case scenario you should find some films you want to revisit or some you’ve never seen that you may want to add to your queue. What is the one movie that did not make this list you feel should be on it?

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-75-best-neo-noir-movies-of-all-time/

Review: Inherent Vice

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been waiting to watch this for months! I take that back, years! This first came on my radar when I heard Robert Downey Jr. was attached to play the lead role. I still would love to see that by the way. I went right out and bought the book by Thomas Pynchon, but I never finished it. I’ve tried to read three of his books now and have only completed one. He is a brilliant author, I just can never commit to the book long enough to get through them. I may go back and give this book another try. Paul Thomas Anderson directed and wrote this for the screen. I really like Anderson’s work and really want to re-watch his last neo noir, Hard Eight.

So we don’t get Robert Downey Jr. as our main character,”Doc,” we get Joaquin Phoenix.  Not a bad second choice, if you ask me. Supposedly Anderson thought Downey Jr. was a little to old for the character. Doc is visited by his ex-girlfriend who is our femme fatale for this tale and is played by Katherine Waterston. She has a new boyfriend who happens to be a real estate mogul played by Eric Roberts, worth a lot of money. Robert’s wife and current boyfriend have a plot to get rid of him and want our femme fatale to help. This leads us on multiple cases for Doc that all seem to be intertwined. Doc has a love hate relationship with his police connection, “Bigfoot” played by Josh Brolin. Doc is also dating assistant D.A. Reese Witherspoon while broken up with his femme fatale. He takes on a case for Jena Malone who is looking for her husband Owen Wilson. We have great actors cast in minor roles such as Michael Kenneth Williams, Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short and Maya Rudolph as Doc’s secretary. We also get an interesting scene with porn star Belladonna showing her acting chops and former MMA fighter Keith Jardine playing a Neo-Nazi bodyguard. There are to many great little appearances to list them all, but you get the idea.

This movie is long at almost two and a half hours, but it is worth it! We have no idea where it is going and how are hero will ever get out of this mess. This film is highly praised by critics, but is not well liked by the general public. I loved it! This is not a film you can be distracted while watching, because every little conversation is important to the story. I think people who really like great cinema will love this and those that don’t, won’t like it. I plan to buy this on Blu-Ray as it is one of those films where you will learn new things on each viewing. I highly recommend this to everybody. Maybe it is just me, but after watching this I think I will go get some pizza now.

Favorite Tidbit: According to Josh Brolin, Thomas Pynchon, who keeps a pretty low profile, appears somewhere in this film. There are a couple of theories on where in the film he appears, but nothing is verified yet.

Review: Caged

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , ,

This is a film noir from 1950, directed by John Cromwell, but the real story is who wrote this and how.

This is another great noir written by Virginia Kellogg who also was on the writing team for White Heat and T-Men(both have been reviewed earlier on this site).  This one is interesting because Kellogg actually pulled some strings to incarcerate herself in a woman’s prison to write a book.  She then made this book into a screenplay for this film.  Everything in the book is stuff that really happened while she was in prison, so I imagine most of this movie’s plot lines are actually based on fact, though the story is fictional.

Eleanor Parker plays our main protagonist who is put in prison for being involved in a gas station robbery with her husband.  She is only 19 and her husband was killed in the robbery attempt, to top things off, she is pregnant!  She is a pretty normal girl, somewhat innocent if you will.  She probably shouldn’t be in prison for being an accomplice to an attempted robbery of only $40.

Agnes Moorhead plays the warden who is trying to make things better for the women.  She is the bright spot in a dark situation.

Hope Emerson plays one hell of an evil guard in this film.  She was Parker’s nemesis throughout the movie.

Parker meets an assortment of criminals while in stir.  Most befriend her and she learns a lot about the criminal ways while doing her time.  This quote sums it up:

“For that forty bucks I heisted I sure got myself an education.”

This really is a movie about the problems with our prison system, most, if not all these problems have not gone away in the 65 years since this film was made. If you are a fan of Orange Is the New Black you should check this film out to see how things have evolved very little in the past 6 decades.  This film should be seen by everybody, noir fan or not.  It is an amazing piece of cinema. Parker really does an outstanding job and you can see why she was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance.