Oh, Happy Day! Ben Affleck has started shooting Live By Night today! If you haven’t read the book by Dennis Lehane I recommend you do. Here is a shot Affleck posted to his Tweeted earlier today.
Read more on the film over at Slash Film here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/ben-affleck-live-by-night-starts-filming/
The Suicide Theory is an Australian neo-noir from director Dru Brown and writer Michael Kospiah. This film revolves around our two main characters played by Steve Mouzakis and Leon Cain.
Mouzakis plays Steven Ray, a hired hit-man who is afraid to cross the street and tends to cross dress in the privacy of his apartment. Cain plays Percival, an artist who wants to die, but cannot seem to get the job done on his own.
This films opening scene starts with Ray going to the store to pick up some ice cream. He talks to the store clerk about just finding out he is soon becoming a father. When they are interrupted by a rude customer, Ray jumps the customer in the alley and pummels him with the frozen ice cream. We flash forward three years and Percival hires Ray to kill him, because after numerous attempts he has failed to kill himself. The two soon grow a close bond with each other. Coincidence and fate are discussed between the two throughout the film and is the driving force of this story.
This film has a few flashbacks that come unannounced, making it a little hard to follow at first, but if you stick with it the puzzle comes together for you. This is an interesting concept and worth viewing for neo-noir fans looking for something new to watch.
The Hollywood Report is reporting that Common will be joining the cast of John Wick 2. He will be playing the primary bad guy to Keanu Reeves’ assassin John Wick. Filming starts this week on the anticipated sequel. Read the full report here:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/john-wick-2-common-play-834635
This Naked Kiss is a film noir from the noir legend Samuel Fuller. Fuller wrote and directed this film from 1964.
This film starts out with a prostitute named Kelly, played by Constance Towers, in a fight with a man. The man pulls off her wig to reveal she is completely bald! The reason she is bald in this opening scene does come up later in the film, but seems a minor point by that time. This is a shocking scene though and appears promptly on many of the posters and promotional items for the film, I’m sure it peaked some interest in the film and sold a few tickets back in 1964. After this battle with the man, Kelly takes only the money that is owed to her and leaves. The film then flashes forward a few years as Kelly gets off the bus in Grantville. She soon meets a police captain named Griff, played by Anthony Eisley. Griff soon becomes Kelly’s first customer in town and it is also her last. Griff recommends Kelly go across the river and work at an established cat house in the neighboring town. When Griff goes to the cat house to see how Kelly has settled in, he finds she is not there. Kelly has had a change of heart and soon gets a job at the local hospital for children. When Kelly meets J.L. Grant, the Grant for which the town Grantville is named, there are instant sparks and a romance soon starts.
The holes in this plot are so big that the plot doesn’t even make any sense after a while. Why does a prostitute suddenly decide to change her ways? OK, this one may be explained away as perhaps Kelly was playing the long game and using her femme fatale ways to land the most eligible bachelor. Kelly does seem to come across as bi-polar, one minute she is the nicest person you will ever meet and the next she is loosing it for some minor reason. I don’t know whether Towers is a bad actress or brilliant, I could never get a read on what Kelly’s motives are and at the end of this film I still didn’t know why she did half the stuff she did.
This film is unique and a bit campy in places, but well worth viewing for fans of classic film noir. This is not my favorite film from Fuller, but he has made it interesting enough that I’m glad I did see it.
Favorite Tidbit: Samuel Fuller put a few Easter Eggs in this film from his own noir universe. In one scene you can see Kelly walking by a theater where Fuller’s previous film Shock Corridor is on the marquee. In another scene Kelly is reading on a park bench while talking to Griff, the book she is reading is The Dark Page,a book written by Fuller.
Ysabelle Cheung writes an excellent review of the book East Asian Film Noir: Transnational Encounters and Intercultural Dialogue. This book contains essays on films from the Far East that maybe classified as noir. It sounds like an excellent book worth checking out for fans of noir films or films from East Asia. This book will be shooting up my “to read” list if for no other reason than to find more films to watch. One of the questions this book asks is “can there be film noir from East Asia?” Well as most of you know, I find noir films from all over the world and have to say some of my favorite noir films are from East Asia and look forward to discovering even more. What are your thoughts on the subject? Here is Cheung’s full review of the book over at Los Angeles Review of Books:
Public Morals is a new television series on TNT created and starring Edward Burns. Burns plays Terry Muldoon, a plain clothes cop who is in the Public Morals department. This department takes care of vice in 1960’s New York City, mainly in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. The Muldoon family is on both sides of the law,Terry’s father played by Peter Gerety, is a retired cop while his uncle, Mr. O played by Timothy Hutton is a small time gangster. When Mr. O is shot dead at the end of the first episode, Terry does his best to find the killer and keep the peace between the police and the gangsters battling each other for control of the vice trade.
Some of my favorite characters in the series are:
Charlie Bullman: Played by Michael Rapaport, Charlie has a soft spot for beautiful prostitutes and is a single father living with his mother. Charlie has more than a passing resemblance to a young Popeye Doyle.
Christine Muldoon: Played by Elizabeth Masucci is Terry’s wife. She wants to get out of the old neighborhood and move to the suburbs to live her middle-class dreams. Terry is loyal to the old neighborhood, but wants to keep his wife happy.
Fortune: Played by Katrina Bowden, is a high-class prostitute with a heart of gold or is she the femme fatale that has not shown all her true colors yet?
Joe Patton: Played by Brian Dennehy. Patton is the Irish Mafia Godfather for New York.
Rusty Patton: Played by Neal McDonough is Joe’s son, who is ready to take over for his father and doesn’t mind using violence to get there.
This series has many other great characters and though the series is only 10 episodes long so far, it is very complex and has some great options for story-lines for upcoming seasons. The fine line of corrupt cops doing what they do to keep things under control and not be to corrupt is an interesting plot device. Are they really on the take to keep vice inline in the city or are they just money hungry men, not any better than the crooks they try to bust?
I really enjoyed this first season and think fans of neo-noir will enjoy it too. This one seems to have flown under the radar, but here is hoping that it gets picked up for a second season.
Amanda Fortini over at Elle makes a case for the femme fatale. This is a very interesting take on the femme fatale, coming from a women in today’s world. She looks at the femme fatale from the classic films noir as well as the ones she grew up watching in the 1990’s. This is worth reading and you can read the full essay over at Elle here:
Mike Fleming Jr over at Deadline is reporting a new film in the works with George Clooney directing a Coen Brothers’ noir set in the 1950’s. Read the full news report below:
Joan Crawford in her Oscar Winning role as Mildred Pierce in the now classic film noir is celebrating its 70th Anniversary! Check out the full article over at Vanity.com below:
http://variety.com/2015/film/news/joan-crawford-mildred-pierce-70th-anniversary-1201619298/
Cause for Alarm! is a classic film noir from 1951. This film is directed by Tay Garnett, who returned to his noir roots 5 years after The Postman Always Rings Twice. Though these are two very different films and Postman always gets the attention from noir fans, this film holds up on its own.
This film revolves around Loretta Young’s Character, Ellen. Ellen’s husband, George, played by Barry Sullivan is very ill and is bed ridden. This film starts out with Ellen doing housework and with a classic noir voice over, Ellen starts to tell the story of the worst day of her life. The film flashes back to when Ellen worked for Dr. Ranney Grahame, played by Bruce Cowling and meets the Doctors good friend George. This flashback has a bit of romantic comedy feel to it, but as we return to the main story, things start to get very dark. We find George is having some strange thoughts about his old friend, Dr. Grahame and his wife. Is George right or is he imagining things in his sickened state? Is his Wife and Doctor trying to kill him?
I really enjoyed this film, but feel most non-film noir fans will not. Though this has some comedy elements in it, especially the flashback scenes, it is a very claustrophobic film with pending disaster at every corner. That being said it definitely has a feel of a modern situation comedy. In fact this film was cribbed from for an episode of Three’s Company. I feel a remake of this film would be very difficult to do in today’s cinema with the same sense of frustration and pending doom. This film is also unique in taking the traditional noir back streets of the big city out of the story and slapping it into suburban America.
Favorite Tidbit: Loretta Young has a great performance in this film, and she worked really hard to earn the role. Her husband, Tom Lewis, was the producer of this film and wanted Judy Garland for the role. Young wanted the role so bad, that she got a lawyer who told Lewis, he was discriminated against Young because she was his wife. He folded and finally hired his wife for the role.
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