Neo-Noir

Article: Rolling Stone: ‘Fargo’: How the Midwestern Noir Just Got Even Better

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Rob Sheffield over at Rolling Stone has an article on the upcoming season of Fargo. From the sound of it we are in for a great season and will not have the sophomore jinx many say we got with True Detective. Yet another television series I am looking forward to and we only have to wait until Monday, October 12th for this one to start.

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/fargo-how-the-midwestern-noir-just-got-even-better-20151005Rolling Stones: ‘Fargo’: How the Midwestern Noir Just Got Even Better

Review: Cop Car

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Cop Car is a recently released film on Blu-Ray after a limited run in theaters. Written by Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford and Jon Watts also directed. Watts’ career has included a few television projects and a horror film called Clown. I am not familiar with Watts’ work other than this film, but we will soon be hearing much more from this director as he is attached to direct the new Spider-Man film from Marvel. Marvel has been very good at finding great talent to put behind the camera and they may have found another one in Watts.

Cop Car will more than likely draw its audience from Kevin Bacon fans more than Marvel fan boys, and though Bacon has a great performance in this film, the story is what drives it. One of the interesting things about this film is we do not get the whole story for any of the characters involved, but the short time that they cross paths is a mesmerizing story line. The film starts out with two young boys, played by James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford, who have recently ran away from home and start walking through the country. They come upon a sheriff’s car in the middle of nowhere, seemingly abandon. After a few dares coming from both boys, they find the keys and decide to take it. Then there is a flashback to just before the kids found the car. Kevin Bacon is a Sheriff who is pulling a dead body out of the trunk of the car and is bringing it to an abandoned well. He dumps the body after some effort and when he walks back to where he parked his car, it is gone. The story continues from here as Bacon has to outsmart the dispatch as well as find his car before anybody finds that it has been stolen.

Even though this is a country-noir with vast landscapes, it has a very small cast to keep the story very tight and suspenseful. Camryn Manheim plays a witness to the kids driving the car and Shea Whigham shows up in an important role later in the film. Other than these 5, everybody else is pretty much background extras.

One aspect of this film that I loved is all the characters in this film are noir protagonists in different ways and all could be the main character of their own noir story. We just do not know that whole story and never find it out during this film. The two boys are running away from home at the beginning of the film, but we don’t know why. The Sheriff is getting rid of a dead body and again we don’t know why. Do to my policy of no spoilers I will not go into Whigham’s character, but lets just say he may have the most noir story line of them all.

This film is a must see for fans of Whigham or Bacon and I feel most noir fans will find it worth watching. All this adds up to wanting to see more work from Watts and hoping he gives the new Spider-Man a little noir flair.

Favorite Tidbit: Kevin Bacon’s wife Kyra Sedgwick is the voice of the Police Dispatch in this film.

Review: American Heist

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American Heist is a new film recently released on DVD from director Sarik Andreasyan and writer Raul Inglis. This film starts with Adrien Brody getting out of prison and after a night out on the town is taken to a warehouse were he meets some old friends played by Akon and Tory Kittles who go by Sugar and Ray. He soon finds out he is going to have to payback his debts to his old friends and part of that is getting his brother, played by Hayden Christensen, involved.

One of the most interesting parts of this film is a femme fatale that does not know she is one. Jordana Brewster plays an old flame that is brought back into Christensen’s life and that attraction is used against him.

This film doesn’t have a very original or outstanding plot by any means. It does have another great performance from Brody and I liked Brewster in this as well. I don’t know why I got this vibe, maybe it was because of Brewster playing his love interest or because there is a bit of a resemblance I did not notice before, but I felt that Christensen’s part was written for Paul Walker and Christensen was just trying to do his best impression of him. This doesn’t mean Christensen did a bad job, just once this got in my head I could not get it out for the duration of the film.

While I was doing some research on this film, I found out it is actually a remake of The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery starring Steve McQueen. This movie was based on the true life incident involving the bank robber Fred William Bowerman. I have not seen this original film, but looks to have taken a lot of time and effort to be as accurate as possible. Reading a bit about The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery and the history of the bank robbery it is based on, I would say this film is very loosely based on the original film and has little to nothing to do with the real life bank robbery.  While the original took place in St. Louis and the film was made in 1959 only 6 years after the 1953 attempted bank robbery, this film takes place in a modern time frame and in New Orleans. The original didn’t have brothers involved, which is a key part of this films plot as well. I hope to watch The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery at some point and further compare the two films.

This film is not a modern-day classic that somehow slipped through the cracks. There is good reason you may not have heard of this film. That being said, it is not a horrible film and if you are in the mood for a heist film and do not want to watch Heat for the 100th time, this may fit the bill for you. I think fans of Adrien Brody will also enjoy his performance in this film.

Favorite Tidbit: Look for Hayden Christensen’s girlfriend Rachel Bilson in a small non-speaking but pivotal cameo appearance.

Article: EVOLVING VERSIONS OF FILM NOIR EXPLORE TODAY’S UNEASY FEELINGS by Roger Ebert

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I came across this article written by Roger Ebert in the mid 1990’s. It’s about how popular, noir films are today and how they have changed from the classic era. It looks at many of the great neo-noir films of the mid 1990’s and breaks them down into three different categories: Classic Noir, Deadpan Noir and Neo Noir. This is a great article and talks about some films I have not revisited in a long time, but really want to take another look at them now. What do you think of the three types of noir and do they still hold up today, 20 years later?

http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/evolving-versions-of-film-noir-explore-todays-uneasy-feelings

Review: The Living

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The Living is a neo noir from writer and director Jack Bryan. This film made the independent film festival circuit in 2014 and was recently released on DVD. This film is a bit of a slow burn, but very interesting. It is especially interesting on what Bryan left out as much as what he has put in the film.

The film starts out with Teddy, played by Fran Kranz on the floor of his living-room and waking up disoriented. Teddy gets in his truck and heads down the road. He pulls up to a house where we see Gordon played by Kenny Wormald and Angela played by Joelle Carter. They are angry with Teddy and start arguing with him. We then find out why, when Molly played by Jocelin Donahue is reveled. Molly is Teddy’s wife and comes out of the house severely beaten.  Supposedly Teddy has beat Molly the night before and Molly escaped back to her mother’s home. Molly ends up going home with Teddy to try to work out their problems. Gordon, Molly’s brother, decides to take justice in his own hands and when he tells his friends, one comes through with a guy who knows a guy….

This is where the film splits into two different tangents as Teddy and Molly start to work out their demons and it almost comes across as a romantic drama. The other story line is Gordon travelling to pick up his hired hit-man played by Chris Mulkey.

This film never shows Teddy drunk and hitting his wife, all we see is a loving Teddy trying to win back his wife. I think this adds to the shock and who we are cheering for as the film goes on. This is an interesting take on varying degrees of evil men and how those evil men change good men. Chris Mulkey’s portrayal of a hit-man steals the show as he isn’t the glamour hit-man we have come to expect. He has a sense of realism that is more than a little scary.

This film is worth checking out with what seems like a simple plot, but it has a lot going on. This is Bryan’s second film and he shows great promise. I hope he explores more neo noir projects in the future.

News: De Niro, Pesci, Pacino, And Scorsese Still Want To Join Forces For The Irishman

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Who wouldn’t want to see this! The Irishman is a movie that has been in the works for 5 years and it sounds like there is still hope for this one to be made. With Scorsese directing and a who’s who of the best gangster and neo-noir actors of all time interested in being in it, this should be an instant classic. Here is a link to the full article by Dirk Libbey over at Cinemablend, which also includes a clip of De Niro talking to Fallon about the up coming film.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/De-Niro-Pesci-Pacino-Scorsese-Still-Want-Join-Forces-Irishman-83057.html

Review: The Aura (El Aura)

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

The Aura is a neo noir from Argentina written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky. Bielinsky was not a prolific director, being this is only his second full length feature film, the other being Nine Queens from 5 years earlier. Unfortunately Bielinsky died in 2006 of a heart attack at only 46 years old. I wish we had more than two films written and directed from this great talent, who knows what we would have seen in the years to come.  This film was released in 2005 and appeared at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006.

This film stars Ricardo Darín as an epileptic taxidermist. He has fantasies of grandeur, with a hobby of planning the perfect criminal heist. Darin is very good in this film, one moment coming across as a friendly man, then turning and saying something with a bit of bite the next moment. He also seems very intelligent for the most part with a bit of good luck on his side from time to time. After meeting a friend at a museum where both are working on some taxidermy projects. They decide to go on a hunting trip together, but when all the rooms are taken in the small town due to the local Casino they get a cabin up in the woods. When they go hunting our hero makes a terrible mistake and all hell breaks loose for him.

I don’t want to go into much more on this films plot. Though the film starts out a little slow, when the twists and turns come, they are hard to see coming and take the noir fan on a wild ride. We don’t know where or when it will end.

I really enjoyed this one, it has a very good story with some high level cinematography. The dog in this film is amazing, not sure how they got this dog to act the way he did, but it sure made a nice element to this film. I would recommend this film to all film lovers that can handle a movie with sub-titles. After watching this film I hope to watch Nine Queens soon.

Favorite Tidbit: It looks like this film has a Hollywood remake in development. His first film Nine Queens also got the Hollywood treatment and was named Criminal.

Review: The Missing Person

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I really wanted to see The Missing Person from 2009, after recently watching Noah Buschel new film Glass Chin. I reviewed Glass Chin here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/08/24/review-glass-chin/

Where Glass Chin takes some old tropes of noir and twists them up into a new package, this film seems to me, more of a love of film noir and cribs from some of the greatest story lines in film noir history and throws them into a post 9/11 America. Both films are very good in their own way and both have one thing in common: Buschel loves noir and it shows in his films.

This film starts out with a call in the middle of the night to John Rosow played by Michael Shannon. It is a lawyer on the other end. He says he has been referred to Rosow by mutual friend. He needs Rosow to follow a middle-aged man on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. The lawyers assistant will be at his office momentarily. As Miss Charley played by Amy Ryan walks through the door I could not get the opening of The Maltese Falcon out of my mind. Rosow of course takes the job from what I believed to be the film’s femme fatale(I may have been wrong on this one). Shannon’s Rosow character seems to roll Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe and Mike Hammer into a hardboiled P.I. with all the typical stereo types and throws him into the modern world. He starts out as a down on his luck man with a drinking problem. He will do just about anything for a little money as he smokes his cigarettes in his crumpled cheap suit.

Rosow gets on the train and keeps a low profile so his mark, played by Frank Wood, will not notice he is being followed. This train voyage reminded me of The Narrow Margin in a number of ways. As we get to Los Angeles he checks into the same seedy hotel as his mark, but soon finds the closest bar for a drink. Here is where we meet our femme fatale of the film, Lana Cobb, played by Margaret Colin. The story continues from here as our hero travels to a more modern noir location like over the border in Mexico and then back to New York City.

We as is our protagonist is in the dark much of the film as we travel North America looking for answers. Everything leads back to New York for almost all of our characters and how that fateful day of 9/11 effected them.

One more scene that reminded me of a classic neo noir is the scene in the hotel with Rosow listing in to what is happening next door. This reminded me of The Conversation.

I’m sure different scenes will make you flash back to other noir greats, most with a modern twist, but still a loving homage. Listen for The song “Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly” from Night of the Hunter and a lengthy conversation about the film Serpico. Did I miss any other references?

This will obviously be a film, noir fans will enjoy for its style and its love of film noir and neo noir. We have a unique modern twist on all of this, but nothing super original. I think most noir buffs will find this entertaining and worth their time. I look forward to seeing more films from Buschel in the future. I really like  Michael Shannon and find him interesting in every movie he does, so I think fans of his will also enjoy this film.

List: The 10 Best Movies Written by, Adapted from, or Inspired by Raymond Chandler

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Taste of Cinema is at it again! This time with the 10 best films involving the great noir author Raymond Chandler. Agree or Disagree with the choices or the placing if you like, but read the full article for some great knowledge about the author and these movies you may not have known. Well worth your time to check it out if you are a fan of noir or Chandler. Here is the link to the full article:

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-10-best-movies-written-by-adapted-from-or-inspired-by-raymond-chandler/

Review: Broken Horses

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Broken Horses is an American film from Indian writer and director Vidhu Vinod Chopra. This has gotten some amazing accolades from other film makers like Alfonso Cuaron and James Cameron. This film has not got a very good reception from audiences or some critics. So what did I think of this film?

This film stars Anton Yelchin as Jakey and Chris Marquette as Buddy. They are brothers and Buddy is mentally challenged. This film starts out with Buddy as a young boy meeting his father played by Thomas Jane at the shooting range. They have a little father-son talk and out of nowhere the father is shot and killed. We then see a young Jakey playing his violin at a recital. When Buddy goes back to work after his father’s funeral, he meets crime boss Julius Hench played by Vincent D’Onofrio. Hench tells Buddy who killed his father and where he lives, buddy goes to the house with no fear and kills the man. The film flashes forward 8 years when Jakey is getting married soon to Vittoria played by María Valverde. He goes back to his hometown to visit his brother and have him be his best man at the wedding. Buddy has been working for Hench for the last 8 years and Jakey sees he is different person then he remembers. Will Buddy be able to quite his job with Hench and go live with his brother? Will Jakey be able to accept his brother the way he is now? Will Hench let either of the brothers live?

This film also has Sean Patrick Flanery in a small but disturbing role worth mentioning. This film is beautifully filmed with a classic film noir feel in a number of scenes. The story is a simple but very dark plot. The brother dynamic is interesting, with the blood thicker then water theory tested. This movie adds up to a very good film. It is not the best low-budget neo noir I have seen this year, but it is worth watching. I think fans of noir will enjoy this film even if the general movie public doesn’t.

Favorite Tidbit: This is actually a remake of a Bollywood film called Parinda from 1989. That film was written and directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra as well. Parinda was one of the first neo noir Bollywood films to make a profit, ushering in a wave of Bollywood noir film. Here is another film I will be adding to my never-ending “must see list.”