Neo-Noir

Video: San Francisco is the Scene of a Perfect Crime

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In the world of noir Los Angeles and New York seem to be the two cities used most often. San Francisco may not have the numbers of the other two, but it sure has a lot of high quality noir and neo noir films based in this city. Here are the films I have already reviewed that appear in this video from RubyTuesday717 on YouTube.

Bullitt

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/21/re-watching-the-classics-bullitt/

Basic Instinct

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/04/14/the-great-villain-blogathon-2015-catherine-tramell-and-re-watching-basic-instinct-2/

Woman on the Run

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/06/24/review-women-on-the-run/

Maltese Falcon

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/03/05/re-watching-the-classics-the-maltese-falcon/

The Conversation

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/05/14/re-watching-the-classics-the-conversation/

Zodiac

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/26/re-watching-zodiac/

Here is the video, this is well done and every noir and neo noir fan will enjoy this short video:

Article: The Modern Noir Has Atrophied

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Angelica Jade Bastién has written an interesting article over at Vulture. She looks at neo noir and what is missing from it lately compared to the classic noir period. She gives a very interesting point of view with some great information. Though I don’t agree with everything she has to say, it does make for some interesting reading and discussion.  What do you think of her take on noir and neo noir?

http://www.vulture.com/2015/08/noir-has-atrophied-its-not-all-true-detectives-fault.html

Article: The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time

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Paste has made a list: “The Best Film Noirs of All Time”. This list mixes in classic film noir with more modern neo noir films for an interesting list. I like the films on the list, but may disagree with the order. What do you think of the list? How many of these films have you seen?

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/08/the-100-best-noirs-of-all-time.html?a=1

Review: Run All Night

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Run All Night is another neo-noir staring Liam Neeson, will this be as good as A Walk Among the Tombstones or has Liam Neeson run his course as the over the hill action star? This film was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who also teamed up with Neeson for Unstoppable and Unknown. Neeson has an outstanding supporting cast with Joel Kinnaman, Common, Ed Harris, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriquez, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Nick Nolte in a small uncredited part. This has to be a great film, right?!?!

Neeson plays a burnt out thug, who is down on his luck. He is a close friend with Harris’ character, who is a mob boss. They both have sons and when one son sees the other committee a murder the adventure begins. Kinnaman plays Neeson’s son and the witness to the murder. He has a family with his wife played by Rodriquez and a job as a limo driver. He has estranged himself from his father and is living on the straight and narrow. When Neeson hears about the murder and his son being a witness he sets out to do whatever he can to keep him safe.

This all takes place over the course of one night as for some reason, if they make it to the morning all will be OK. The action is great and some of the scenes are entertaining and the acting is pretty good. This film is just missing something for me to call it a great film. There are worse ways to spend a lazy evening then watching this film, but I can’t call it a “must see” film. If you are a huge fan of Neeson you will enjoy this film. If you have not seen Neeson in a neo noir film but would like to try one, I would say skip this one and watch A Walk Among the Tombstones instead.

Review: House of Games

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David Mamet’s directorial debut is House of Games, a classic neo noir from 1987. Mamet has made some amazing neo noir films through out his career and this first one definitely qualifies.

This film starts out with Margaret Ford, played by Lindsay Crouse(Mamet’s wife at the time). Ford is a psychiatrist and author who is fairly well-known from her book. We see this in the opening scene when she is approached by a stranger who turns out to be a fan that wants her book signed. We see Ford meet with a patient in prison and a friend and colleague at a restaurant. This shows how busy and driven she is. She then meets a patient in her office who has a gambling addiction. He states he owes a bookie $25,000 and if he doesn’t pay by tomorrow, they are going to kill him. Ford goes to meet the bookie named Mike at a pool hall called House of Games. She meets Mike played by Joe Mantegna who is charming and said her patient owes him $800, not $25,000. He offers to forgive the debt if she helps him in a poker game. She does and soon the games begin. Mike is a con man and Ford is fascinated by him and his crew. She decides she would like to follow them around and learn from them for a new book project.

The twists and turns continue in one entertaining scene after another. Mamet’s usual gang of actors make appearances throughout the film like Ricky Jay and William H. Macy.

This film was suppose to be a big budget film with bigger stars, but Mamet decided to direct himself and use his wife and friends as the actors instead. Given that, distributor Orion only released the film in 4 theaters and it basically went straight to video and a television release. Over the years it has found an audience and even received a Criterion DVD release. This film is worth your time if you are a fan of film in general. It is a unique experience where you feel your watching a live play rather than a film in some sense. The language and conversation between the characters is precise and unique. The plot seems to be a very tight con man story,  until the very end where everything falls apart and feels very real.

Favorite Tidbit: This film has already been remade twice! One from Hong Kong and one from India. I have not seen either of these, but it would be interesting to compare all three.

News: David Fincher’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN Remake Not Happening Anytime Soon

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So for better or for worse, the Strangers on a Train remake is put on hold for now. I was actually looking forward to this one, if anybody was going to remake this classic, this is the team to do it. On the other hand we are getting some good neo noir projects from the team in the meantime. Ben Affleck will be working on Live by Night based on the Dennis Lehane noir book. He will also be working on a new Batman stand alone film, hopefully in the noir tradition of past Batman projects. David Fincher and Gillian Flynn will be working together again on a H.B.O. series Utopia, which sounds like a great sci-fi neo noir series. Flynn will also be working on Widows, a television series about mob widows.

Though this project may or may not see production anytime soon, the projects this threesome are working on sound promising. Do you think a remake is a good idea? Could you pick a better threesome to make it?

Here is the full article written by Adam Chitwood over at Collider:

http://collider.com/david-fincher-strangers-on-a-train-remake-delayed-ben-affleck/

Hardboiled Wonderland 90 Crime Flick Picks From the 90s

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Noir author Jedidiah Ayres commented on my “Taste of Cinema’s Best 20 Neo-Noir Films of the 1990’s” post I had earlier in the week. That post is here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/07/16/taste-of-cinema-the-20-best-neo-noir-films-of-the-1990s/

Here is Ayers’ comment on the list: “Not. A. Single. John Dahl pick? No The Grifters, After Dark My Sweet, Lone Star, City of Industry, Little Odessa, The Indian Runner, Fresh, Lost Highway, Hard Eight, Copland? Oh well, controversy is fun. My picks (it woulda been hard to narrow to 20)”

Well I agree with him! Like he said narrowing it down to 20 would be hard, so why not just put all the greats on the list and come up with 90! So here is the link to Ayers’ Top 90 of the 90’s:

http://letterboxd.com/jedidiahayres/list/hardboiled-wonderland-90-crime-flick-picks/

I love this list, but I only have one thing to say Jedidiah, how could you have a 90 Best Crime Films of the 1990’s without Fight Club, Silence of the Lambs and Pulp Fiction on the list? Oh well, controversy is fun.