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TychoCelchuuu posted:I actually have a Christmas noir planned for closer to the date, and it's not either of the ones FitFortDanga has mentioned (although now I'm interested in those, too!). Care to give me a hint? I'd like to try and work in some older Christmas movies that don't get as much attention. Thought noirs would be fun.
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Dec 15, 2020 16:24
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Franchescanado posted:Care to give me a hint? I'd like to try and work in some older Christmas movies that don't get as much attention. Thought noirs would be fun.
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Dec 16, 2020 03:29
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The Thin Man takes place over Christmas.
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Dec 16, 2020 03:54
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Skwirl posted:The Thin Man takes place over Christmas.  You Only Live Once (1937), dir. Fritz Lang  Fritz Lang directs this early noir, which apparently was violent enough that they forced him to cut some stuff. Henry Fonda, looking a lot like Willem Defoe, stars as a guy who has just gotten out of jail and who is having trouble staying straight, mostly due to society's bigotry against former convicts but also if we're being honest he also decides to buy a house he can't afford and that really doesn't help!  It co-stars Sylvia Sydney as his devoted girlfriend who has some great '30s fashion over the course of the film, by the way. I like what the '40s do with men's fashion but with women I think the '30s take the cake.  Lang's flair for visual drama is firing on all cylinders in many scenes, there's some fun humor every once in a while to lighten what is otherwise a really heavy story, and broadly speaking it's extremely well-done. The desperation oozes from the screen sometimes. It's not just one of the earliest examples of noir - it's also one of the best. Highly recommended. This movie was later remade as a hashtag, #YOLO, which many consider to be inferior to the original.
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Dec 16, 2020 16:22
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Sorting genres is always pretty arbitrary but I usually slot that in with more traditional detective stuff (Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) rather than noirs. The movie is way more wacky but it's based on a book by the same guy who wrote The Maltese Falcon. The book is actually super dark and very much what you'd expect the last book written by a hardcore alcoholic writer would write as he's struggling with giving up alcohol and then does and also never writes again, despite living for another 25 years in mostly decent health.
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Dec 17, 2020 00:07
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Skwirl posted:The movie is way more wacky but it's based on a book by the same guy who wrote The Maltese Falcon.  The Big Knife (1955), dir. Robert Aldrigh  Ida Lupino is back, starring with Jack Palance (we last saw him in Sudden Fear) in this movie about a movie star who is struggling with marital problems and general life issues, mostly centering around the fact that he's sold out for most of his career to a studio head who churns out trashy flicks for cash. Palance could do so much more, and his wife really wants him too.  Some other complications get thrown in the mix, like other women, drinking, etc. The movie is based on a play and (like Detective Story) you get all the good and bad that comes with that: mostly one set, tons of very verbose monologues, lots of yelling, broad characters, etc. The actors are all great and they have a lot of scenery to chew on (and the house is a really nice vision of mid '50s design - you can see the '60s starting to creep up, albeit not really in any of my pictures since I picked ones that highlight the actors instead).  So it's fine overall, although it does succumb to basically all the main weaknesses of a movie based on a play: the pacing doesn't really take advantage of the medium, things occur offscreen and get narrated to us through someone talking on a phone or something even though the movie could totally just have cut to that and shown us what happened, etc. Titles designed by Saul Bass, in one of his first movie title designer roles, so that's nice. Good enough for a watch, especially if you want to see Lupino or Palance go at it, but it won't go in my favorites.
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Dec 17, 2020 16:22
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TychoCelchuuu posted:No need to keep it a huge secret, so I'll spoiler it and put a hint outside spoilers: Blast of Silence, a 1961 neo-noir. One of my all-time favorites! Didn't think of the Xmas connection, but yeah.
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Dec 17, 2020 16:32
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Another Christmas noir is 1947's Lady in the Lake, based on the Chandler novel. It's the one done from a first-person perspective, so you're seeing what Marlowe sees (except when he talks directly to the audience). I don't know how well it really works, especially since it's done entirely in studio so we never actually see the titular plot point of a body in a lake, we're just told about it. Also the Christmas setting is a bit tacked on; the novel wasn't set at that time of year.ketchup vs catsup posted:where are you all watching these noirs? a lot of these screenshots are impressively high resolution. The Internet Archive has a lot of these, probably all of the ones mentioned recently.
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Dec 17, 2020 17:28
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TychoCelchuuu posted:I've read the book! But as you point out, the movie is pretty wacky. Basically a screwball comedy married to a mystery - not much noir in sight, if you ask me. Apparently Hammett's long time partner Lillian Hellman kept bugging him after the book was published asking if Nora Charles was based on her until he finally snapped at her "all the women are based on you." Which is one of the most cutting remarks I can think of.
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Dec 18, 2020 03:36
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Action Jacktion posted:The Internet Archive has a lot of these, probably all of the ones mentioned recently.
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Dec 18, 2020 04:13
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 Pickup on South Street (1953), dir. Samuel Fuller  Richard Widmark, one of the great noir actors, stars in this film by Samuel Fuller, one of the great noir directors. I would not say it's one of the great noirs, though. Widmark plays a pickpocket who engenders complications by stealing a wallet from a woman who is unknowingly ferrying state secrets to the Reds. Now the US government, the Communists, and who knows who else is on his trail.  There's some good stuff, like some opportunities for Fuller's knack for staging things to shine, and a few impressively brutal scenes. But mostly it's rather paint by numbers, the tone of the comic relief (a professional stool pigeon whose day job is trying to sell people ties) is somewhat misjudged, and both the unambiguous bad guys (the Communists have no characterization beyond "Communists" and the movie is convinced this is more than enough) and good guys (the US government) don't really befit a good noir movie.  That's not to say it's terrible. Jean Peters is a capable co-star and there's an incidental cat in a scene which I always appreciate. It's not getting anywhere near my list of favorites but I still enjoyed it. It's a Criterion collection film so clearly some people like it. And the sleazo slurping up food in a Chinese restaurant (pictured above) is a real scene-stealer. Available to watch at Archive.org, via the Criterion collection, and probably other places as well.
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Dec 18, 2020 16:33
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I was lukewarm on it the first time I saw it, for similar reasons. Second time I saw it my opinion had vastly improved:quote:It’s fantastic. The hard-boiled dialogue, the grittiness, the beautiful cinematography, the memorable performances by Widmark, Ritter, Peters, Kiley… heck, everyone. There’s a lot of wonderful moments and touches, like Widmark pouring a beer over Peters’ head, or the business with the dumbwaiter, or the detail of Widmark’s grubby little shack and Ritter’s ties. Ritter’s final scene is absolutely brilliant, one of the most poignant and touching scenes I’ve ever seen in a noir. I also love the structure of the bookending the film with pickpockets… it takes one to spin everything into chaos and another to set everything right again. Yes, it’s a little silly how people keep talking about “commies” and “Reds,” but it’s nowhere near as extreme as the last two movies I watched ([I Was a Communist for the FBI and The Woman on Pier 13]. Communism here is just the force that throws the characters’ lives out of balance… like the child murderer in M, it upsets the lives of “ordinary” criminals. No one is really all that worked up about the Communism itself. “I know one thing: I just don’t like ’em” is about as heated as it gets. And if Widmark is the hero of the film (and he primarily is, although we probably spend more time overall with Peters), then he’s as apolitical as it gets. To him, Communism is a profit opportunity, or a nuisance, or the people responsible for hurting his girl. He doesn’t care about the ideals of either side. “Are you waving the flag at me?”
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Dec 18, 2020 18:08
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I'm in a noir mood tonight. Gonna check out Out of the Past.
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Dec 18, 2020 22:48
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Spatulater bro! posted:I'm in a noir mood tonight. Gonna check out Out of the Past. Owned hard.
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Dec 19, 2020 05:17
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Yeah it's maybe my favorite, or at least in the top 5! One of the classics.
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Dec 19, 2020 05:30
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 La bête humaine (1938), dir. Jean Renoir  Jean Gabin is back, starring in this noir directed by the great Jean Renoir, who has "noir" in his name. Gabin is a train engineer with one of those noir movie afflictions which you likely won't find in a psych textbook: sometimes turns violent and starts choking people for no discernable reason. Happily, and weirdly, it's not a huge part of the plot. Gabin becomes interested in his boss's wife, but since we are in France, that's not really a huge deal either. Complications do however ensue when the boss gets jealous of his wife for reasons having nothing at all to do with Gabin, and Gabin ends up drawn in.  Renoir keeps the movie rather simple and consequently almost quaint, which I think is a good match for material that would otherwise maybe get a little overdramatic. There's also not a lot happening, so the simplicity suits the plot. Simone Simon is introduced holding a cat, which is great, but the cat then vanishes from the film, which is not great. What's even more puzzling is that she's holding the cat while visiting her husband at his office. Where did this cat come from? Did she grab a cat off the street on her way there? I need to hear more about this cat.  The ending (and in general the final act of the movie) is pretty good and you get some bracing footage of French trains crossing the French countryside. It won't blow you away but it won't let you down. A good early noir, in book.
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Dec 19, 2020 15:01
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 Le jour se lève (1939), dir. Marcel Carné  Jean Gabin is back again and he opens this film by shooting a guy and then reflecting on how it all happened. It turns out to be quite straightforward, but still quite engaging, and the story that is recounted is energetically acted out by Gabin and the other actors.  I don't know if this will be anyone's favorite but I adored it. The straightforward noir romance struck me as quite well done and whenever it flashes back to the present with Gabin in apartment, the mood was absolutely perfect, due to the artful lighting and set design, Gabin's mastery the morose ponderer persona, and a plodding percussive score that portrays both tension and resignation.  The end is pretty wonderful and there are some dogs, albeit mistreated ones. All in all, I highly enjoyed it. I don't know how much I'd recommend it to others but if you vibe with it you'll probably really like it.
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Dec 20, 2020 15:34
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 The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), dir. Tay Garnett  John Garfield stars as a fellow whose feet are constantly itching - he never wants to stay in one place very long, until he takes a job at a gas station/diner combo and sees the boss's wife, Lana Turner, at which point he's interested. Since this is a noir things obviously don't work out perfectly for everyone involved.  Ostensibly this is a classic (and the book is too - it has seven film adaptations...) and I guess I see why. It's certainly got a lot to like: classic noir scheming, a complicated love story, crime and tragedy, double crosses, and so on. There's also (in one scene) a cat (which I like) but the cat almost immediately gets itself electrocuted (which I don't). 1940s electrical codes really let this cat down.  Anyways I like the movie well enough but I'm not head over heels for it. It has some similarities to Double Indemnity (a true classic, in my eyes) and that movie overshadows this one in my mind, as do The Breaking Point and Body and Soul, two other noirs starring Garfield in which I think he gets to do a bit more with the character he plays. This movie leans too hard on the twists and not hard enough on the passion for my tastes. Still a good movie, though.
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Dec 21, 2020 16:28
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 Confidential Report aka Mr. Arkadin (1955), dir. Orson Welles  Orson Welles directed this globe-hopping noir, at least until it was taken away from him, and the resulting production kerfuffle has left this movie scattered into like 5 different versions, none of which seems to be precisely what Welles wanted. I watched the cut titled "Confidential Report" common in most of Europe (but not Spain, which has an entirely different cut with some scenes replaced by identical scenes filmed with Spanish movie stars!) which preserves some of the rather insane plotting structure Welles had in mind. The production insanity is mostly evident in some rather imprecise ADR in some scenes and a plot that at times barely hangs together, although thankfully it all does at least make sense.  The story concerns an obscure tycoon named Mr. Arkadin, played by Welles, and Robert Arden's character, whose career is basically "professional vagabond," who becomes tied up in Arkadin's affairs in about four different confusing interrelated ways. The director is clearly that of Citizen Kane: there are some absolutely gorgeous shots. And Welles achieves the grand scope he was aiming for: the movie jets all around the world, and makes heavy use of a Spanish castle location, which features not one but two giant setpieces (a flagellant ceremony and an insane carnival) plus some impressive stuff just merely in the town, like a herd of goats or whatever which the protagonist navigates during a conversation scene for no other reason than to give the scene a bit of local character.  Things are a bit of a mess and the movie is much more interested in dramatics than believable situations and people, but if you can get on board and accept the jankiness it's pretty stupendous. I don't think Welles ever once struck out as a director and this goes onto the list of greats by him, if you ask me. It's a shame that it ended up rather mangled. Between this and The Lady from Shanghai, studio nonsense monkeyed around with two Welles noirs that have all the makings of masterpieces!
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Dec 22, 2020 15:27
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 Daisy Kenyon (1947), dir. Otto Preminger  Joan Crawford lives in New York making illustrations for... magazines I think? That doesn't matter. What does matter is that she's romantically involved with Dana Andrews (in lots of noirs, although none I've posted about lately), a fancy lawyer who is already married, and Henry Fonda (whom we last saw in You Only Live Once), a WWII vet just returned from having stayed on with the Allied forces in Germany. Complications ensue.  The movie gets credit, rightly, for doing a pretty good job sketching the psychologies of the characters and especially in depicting their actions with nuance and subtlety rather than playing for the rafters. I think it should also get credit for having some dialogue that is halfway on its way to being batshit insane, by which I mean sometimes it seems like characters are speaking to each other with fragments of poems or manifestos. I know that makes the movie sound weird but mostly it's normal and it all works fine.  Once in a blue moon the weight of the melodrama breaks through, but any fan of noir won't have a problem with that. The ending is also kind of weird, which is harder for me to overlook. However, overally it's a very good noir. Bonus points for having almost no smoking, somehow. When you watch a ton of '40s and '50s movies back to back to notice how everyone smokes like a chimney. Almost every conversation involves someone lighting a cigarette, or lighting someone else's cigarette, or whatever. This movie has almost no tobacco for some reason.
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Dec 23, 2020 16:19
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'Twas the day before Christmas, and in theaters near and far, no movies were playing, except for this noir... Quai des Orfèvres (1947), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot  Paris, 1947. The lives of a husband and wife (entertainers in the popular theater), their good friend (a photographer), a rich dirty old man, and the police intersect when the perfect murder is planned, only for things to go awry. Dogs appear in one scene but play no role in the plot.  This is a very good, perhaps great, drama. All the characters are excellently acted and the plot has a perfect mix of complications and twists, on the one hand, but nothing outlandish or even particularly unpredictable, on the other. As one might expect from Clouzot the tension is handled well, but in this movie he is less interested in thrills and more interested in emotions, and the focus serves the film well by keeping it from turning into some cheap da Vinci Code cliffhanger bullshit from moment to moment. Mostly it just consists of desperate people alternating between feeling the noose tighten and trying to fool themselves into thinking there's no noose.  I picked this movie because although it's not a Christmas noir, it is a Christmas Eve noir. The climactic events (and thus much of the last part of the movie) all take place on Christmas Eve (which means we get to see some Christmas decorations) and at this point everyone is so fed up with this bullshit that you can feel their desire to wrap this up and go home to their families. A very good noir for Christmas Eve and a good lead-in to tomorrow's noir, which will be a proper Christmas movie.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:54
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Finally watched Le Samourai last night. Goddamn what a flick. What else channels those same vibes? Other than (arguably) Alphaville.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:59
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All the Mellville neo-noirs! Le Doulos, Le Cercle rouge, Le Deuxième souffle, etc.
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Dec 24, 2020 17:22
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TychoCelchuuu posted:
One interesting thing about this movie is that the photographer character is a lesbian but she isn't presented as being sick or evil or anything. It's unclear how many of the other characters know that but the inspector definitely does and has no problem with it. The inspector is a divorced man and at one point he tells her "We're pretty similar: neither of us has any luck with women." I've never seen this movie on any list of LGBTQ cinema but maybe it's because no one can pronounce the title.
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Dec 24, 2020 17:47
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Yes, that's one of the best parts! The inspector also has an interracial kid and there's zero weird racism or anything (which is a nice contrast to another movie I just watched from the same year, Black Narcissus, which is so dripping with racism that I could barely enjoy it). As for the title being hard to pronounce, you can always watch another movie from the same year, Panique (which I posted about above). In one scene, someone gets on the phone and asks the operator to connect them to quai des Orfèvres, because that's where police headquarters is (which is why this movie has this title). I don't think the title ever comes up in this movie, though.
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Dec 25, 2020 03:10
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Time for a Christmas noir special! Blast of Silence (1961), dir. Allen Baron  Baron wrote, directed, and starred in this late noir about a hitman who comes to New York on Christmas to kill some rear end in a top hat. It's lean (an hour and seventeen minutes), mean, and for my money fantastic - definitely a Christmas movie for people who prefer overwhelming loneliness and despair to saccharine Santa poo poo (although Santa does put in an appearance).  Whether you love this movie as much as me will probably come down almost entirely to two things. First, it's 80% a passion project of Baron, who is a better writer and director than actor (although he's not a terrible actor). If you don't dig this guy it'll be a bit of a no-go, but I think he's fine. (Amusingly, a woman in the movie calls him attractive, although she's not wrong. He looks like Michael Stuhlbarg! I'd let him blast my silence for Christmas.)  Second, the movie's often accompanied with what I imagine is a rather divisive voiceover (written by Waldo Salt, writer of such excellent films as Midnight Cowboy and The Day of the Locust) which really goes for the jugular. It's entirely in second person and it's kind of nuts sometimes (it usually insists on referring to Baron's character, Frank, as "baby boy" or "Frankie" for instance). It works just fine for me (and it's not like it fills all the dead air), as does everything else in the movie: a bebop soundtrack (aside from a scene scored by some insane bongo folk music - Greenwich Village in the early '60s, baby); the writer Larry Tucker playing a sleazball whose Christmas decorations include ornaments on his rat cages and a Christmas tree next to a pinup poster; some great shots of Baron traversing '60s New York; and a climax shot during a literal hurricane. Highly recommended.
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Dec 25, 2020 14:45
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Neo-noir is about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E. We're moving into neo-noir now. I might eventually get back to the noir or I might not until next Noirvember. We'll see! 東京流れ者 (Tôkyô nagaremono) (1966), dir. 鈴木 清順/Seijun Suzuki   I class most of Suzuki's relatively less insane crime movies as neo-noirs (see also FreudianSlippers talking about this), including this one, the title if which translates to "Tokyo drifter," a reference both to the main character, played by Tetsuya Watari, who spends part of the movie unmoored and drifting around Japan, and to the theme song, which throughout the movie is whistled by Watari and sung by Chieko Matsubara, who plays his girlfriend. Aside from that there's almost nothing batshit insane: it's mostly a straightforward Yakuza story.   At least, the plot is straightforward. The visuals in this movie are off the charts, and so I'm including way more pictures than normal, and even that is hardly sufficient to even begin to catalog the beauty on display. It's a real treat to look at.   Aside from being gorgeous the movie's pretty good in the other ways, too. There are not a lot of surprises, but it has a pretty good meditation on the well-worn trope of the honorable criminal, common both to the Yakuza setting (where honor is especially paramount) and to criminal life and life more generally. I recommend it!  
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Dec 26, 2020 17:40
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 Pretty Poison (1968), dir. Noel Black  Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld star in this neo-noir written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., who also wrote a lot of the excellent '60s Batman TV show. Perkins has just been released from a mental hospital but thankfully his illness isn't "he goes insane and kills people when the plot requires it," as in some noirs, but rather just delusions and paranoia. Thus it is an affliction of a rather muted sort, as noir insanities go, all things considered.  Sometimes this gets described as a "comedy" (IMDB) or "black comedy" (Wikipedia) which I guess is technically right in the same way that all the Coen brothers neo-noirs are also black comedies, which is to say that when a movie adopts a matter-of-fact tone towards insane stuff happening to people for no good reason except typical human neuroses, it's sometimes hard to know what to do but laugh. But I don't think this is any more of a comedy than (say) Fargo, which is to say it's hardly a comedy at all. The poster and title also make it look like some sort of exploitation movie which is equally misguided.  Truly, this is just a very straightforward and generally well-done neo-noir in the most classic sense. It's basically a '40s or '50s noir transported to the '60s, with very few changes made along the way. In fact the biggest difference is probably just the soundtrack, which is not very good, and the things which change naturally over time, like the clothes and the lingo. The main bones of the movie would not be out of place in a film 20 years earlier, and those bones are strong. An artful and cynical exploration of violence and desire - exactly what you want out of noir.
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Dec 27, 2020 16:17
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I just want to say I appreciate reading these. So please keep posting them as long as you still want even if there's not a lot of interaction happening in the thread.
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Dec 27, 2020 23:37
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Like everyone else, I'm enjoying the reviews. It's brought to mind a music video homage, The Friends of Mr. Cairo by Jon (Anderson) and Vangelis. There are a ton of references, especially to The Maltese Falcon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjyFydbgBG4 The video is only the first half of the song and cuts out dialogue chunks of it. The second half is a further film tribute, though in a completely different fashion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SldMjZSHyKs
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Dec 28, 2020 05:43
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Glad to hear people are enjoying the posts! Le cercle rouge (1970), dir. Jean-Pierre Melville  Melville directs this, his second to last film, starring Alain Delon (star of Le Samouraï, Melville's most famous neo-noir) along with Gian Maria Volonté and André Bourvil. Delon is on his way to prison (handcuffed to Bourvil, the cop escorting him), and Volonté is on his way out. Eventually their paths cross.  I didn't love Le Samouraï as much as everyone else does, but it's hard to deny that Delon is a force of nature in that film and he repeats the trick here. It's a bit of a shame that he's not in more of this (Volonté takes the lead for long stretches, as does Bourvil) but Delon's good in what parts he's in. The real star of the show is a heist that takes place partway through. It's an extended sequence which recalls the classic French noir Rififi, which similarly inspired Michael Mann's masterful neo-noir Thief. The heist in this movie, as in Rififi, is incredibly thrilling and almost entirely silent.  The rest of the movie is great too, at least as long as you go in for Melville's laconic take on noirs, and the ending is stupendous, with some complex tension in the lead-up and a simultaneously spectacular and muted finale. Very good neo-noir!
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Dec 28, 2020 16:22
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 The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), dir. Peter Yates  Robert Mitchum stars as the titular Eddie Coyle, an aging crook who comes out of retirement for one last job: whack the Pope. Just kidding. This movie is the antithesis of overblown theatrics and much of its strength comes from how it matches Mitchum's worn-down approach to crime. Mitchum is on the one hand getting tired of it but on the other hand it's his entire life and he sees no reason to quit, nor does he really have an option. The movie, too, is entirely about crime: it has a thrilling bank robbery sequence, and it pays so much attention to things like lingo and process that it seems like either they had one or more criminal consultants, or they made a bunch of poo poo up and made it look very convincing. But, it refuses to romanticize or overly-stylize crime, or criminals, or anything. It's all a sad loving mess, in this movie's eyes.  It's not all great, though. The soundtrack is like a stereotype of a bad '70s soundtrack. I don't know if the director told the composer "give me funk or give me death" or if the composer said "it's the 70s, dammit, and I'm going to write a funky score as if my life depended on it" but either way it was a bad call because it's no good. Luckily it's hardly omnipresent or overbearing.  Mitchum is the main attraction and the movie spends a bit too much time on Richard Jordan (playing a cop) and Steven Keats (playing an arms dealer named Jackie Brown; I wouldn't be surprised if Tarantino got the name from this movie). Both Jordan and Keats are a little young and less interesting for my tastes, although they each do a good job. But that and the soundtrack aside, everything is great. A top quality neo-noir. Highly recommended.
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Dec 29, 2020 16:33
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Being a huge dummy I'm going to say that Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter is NOT neo-noir, as the film is working with the cool/chivalrous Yakuza character that was insanely popular at the time, with it's own type of distinct genre language, "ninkyo eiga"(Tales of Chivalry), and not noir. Ninkyo eiga and most other Yakuza movies of the time, tended to be primary period films and usually how duty bound the Yakuza were, Suzuki even made some of these(like Tattooed Life of which Tarantino would rip off the ending for the climax of Kill Bill Vol.1), but at this point in his Nikkatsu career the studio bosses wanted to get rid of Suzuki so they weren't giving him any real budgets, so this is how this and Branded to Kill look how they do. The result is that a very tired, even by 1966, boring typical chivalrous Yakuza script becomes a pop fever dream, and so many of the usual motions of these films just become funny or absurd, which does give it a sense of post-modern. A couple of years later Fukasaku would take what Suzuki started here and lead it to the logical end, that the Yakuza's live in extremely violent hellworlds where every single conversation no matter how simple has the propensity to turn into life ending violence, and that codes, brotherhood, and duty are for the suckers. What I'm saying here is that as a follow up to Suzuki's film, is that you(and everyone else) should definitely check out Fukasaku's Sympathy for the Underdog. I would argue that it's not an actual neo-noir, but it's a film about a cool gangster that always wears his dark shades, even in smokey dimly lit bars aka the coolest place to wear shades, and that sounds noir enough for the thread.  This film also features actor and former actual Yakuza Noboru Andô, who throughout the 70's would star a series of films about the coolest Yakuza ever, himself.
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Dec 29, 2020 17:15
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This thread is so great 
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Dec 29, 2020 18:07
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On that note, find the old Yak film thread here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3821609
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Dec 29, 2020 20:25
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I have been told by... people... that this is the most accurate mob movie.
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Dec 30, 2020 05:18
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 The Outfit (1973), dir. John Flynn  Robert Duvall is perhaps miscast as a criminal who has just gotten out of jail only for everything to immediately go to poo poo before he even has time to get his bearings. Very quickly this necessitates revenge, and he's joined by his girlfriend (Karen Black, who is somehow age-appropriate even though she's a total smokeshow compared to Duvall) and his favorite co-criminal, Joe Don Baker, who is mostly just... there.  Duvall I guess is a bit of a jerk, and after all these three are criminals who aren't afraid to kill if necessary, but the movie generally doesn't go in for much ambiguity, subtlety, conflict, or confusion in its plotting or its portrayal of the characters. Our protagonists are the honorable criminals who just want what's due to them and the antagoinsts are the dishonorable criminals who don't want to give our protagonists what they're owed. It's all rather too basic for a good noir. Unlike, say, Tôkyô nagaremono, there's no interrogation of the notion of an honorable criminal, or the costs involved in being honorable like this, or anything like that.  That's not to say the movie is incompetent. It has some fun heists and shootouts and so on, and although Duvall is probably miscast, I do appreciate a protagonist who is at this point basically just ugly. Hollywood these days is so downright allergic to anyone who isn't a chiseled hunk that it's a breath of fresh air to see balding Duvall looking like a schlub starring in the movie. Noir mainstay Elisha Cook Jr. shows up for a scene and that's fun. So overall it's hardly a waste of time. But its picture of the criminal underworld is almost childish and flat compared to something more realistic like The Friends of Eddie Coyle and even its attention to detail when it comes to things like process and lingo are lacking. Not an awful movie but definitely on the lower end of '70s neo-noirs. Fun fact: Duvall's character, Macklin, is based on the character Parker from a series of hard-boiled novels which have been turned into many movies, including the masterpiece neo-noir Point Blank, which is much better than this movie, and the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback, which I've never seen but which reportedly has a good director's cut.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:17
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TychoCelchuuu posted:
I had no idea this existed! I admit I haven't read Richard Stark/Donald Westlake's Parker novels, but I am a HUGE fan of the late, great cartoonist Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel adaptations of four of them: The Hunter, The Outfit (yes, another adaptation of this same story), The Score, and Slayground. In 2016, Cooke passed away from cancer before he could do more, but he was a huge fan of crime-noir stories and mid-century aesthetics, so I'm sure he would have continued the series. I met him at a comic convention in 2014, brought him several of my books to sign, chatted a bit, and even got a photo with him. The guy was a legend in comics, and those Parker graphic novels would probably appeal to a lot of people reading this thread, whether you're into comics or not. You mentioned Point Blank and Payback (the director's cut is indeed great; it's my favorite Mel Gibson movie), and both of those are adaptations of The Hunter. There is yet another Parker movie from 2013 (called Parker) -- the first one to refer to the character by the name Parker and not a different name -- starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez. It's not as good as you would hope, but much better than you think.
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Dec 30, 2020 19:50
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:I had no idea this existed! I admit I haven't read Richard Stark/Donald Westlake's Parker novels, but I am a HUGE fan of the late, great cartoonist Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel adaptations of four of them: The Hunter, The Outfit (yes, another adaptation of this same story), The Score, and Slayground. In 2016, Cooke passed away from cancer before he could do more, but he was a huge fan of crime-noir stories and mid-century aesthetics, so I'm sure he would have continued the series. I met him at a comic convention in 2014, brought him several of my books to sign, chatted a bit, and even got a photo with him. The guy was a legend in comics, and those Parker graphic novels would probably appeal to a lot of people reading this thread, whether you're into comics or not. The Audible Plus catalog has every Parker book available for free with your membership, it's an absolute steal. Cooke would have done such amazing adaptations of The Score or Butcher's Moon.
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Dec 30, 2020 20:38
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Lumbermouth posted:The Audible Plus catalog has every Parker book available for free with your membership, it's an absolute steal. Cooke would have done such amazing adaptations of The Score or Butcher's Moon. Have I got some great news for you! https://smile.amazon.com/Richard-St...09364802&sr=8-2
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Dec 30, 2020 22:47
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