Noir Thread: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Noir Thread: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

quote:

Haven't seen No Way Out, but In the Heat of the Night, while debatably noir, is loving amazing, if you haven't seen it yet drop everything.

Both are must see.

MightyJoe36 fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Dec 7, 2018

# ¿ Dec 7, 2018 19:03

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:42

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

Side Street (1950)

Joe Norson (Farley Granger), a poor letter carrier with a sweet, pregnant wife, yields to momentary temptation and steals $30,000 belonging to a pair of ruthless blackmailers who won't stop at murder. After a few days of soul-searching, Joe offers to return the money, only to find that the "friend" he left it with has absconded. Now every move Joe makes plunges him deeper into trouble, as he's pursued and pursuing through the shadowy, sinister side of New York.

According to IMDB, this was director Anthony Mann's last film noir. After this, he would only make westerns.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2020 19:51

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is a 1982 neo-noir comedy-mystery film directed by Carl Reiner. Starring Steve Martin and Rachel Ward, the film is both a parody of and a homage to film noir and the pulp detective movies of the 1940s.

Juliet Forrest (Ward), the daughter of noted scientist and cheesemaker John Hay Forrest, asks private investigator Rigby Reardon (Martin) to investigate her father's death, which she believes to be a murder.

It is partly a collage film, incorporating clips from 19 vintage films including: This Gun For Hire, The Big Sleep, White Heat, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Suspicion, Notorious, In a Lonely Place, and more. They are combined with new footage of Martin and other actors similarly shot in black-and-white, with the result that the original dialogue and acting of the classic films become part of a completely different story.

Both campy and cheesy at times, it's still a fun watch if you are a fan of classic noir films, if for no other reason than just picking out the classic clips.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2020 14:30

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

I thought Don Cheadle stole the show every scene he was in.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 15:48

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

Lone Star was great.

My favorite line, "I'm going over to the other side." "Republicans?" "No, Mexico."

# ¿ Jan 22, 2021 17:58

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Miller's Crossing (1990), dir. Ethan and Joel Coen

Gabriel Byrne, looking like Henry Fonda, who looks like Willem Defoe, who looks like himself, is a right hand man to Albert Finney, an Irish mob boss in a Prohibition-era city in the US. Trouble is stirring, and it involves Marcia Gay Harden, Finney's squeeze; John Turturro, her brother; Jon Polito, a rival mob boss; and J. E. Freeman, Polito's right hand man.

This is the second Coen neo-noir, after their first movie and first neo-noir, Blood Simple. I liked this one when I first saw it and I liked it on rewatch too. The plot is pretty traditional and largely uninteresting, which is unusual for the Coens. And Byrne, although he does a good job, doesn't get a very interesting character to play, in part because of how the plot works out, I guess. But the cinematography is gorgeous (Barry Sonnenfeld), the music is great (Carter Burwell), the period details are fun, and Turturro and Polito especially are firing on all cylinders.

A lot of the movie is drawn from the Hammett novel The Glass Key, another adaptation of which we've already seen in this thread. Although this is one of the Coen movies which is played the most straight, there are some touches of their characteristic way of looking at the world, like a wonderful standoff scene outside a speakeasy and a police raid of a gambling club, both of which are huge setpieces with no particular importance to the plot, so they end up getting used as background for the conversations which actually matter, to humorous effect. A very good throwback neo-noir.

Great movie, but a marathon to watch.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 15:19

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Directed by William Friedkin. Starring then unknowns Willem Dafoe and William Petersen.

Rick Masters (Dafoe) is a master counterfeiter and wannabe modern artist who is always one step ahead of the Secret Service.

Richard Chance (Petersen) is a hot dog Secret Service agent not above bending the rules.

When Chance's partner, who is four days from retirement, gets too close, Masters kills him and leaves his body in a dumpster. Chance then goes full rogue, doing everything he can, legal and illegal, to get Masters.

This is a pretty good neo-noir, with lots of twists and turns, double-crosses, and shady characters. An overlooked gem in my opinion.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 15:34

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Rewatching continues:

The Long Goodbye (1973), dir. Robert Altman

Elliott Gould is private detective Philip Marlowe in 1970s LA. His friend Jim Bouton asks him for a lift to the Mexican border and this touches off an intricate spider web of noir plotting involving Nina van Pallandt, who is the wife of Sterling Hayden, a troubled author, and Mark Rydell, a gangster (who employs Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first even movie role, as a goon).

A true masterpiece. Gould is perfect as the eternally nonplussed but simultaneously streetwise and competent Marlowe. He's constantly muttering to himself as he smokes his way through a city that just wants to chew him up and spit him out, and he's not sure how much to care about it. The plot takes a backseat to the action of the movie, which means if you don't pay attention you'll get to the end of the film and realize you have no idea what the gently caress was going on, which is a really interesting way to structure a mystery noir.

All the other performances are great - Hayden as a Hemingway type stands out, but Rydell is also great as a gangster straddling the line between pedestrian and vile. In a touch of absurd genius, the theme song for the movie, "The Long Goodbye" (composed by John Williams), constantly shows up in various forms, from the tune in the supermarket that Gould hums along to, to the song the piano player is practicing in a bar. The camera does some slick moving at points, and there's some humor to liven things up. There's a cat I forgot to get pictures of and a dog. 91/100

I just watched this whole movie for the first time on Amazon the other night (I saw parts of it on TV when it aired back in the 70s). I loved it. I couldn't figure out what the director was going for - comedy, drama, satire, or all three. Somehow that made for a great watch.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2023 16:07

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

Air Skwirl posted:

That's like half of Robert Altman's work. Very few of his movies are like each other, but they're all obviously Robert Altman.

Yeah, I definitely got some M*A*S*H* and Nashville vibes from it.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 13:19

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:42

MightyJoe36: Dec 29, 2013; Cat Army

This one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film)

My very first Noir film. The tone and cinematography got me in a way that I could not understand at the time (I was like 12) but it got me hooked on noir films before I even knew it was a genre.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2023 12:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Noir Thread: The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter