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Any Body Like Film Noir??

ElMon

ElMon

May 30, 2004
7,364
6,345
44
Oklahoma City, OK
#1
Has anyone seen the move "BRICK"? It's got the skinny kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun, and it is straight out of a pulpy Mickey Spelaine novel, yet is set in a Cali-High School, and maintains the elements of both: Gritty, roughly-drawn characters, classic 50's speak (almost non-sensical at times, yet somewhat eloquent in its own way), seedy underwold characters, drugs, dames, booze, intrique, amatuer sleuthing, etc. coupled with the classics of high school: bullies, jocks, scorn women, past loves, kids dabbling in greater worlds that they have no idea about, so on and so forth.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. The acting was excellent (especially if your familiar with the genre of 'Film Noir') and the camerawork is somewhat reminescent of movies like 'Memento' and 'Fight Club' in its intense angles, creative editing and ability to make the camera become a side-character almost.

Anyways, just got done watchin it and was blown away. Best movie I've seen in a long while.
 
#2
Brick was good, double recommendation... it was smart enough to know when to play off the noir conventions and when to skewer them.

Modern noirs can bring up some interesting issues, you should check out the Long Goodbye by Robert Altman and, of course, Chinatown... I am a fan of some classic noirs: the Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, Out of the Past, the Asphalt Jungle, Touch of Evil, etc. The more convulted the plot, the better.
 
#6
Sin City and Bladerunner are both great movies... Sin City definitely does the noir thing well, but in it's own way, very unique just like most of Frank Miller's work. Bladerunner I wouldn't say is a noir, just because I'm familiar with the Philip K. Dick source material... the movie is consciously made with a noirish texture, but it's really a scifi meditation on being. Again, great movie.

A couple of other modern noirs that come to mind: Blood Simple, Fargo, and the American Friend (an early Wim Wenders film). I do like a lot of the Coen brothers work, I love their sense of humor, but the noir is where they really shine IMO. I think you could include Barton Fink and the Big Lebowski as sort of noirs, noirs gone awry. Another couple of wonderful movies.
 
#9
I like it when they act out film noir style on Whose Line Is It Anyway? Does that count?

In all seriousness I'm posting to see what movies come up. I've seen Memento and that was an excellent film IMO. I liked Blade Runner as well, but I've liked just about every Philip K. Dick movie adaptation I've seen. At some point I need to read his actual novels.
 
#10
WillPlay4Food said:
...I've liked just about every Philip K. Dick movie adaptation I've seen. At some point I need to read his actual novels.
Click to expand...

Yes, you do. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a good starting point, also the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, UBIK, A Scanner Darkly, Clans of the Alphane Moon, and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said are all great books to start off with P.K. Dick. Sorry for the slight derailment, I just like to encourage people to read his books because they're generally intelligent, humorous, self-effacing, and great fun.
 
#11
I used to really be into film noir and even neo noir.. I feel like such a nerd, having seen more than 90% of the movies you guys mentioned above.

Have any of you seen the movie Never Die Alone? Look past the fact that it has DMX in it and you're in for a film noir treat.
 

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