The Nice Guys (R)
"Nice Guys don't always finish last"
A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.
Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt. His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.
This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve. The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot. The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot). The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music. The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it. But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.
While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene. This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional. Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts. Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing. Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot. However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.
In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.
"More? Me too, mine's as big as a house!"
8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)
Showing posts with label Noir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Noir. Show all posts
Inherent Vice (2015)
Inherent Vice (R) - Noir Review
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (R) Review
"Not a Film to Kill For"
Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn) and Frank Miller (Sin City) hit the bricks once again in a return to the gritty monotone ultraviolent world of sin and sex. Unfortunately no one seems really up for another round.
So what can we blame this misfire on? Almost ten years have passed since the original's translation onto the screen, and it must be admitted that most of the choicest comic material was put into that version. A Dame To Kill For is sadly not anywhere near the best Sin City story, and neither are the ones Frank wrote anew for the screenplay. The untapped potential is a bloody strike against. The Hollywood type "prequel"/"sequel" is confusing timeline-wise (not to mention full of plot holes if you try to line it up with the previous incarnation). The ghost of Hartigan (Bruce Willis, in a boring cameo) is present just because it increases star power and a sequel demands a return of the first's stars (supposedly). Marv, as played by Mickey Rourke, was the enigmatic star of the first movie, and so gets shoehorned into every place possible frame here which hurts the overall story. There is no equivalent of the excellent Yellow Bastard to give us a breather from his bizarre man-tics. He's always popping up to ask "how you doin babe," or "hey kid" to the other new or recurring characters as if to say yes, I approve of this addition. But does the audience? These new kids (Eva Green baring all, Josh Brolin showing off his orbital sockets, Joseph Gordon Levitt as a cocky gambler) do well but unfortunately it's the ones behind the production that just don't seem to have the spark. Miller's inks and Rodriguez's camera (with some help from Tarantino) brought the manic fury and razor-sharp Noir of the original to the screen almost a decade ago, and just don't seem to have the drive to fully return. There's a lot of machismo posturing but not much conviction. The visuals aren't as unique, the brand isn't as obscure, the story isn't as diverse or convincing, and with some of the best stories left behind for iffy new material or perhaps to fuel a future sequel that probably won't ever happen, it's a damn sin (even with it's harder "R" rating).
3 Who Shrunk Marv's Nose out of 10 (BAD)
"Not a Film to Kill For"
Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn) and Frank Miller (Sin City) hit the bricks once again in a return to the gritty monotone ultraviolent world of sin and sex. Unfortunately no one seems really up for another round.
So what can we blame this misfire on? Almost ten years have passed since the original's translation onto the screen, and it must be admitted that most of the choicest comic material was put into that version. A Dame To Kill For is sadly not anywhere near the best Sin City story, and neither are the ones Frank wrote anew for the screenplay. The untapped potential is a bloody strike against. The Hollywood type "prequel"/"sequel" is confusing timeline-wise (not to mention full of plot holes if you try to line it up with the previous incarnation). The ghost of Hartigan (Bruce Willis, in a boring cameo) is present just because it increases star power and a sequel demands a return of the first's stars (supposedly). Marv, as played by Mickey Rourke, was the enigmatic star of the first movie, and so gets shoehorned into every place possible frame here which hurts the overall story. There is no equivalent of the excellent Yellow Bastard to give us a breather from his bizarre man-tics. He's always popping up to ask "how you doin babe," or "hey kid" to the other new or recurring characters as if to say yes, I approve of this addition. But does the audience? These new kids (Eva Green baring all, Josh Brolin showing off his orbital sockets, Joseph Gordon Levitt as a cocky gambler) do well but unfortunately it's the ones behind the production that just don't seem to have the spark. Miller's inks and Rodriguez's camera (with some help from Tarantino) brought the manic fury and razor-sharp Noir of the original to the screen almost a decade ago, and just don't seem to have the drive to fully return. There's a lot of machismo posturing but not much conviction. The visuals aren't as unique, the brand isn't as obscure, the story isn't as diverse or convincing, and with some of the best stories left behind for iffy new material or perhaps to fuel a future sequel that probably won't ever happen, it's a damn sin (even with it's harder "R" rating).
3 Who Shrunk Marv's Nose out of 10 (BAD)
The Counselor (2013)
The Counselor (R)
"What would the BAR Association say?"
The first script from the pen of author Cormack McCarthy (author of the novel No Country For Old Men) is a head scratching affair. Directed by the venerable yet wildly uneven Ridley Scott (Bladerunner), there is the expected energy and pop to the filmed scenes. A-list actors lead by Michael Fasbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz (miscast as a Jamaican femme fatale) culminate in one the years best casts, and yet the words fall flat. The snappy Noir prose style is leaden, the situations preposterous, the outcome dreary. The story? Fasbender plays a successful Texas lawyer, whose shady client base draw him into the south of the border drug smuggling business to maximize his profits. The house of cards is shaken by the backstabbing, golddigging Diaz, a character so over-sexualized, so misplaced, so supposedly evils-of-woman-incarnate/female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly that she could only come from the pen of a mid-life-crisis fever dream. Some scenes work, some shock to righteous effect, most collapse under the heavy weight of pretension. A freak show of many unique sights and sounds, but you may regret the two-bits to get in.
4.5 New Definition of Car Sex out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"What would the BAR Association say?"
The first script from the pen of author Cormack McCarthy (author of the novel No Country For Old Men) is a head scratching affair. Directed by the venerable yet wildly uneven Ridley Scott (Bladerunner), there is the expected energy and pop to the filmed scenes. A-list actors lead by Michael Fasbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz (miscast as a Jamaican femme fatale) culminate in one the years best casts, and yet the words fall flat. The snappy Noir prose style is leaden, the situations preposterous, the outcome dreary. The story? Fasbender plays a successful Texas lawyer, whose shady client base draw him into the south of the border drug smuggling business to maximize his profits. The house of cards is shaken by the backstabbing, golddigging Diaz, a character so over-sexualized, so misplaced, so supposedly evils-of-woman-incarnate/female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly that she could only come from the pen of a mid-life-crisis fever dream. Some scenes work, some shock to righteous effect, most collapse under the heavy weight of pretension. A freak show of many unique sights and sounds, but you may regret the two-bits to get in.
4.5 New Definition of Car Sex out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Drive (2011)
DRIVE (R)
"I've been driving all night, hands wet on the wheel"
From start to finish, Drive is pure visceral film making. The cinematography is fascinating, the editing sublime, the characters and how they are portrayed and composed in frame are filled with minutia. It reminded me of Vanishing Point, but with less car porn. It reminded me of early Tarantino without the "snappy-on-purpose" dialogue. The hyper-kinetic, golden rayed ultra-violence will turn some people off, but for me it was the splash of red on a beautifully large and complex canvas that has to be there for the film to be as effective as it is.
9 Muscley Cars out of 10 (GREAT)
Sin City (2005)
Sin City (R) - Review
"Family Values"
A city populated by criminals, victims, prostitutes and macho men. A neo-noir slugfest of questionable morals exploding onto the screen in black and white (and red and yellow).
Brought to life from the pages of comic-book legend Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror) directs the maniacs and femme-fatales into a whirlwind of bloody knuckles and smoking barrels. Based mostly on The Hard Kill and That Yellow Bastard, the film is almost a panel for panel, shot for shot translation instead of adaptation. The dedication to the look and feel works tremendously, especially with Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis fleshing out the iconic roles of Marv and Hartigan. Mickey's role is the linchpin as Marv, a pyscho with a hell of a jaw. Rourke is perfect for the tremendous tough guy, and the prosthesis bring out his jawline and his brow wonderfully, much like Perlman's make up on Hellboy brought the character to true life. Meanwhile Bruce is the prototypical sacrificial good cop Hartigan, chasing a demonic politically-protected pervert (one of the most unique villains ever put to paper and somehow brought to screen perfectly by actor Nick Stall and a lot of yellow tinting). The rest of the cast supports them to a great degree, Elijah Wood playing against type as an unstoppable killer, Rosario Dawson as a S&M leather clad enforcer, Rutger Hauer as a sinful bishop, Benicio Del Toro as a dead sleezeball, the cast really is terrific. Even Quentin Tarrantino got in on the fun, stepping in to direct a scene or two without breaking style.
A couple of duds should be mentioned however. Sometimes the green screen limits the action and creates some awkward compositing, and not every member of the cast sparkles. There can be a wish for more of an intercutting between the stories than the existing one-at-a-time framework. Having to wait through the half-slog of Clive Owen's Dwight to see the conclusion of Hartigan is a bit of a drag, slipping through the series' true star Marv so early on is a bit of a let down. As direct of a translation as it is most of the mysoginy and strange femme-power from the book makes it onscreen and won't be everyone's cup of teeth. Still, the rapid highs overshadow it's lows, and Sin City has no place for grey area. Either you are all in or you are out, and damn the consequences.
8 Hatchet Noses out of 10 (GREAT)
"Family Values"
A city populated by criminals, victims, prostitutes and macho men. A neo-noir slugfest of questionable morals exploding onto the screen in black and white (and red and yellow).
Brought to life from the pages of comic-book legend Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror) directs the maniacs and femme-fatales into a whirlwind of bloody knuckles and smoking barrels. Based mostly on The Hard Kill and That Yellow Bastard, the film is almost a panel for panel, shot for shot translation instead of adaptation. The dedication to the look and feel works tremendously, especially with Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis fleshing out the iconic roles of Marv and Hartigan. Mickey's role is the linchpin as Marv, a pyscho with a hell of a jaw. Rourke is perfect for the tremendous tough guy, and the prosthesis bring out his jawline and his brow wonderfully, much like Perlman's make up on Hellboy brought the character to true life. Meanwhile Bruce is the prototypical sacrificial good cop Hartigan, chasing a demonic politically-protected pervert (one of the most unique villains ever put to paper and somehow brought to screen perfectly by actor Nick Stall and a lot of yellow tinting). The rest of the cast supports them to a great degree, Elijah Wood playing against type as an unstoppable killer, Rosario Dawson as a S&M leather clad enforcer, Rutger Hauer as a sinful bishop, Benicio Del Toro as a dead sleezeball, the cast really is terrific. Even Quentin Tarrantino got in on the fun, stepping in to direct a scene or two without breaking style.
A couple of duds should be mentioned however. Sometimes the green screen limits the action and creates some awkward compositing, and not every member of the cast sparkles. There can be a wish for more of an intercutting between the stories than the existing one-at-a-time framework. Having to wait through the half-slog of Clive Owen's Dwight to see the conclusion of Hartigan is a bit of a drag, slipping through the series' true star Marv so early on is a bit of a let down. As direct of a translation as it is most of the mysoginy and strange femme-power from the book makes it onscreen and won't be everyone's cup of teeth. Still, the rapid highs overshadow it's lows, and Sin City has no place for grey area. Either you are all in or you are out, and damn the consequences.
8 Hatchet Noses out of 10 (GREAT)
To Live and Die in LA (1985)
To Live and Die in LA (R)
"West Coast Miami Vice"
A Secret Service agent's partner is gunned down by a nefarious counterfeiter, leading to a violent and reckless chase through Los Angeles alleyways and gutters that shows the very best director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) had to offer in 1985s lush cop noir, To Live and Die in LA.
William Peterson, a year before his breakout in Michael Mann's Manhunter, grinds through a great role and performance as Agent Chance. A bungie jumping, scarf and jersey wearing man's man, Chance bends the law (and a few ladies) to get the bad guy, no matter the danger to him or his fellow agents. Trying to stay alive is his new partner Agent Vukovic played by John Pankow (TV's Mad About You best friend Ira). They are up against a very young raw Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ, Platoon), a modern artist who burns his own canvas and prints his own money when he needs it. Dafoe's trade is challenged when his funnymoney mule John Turturro is busted and sent to prison.
Twisting and slithering through the dusty streets of LA fueled by the golden-synth tunes of Wang Chung, this forgotten buddy picture is a hard edged nightmare of pure 80s that can often seen to be an no punches pulled imitation of Mann's breakout hit Miami Vice. The true life gritty memoirs of a Secret Service man's career leads Friedkin down a dark path, which is where William excels. Having produced several masterpieces (and many forgettable pieces), his To Live and Die is a shock to the system. The violent death, the Neon pink fonts, the metro-sexuality of the villains, the new wave pop music, the strutting and the whimpering male egos, the best car chase since his own French Connections, it all congeals into an artform that is almost dead and almost never was. There are some slices to the film that haven't aged as well; the arty music video jump cuts in the opening montage, dancers in spandex and face paint, the Poprock soundtrack, the now cliche doomed dude who is "3 days from retirement", but honestly TLADILA most likely was one of the first to dip into those tropes anyway. Plus with a movie so different in tone (a dark realistic look at the 80s filled with brutality and unforeseen twists all filmed in sunny California) and has such an uncompromising stance on story and speed of narrative, Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA is beautifully untypical crime and coppers caper that is fast, cheap and almost out of control.
8 Wrong Ways on an LA Freeway out of 10 (GREAT)
"West Coast Miami Vice"
A Secret Service agent's partner is gunned down by a nefarious counterfeiter, leading to a violent and reckless chase through Los Angeles alleyways and gutters that shows the very best director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) had to offer in 1985s lush cop noir, To Live and Die in LA.
William Peterson, a year before his breakout in Michael Mann's Manhunter, grinds through a great role and performance as Agent Chance. A bungie jumping, scarf and jersey wearing man's man, Chance bends the law (and a few ladies) to get the bad guy, no matter the danger to him or his fellow agents. Trying to stay alive is his new partner Agent Vukovic played by John Pankow (TV's Mad About You best friend Ira). They are up against a very young raw Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ, Platoon), a modern artist who burns his own canvas and prints his own money when he needs it. Dafoe's trade is challenged when his funnymoney mule John Turturro is busted and sent to prison.
Twisting and slithering through the dusty streets of LA fueled by the golden-synth tunes of Wang Chung, this forgotten buddy picture is a hard edged nightmare of pure 80s that can often seen to be an no punches pulled imitation of Mann's breakout hit Miami Vice. The true life gritty memoirs of a Secret Service man's career leads Friedkin down a dark path, which is where William excels. Having produced several masterpieces (and many forgettable pieces), his To Live and Die is a shock to the system. The violent death, the Neon pink fonts, the metro-sexuality of the villains, the new wave pop music, the strutting and the whimpering male egos, the best car chase since his own French Connections, it all congeals into an artform that is almost dead and almost never was. There are some slices to the film that haven't aged as well; the arty music video jump cuts in the opening montage, dancers in spandex and face paint, the Poprock soundtrack, the now cliche doomed dude who is "3 days from retirement", but honestly TLADILA most likely was one of the first to dip into those tropes anyway. Plus with a movie so different in tone (a dark realistic look at the 80s filled with brutality and unforeseen twists all filmed in sunny California) and has such an uncompromising stance on story and speed of narrative, Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA is beautifully untypical crime and coppers caper that is fast, cheap and almost out of control.
8 Wrong Ways on an LA Freeway out of 10 (GREAT)
Thief (1981)
Thief (R)
"Honor among Films"
Before electrifying 80s television with the cinematic crime series "Miami Vice" that catapulted him to fame, Director Micheal Mann wrote and directed this superb noir starring James Caan as a safecracker trying to do one more heist and go straight for his new found love and life.
Mann brings such a hard edge and slick sense of style to the film it's pulse is palpable. Caan's thief is a palpable antihero, an ultimate professional who has pulled himself by his bootstraps above street crime to profitability and self-righteous dignity. Unfortunately those he works among are missed the notice about honor among thieves, and through a disconnected series of events makes his last play at love, life and respectability while his new bosses try to suck him farther and farther into a new career of crime. One of Caan's most powerful roles, he is trapped between the need for wealth, need for love and the need for legitimacy. He is an uneducated, brutal bleeding heart whose only fear is a return to prison.
The rough edges of character and directly balanced out by Mann's best visuals and style. Thief crackles with energy, even in the shadows, and the final shootout brings a neon-lit Peckinpah vibe to the violence. His most visually striking film is also his first, and his best written characterization on screen until the release of Heat, Thief steals the show for both Mann and Caan.
9 Blue Jeans and Windbreakers with a .45 out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
"Honor among Films"
Before electrifying 80s television with the cinematic crime series "Miami Vice" that catapulted him to fame, Director Micheal Mann wrote and directed this superb noir starring James Caan as a safecracker trying to do one more heist and go straight for his new found love and life.
Mann brings such a hard edge and slick sense of style to the film it's pulse is palpable. Caan's thief is a palpable antihero, an ultimate professional who has pulled himself by his bootstraps above street crime to profitability and self-righteous dignity. Unfortunately those he works among are missed the notice about honor among thieves, and through a disconnected series of events makes his last play at love, life and respectability while his new bosses try to suck him farther and farther into a new career of crime. One of Caan's most powerful roles, he is trapped between the need for wealth, need for love and the need for legitimacy. He is an uneducated, brutal bleeding heart whose only fear is a return to prison.
The rough edges of character and directly balanced out by Mann's best visuals and style. Thief crackles with energy, even in the shadows, and the final shootout brings a neon-lit Peckinpah vibe to the violence. His most visually striking film is also his first, and his best written characterization on screen until the release of Heat, Thief steals the show for both Mann and Caan.
9 Blue Jeans and Windbreakers with a .45 out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
Stray Dog (1949)
Stray Dog (PG)
"Hot Dog"
Master director Akira Kurusawa casts his greatest star, Toshiro Mifune, against type as an idealistic rookie police officer in 1940s Tokyo. Mifune is distraught at the prospect of losing his position when he loses his police issue pistol, become frantic when it is discovered the gun has been used in a recent. Mifune is subdued yet boiling under the surface, but the real masterstroke of Stray Dog is the image of post-war post-surrender life in Japan. The slums, the people, the empty streets, the real life locations; they all echo ghost like and sadly angry from the past in stark black and white photography. Other pleasures are the vintage Japanese baseball footage, the above-the-law attitudes of the underworld denizens, Mifune has done better police procedurals (High and Low), but Mifune's wise old partner provides the humor and Toshiro provides the struggle between law and order and the law of the wild: Kill or be killed.
8 Somebody install some Sony Air Conditioning out of 10 (GREAT)
"Hot Dog"
Master director Akira Kurusawa casts his greatest star, Toshiro Mifune, against type as an idealistic rookie police officer in 1940s Tokyo. Mifune is distraught at the prospect of losing his position when he loses his police issue pistol, become frantic when it is discovered the gun has been used in a recent. Mifune is subdued yet boiling under the surface, but the real masterstroke of Stray Dog is the image of post-war post-surrender life in Japan. The slums, the people, the empty streets, the real life locations; they all echo ghost like and sadly angry from the past in stark black and white photography. Other pleasures are the vintage Japanese baseball footage, the above-the-law attitudes of the underworld denizens, Mifune has done better police procedurals (High and Low), but Mifune's wise old partner provides the humor and Toshiro provides the struggle between law and order and the law of the wild: Kill or be killed.
8 Somebody install some Sony Air Conditioning out of 10 (GREAT)
Underworld U.S.A. (1961)
Underworld U.S.A. (NR)
A street-wise kid witnesses the murder of his father in a shady alley on New Years Eve, and some twenty years later is finally seeking a cold blooded revenge that can only exist in Sam Fuller's gritty old fashioned crime story Underworld U.S.A.
Tully Devlin (played with machismo by Cliff Robertson) is low rent hood that has spent his youth in orphanages/reformatories and jail. Knowing only one of the four men who killed his father by name, Tully gets himself arrested again when he finds out the killer, Vic, is dying in prison. Tully begins to exact a "Yojimbo" like vengeance, setting the criminals on themselves yet Tully is no anti-hero. He is a street rat through and through, violent and selfish and beyond redemption. Only a former-prostitute caught up in his ring of deception can melt his hell bent heart in a sad grey-widow kind of way, but will it lead to his destruction?
Old fashioned in all the right ways (feels much more 50s than 60s), the writing is punchy and over stylized, the cinematography graphical and stark, the acting sweaty and grim. It's all the hallmarks of a good Fuller film, a man whose earlier career in criminal reporting really lends itself to the material. In his hands Tully's character doesn't resort to the same old tropes to be a likeable thug, he is a full-on hardened criminal without regrets and yet his revenge kick is completely relatable and the under handed way he goes about it is somehow commendable. Even when he laughs at the idea of marrying Cuddles the whore, or tricking the police into getting his enemies killed, he's still a likeable lout that is still without a redeeming quality. Perhaps since he's a paragon of virtue compared to the real bad guys, sunglasses wearing assassins in Cadillacs with no conscience about feeding heroin to school girls on bicycles. Tully meanwhile is the perfect Fuller prototype "hero," a raw knuckled down on his luck everyman who despite a lifelong commitment to crime, its all by circumstance and he still has a few veins of pure gold in his scarred black heart, leaving him perilously just a few steps away from getting greased for his humanity.
7.5 Rolling Drunk Punks out of 10 (GOOD)
A street-wise kid witnesses the murder of his father in a shady alley on New Years Eve, and some twenty years later is finally seeking a cold blooded revenge that can only exist in Sam Fuller's gritty old fashioned crime story Underworld U.S.A.
Tully Devlin (played with machismo by Cliff Robertson) is low rent hood that has spent his youth in orphanages/reformatories and jail. Knowing only one of the four men who killed his father by name, Tully gets himself arrested again when he finds out the killer, Vic, is dying in prison. Tully begins to exact a "Yojimbo" like vengeance, setting the criminals on themselves yet Tully is no anti-hero. He is a street rat through and through, violent and selfish and beyond redemption. Only a former-prostitute caught up in his ring of deception can melt his hell bent heart in a sad grey-widow kind of way, but will it lead to his destruction?
Old fashioned in all the right ways (feels much more 50s than 60s), the writing is punchy and over stylized, the cinematography graphical and stark, the acting sweaty and grim. It's all the hallmarks of a good Fuller film, a man whose earlier career in criminal reporting really lends itself to the material. In his hands Tully's character doesn't resort to the same old tropes to be a likeable thug, he is a full-on hardened criminal without regrets and yet his revenge kick is completely relatable and the under handed way he goes about it is somehow commendable. Even when he laughs at the idea of marrying Cuddles the whore, or tricking the police into getting his enemies killed, he's still a likeable lout that is still without a redeeming quality. Perhaps since he's a paragon of virtue compared to the real bad guys, sunglasses wearing assassins in Cadillacs with no conscience about feeding heroin to school girls on bicycles. Tully meanwhile is the perfect Fuller prototype "hero," a raw knuckled down on his luck everyman who despite a lifelong commitment to crime, its all by circumstance and he still has a few veins of pure gold in his scarred black heart, leaving him perilously just a few steps away from getting greased for his humanity.
7.5 Rolling Drunk Punks out of 10 (GOOD)
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- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway