Attention all you molls and mugs, it's yer last chance to go to the noir side with me at Local 121 for the Wednesday Night Film Noir series, tomorrow (12/12)at 7:00 PM. Attendance has been spotty, but decent enough to make another go at it on the flip side of the holiday season, probably for a brief series called Paranoia in Film or The Films of Paranoia , or something much more pretentious and seri-ass sounding. (Suggestions?)Anyway, please, baby, please, c'mon down for the final film of the first series, have a drink or two, listen to my insightful spiel, and watch an intriguing movie:
Brick (2005) An outside choice to spice up this brief noir series, ostensibly a modern neo-noir, clearly a homage and genre reconsideration by smart guy and first time writer/director Rian Johnson. Image a Chandler/Hammett styled investigative jigsaw puzzle set in high school, with the hardboiled protagonist a teen (well played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) determined to unearth the truth despite the consequences. Neither a spoof, a textbook redo, or an exercise in irony, but a bold and cool mixture of style and setting, with the neat and effective affection of having the high school cats and kittens speaking in a gangster patois from decades earlier. Moody, intelligent, and unnerving enough to be included in the sublime cannon of film noir.
1 comment:
Not really worthy of inclusion in your series, but curious enough for a look-see: 1993's "Guncrazy".
With sexpot urchin Drew Barrymore and a plebeian James LeGros as guncrazy lovers and fun turns by Billy Drago and yes Joe Dallesandro. A for effort B- for execution. "Brick" is a great little pot-boiler and stands up well to repeated viewings.
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