Yeah, it's cool little infographic.
I think it'd also be fun to examine the criteria in films labeled as modern or neo-noir like The Big Lebowski, or The Man Who Wasn't There.
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Yeah, it's cool little infographic.
I think it'd also be fun to examine the criteria in films labeled as modern or neo-noir like The Big Lebowski, or The Man Who Wasn't There.
Would The Big Lebowski be more "heavily influenced by," rather than legitimate noir? I haven't seen The Man Who Wasn't There recently enough to comment on that one.
I've seen a lot of the ones they listed and I'm still woefully behind when it comes to film noir. It's one of my favorite genres.
Is there a dedicated discussion thread for Aleksei German's Hard To Be A God (2013)? My searches only pointed me to an old thread that ended right before the movie was released and no one had actually watched it up to that point.
There was a brief discussion of it here a few posts ago, but no. I got one started here: http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showth...leksei-German)
(Haven't watched it yet myself, but I'm hoping to make time this weekend.)
Oh thanks, weird that it didn't receive more attention around here, perhaps the distribution was too limited? I guess it received an english blu-ray release just now.
Yeah, the best (and nerdiest) part is the infographic. Love that.
Everything related that came out after Touch of Evil is neo-noir. I've always lived by that canon.
After the Bigamist, I've now seen a second of Ida Lupino's directorial work, Outrage. This one has a strong rhythm, enhanced by some good impressionistic details and uses of sound and silence. It's a story of rape that never is allowed to say the word on-screen, but it details the aftereffects and trauma quite intelligently, though some of the victim's triggers seem unrelated until the final ten minutes, when the originary trauma finally resurfaces. Yet the film, minus some god-awful trips and faints in an attempt to escape the rapist early in the film (which I'm politely choosing to view as period excess melodrama), has an interesting discussion about what services are best suited to enabling a victim's recovery.
It posits religion and counseling, not family or friends, and in that I find the Lupino's film rather interesting. It's the sort of work that makes me want to seek out her The Hitch-hiker at some point.
I've seen The Hitch-hiker and I have fond recollections of it. I'd like to see Lupino's other films at some point. She was cool.
I re-watched Big Trouble in Little China last weekend. Still great; it's pacing and momentum are unbeatable. Paralleled by a few, but unbeaten. It's face paced and relentlessly plotted, but it never feels rushed or like things are missing.
Wrote some stuff about The Fly on my blog:
Quote:
The Fly opens with a close-up of Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who boasts of an invention that's going to change "human life as we know it." The Fly closes with a wide shot of his invention broken, his apartment smoldering, his life in ruin. The film takes place almost entirely in that apartment: a water-stained loft stuffed with wires and tubes and one of those endearing, enormous '80s computers designed to say the few things the film requires it to say, like "Fusion Complete." The film's story deals almost exclusively with the three people glimpsed in that final wide shot. And in that image, The Fly, maybe the best horror film of the '80s, shows the end-result of its sole conceit: that its hero, Seth Brundle, discovers a way to teleport matter by ripping it apart - molecule by molecule - and rebuilding it elsewhere.
The twist of the film, of course, is that a fly zips into Goldblum's "telepod" during an ill-considered experiment on himself, and his computer merges man and fly at the genetic level. This twist offers a darker take on the original 1950s potboiler, a hokey but endearing film in which the hero merely swapped his head and arm with a fly.
In the 1986 version, the transformation is quieter, a feature-length escalation instead of a single event. His decay comes off like some kind of disease. But which one?
In a way, Brundle's "disease" is every disease. His skin sweats. Rashes form. Strange growths poke from his back. He loses his teeth and fingernails. People eager to dub the '80s the AIDS decade could call Brundle's skin lesions a nod to the then-new virus, but his symptoms indicate everything from everyday eczema to the after-effects of chemotherapy. It can't be a coincidence that writer/director David Cronenberg's father battled cancer during filming, but the depiction of Brundle's deterioration goes beyond even that broadest of sicknesses. His affliction becomes all afflictions. Brundle is on the way out.
The film's gruesome study of Brundle's biology won makeup supervisor Chris Walas an Oscar (his name is the first one you see when the end-credits roll). As Brundle evolves into Brundlefly, makeup and prosthetics transform Jeff Golblum without a single seam. So long as Brundle can talk in the film, Jeff Goldblum plays him, covered in layers of latex applied over countless hours. The illusion always convinces. Even during the climax, when the "Brundlefly" sloughs off its human chrysalis and emerges as a spindly Bosch-ian impossibility (an animatronic puppet effect). There's a tactility to the creation that would be lost with modern-day computer graphics. It doesn't look "real," but the monster clearly exists in the same space as the heroes.
One of the many sharp details given during his deterioration is how Brundle adapts by adopting gallows humor. After he explains that his computer essentially "mated" him with the fly via gene-splicing, he adds, "We hadn't even been properly introduced." Saving body parts like teeth and ears in a medicine cabinet for God knows what reason (nostalgia?), Brundle dubs the cabinet "the Brundle Museum of Natural History." He mumbles about "insect politics" and displays his new way of eating food with genuine enthusiasm. He names himself "Brundlefly" and grins.
Despite retaining his intellect and good-humor, the fly's brain grows in power. His already-jittery demeanor grows agitated. His sex drive increases, leading to a fling with a trashy barfly. Late in the film, it's hard to tell if him vomiting green glop onto an antagonist is an act of human aggression or animal instinct (and maybe a little hunger). Worst of all, his desire to live outstrips his compassion for Ronnie. He decides that, if he merges with her through the teleportation process, he can be more human.
Or maybe he can be with her forever that way. He chuckles and suggests they could become "the ultimate family," and, stepping back, you realize what spurred him to test the telepods wasn't a classic mad scientist moment of hubris. "Fools, I'll show them all!" Instead, he misreads Ronnie's meeting with an old flame. Spurred by sexual jealousy, he walks in one telepod and out the other. The drama of the film emerges from a single moment of conflicted love. And even as Brundle regresses, he retains enough of that love to ward her away at a crucial moment, offering the heartbreaking line, "I'm saying... I'm afraid I'll hurt you if you stay."
It's through this relationship that the film, whether intended or not, might operate on another basic level, depicting how men (and nerds in particular) seek the purity of women as a means of diminishing their own imperfections. By seeking validation and self-respect through the women they love, men vaunt women, unfairly, to the status of goddess. Brundle may love Ronnie, but he finally sees her as a creature of organic perfection first and foremost. He wants them to be together forever... but for his own benefit. Her autonomy becomes secondary. Which is the great problem of venerating the opposite sex. Put someone on a pedestal, and they become a statue, an object. Not an equal.
Think of how Brundle's "rescue" of Ronnie from a hospital late in the film leads to a shot that seems pulled from the Universal classic Creature From the Black Lagoon. The monster holding his bride.
Stuart Gordon once commented that his infamous cunnilingus scene in Re-Animator was a simple extrapolation of that classic horror image of the monster carrying a woman away to his (always his) lair. Gordon claimed he simply went the next step and showed what the monster wanted, which Gordon decided was sex. That's certainly what his lustful professor in Re-Animator wanted, but I suspect the classic Universal monsters (and many after them) wanted something simpler and more emotional than sex. If a man can find someone to love him, then he is not as monstrous as he might fear.
Goldblum and Davis, who dated at the time of production, bring conviction to this dynamic. Like Christopher Walken in Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, Goldblum here creates a full-blooded tragic hero, one augmented by a veteran actor's eccentricities instead of overwhelmed by them. Goldblum's familiar style of talking - fidgety, abrupt, interrupted with the "ums" and "ahhs" of a mouth struggling to keep up with a buzzing mind - fits perfectly to his role of overager scientist. Geena Davis's Ronnie risks being a foil, especially in the back half of the film, as she can only observe Brundle's slow transformation, but she regains agency after learning she's pregnant with Brundle's baby. In the closing moments, she makes the biggest, most difficult choice of all.
The only other character is the skeevy Stathis Borans (John Getz), whose presence as both Geena Davis's boss and her former lover evokes that elegant Pixar guideline to combine characters whenever possible. Although his role could be split in two, the fusion allows for both personal and professional jealousy to intermingle, and the story gives him the courtesy of meaningful development. For most of the film, Getz is among the great self-absorbed pricks of the 1980s, cousin to William Atherton and Paul Gleason. But he breaks down when he confronts Davis in a clothing store, rebuilds his ego, and he manages a fumbling redemption in his effort to kill the Brundlefly in the finale.
Huge symphony strings and brass ebb and flow through the film under the stewardship of Cronenberg's regular composer, Howard Shore. Since The Fly, Shore contributed music to equally disturbing films like The Silence of the Lambs and Seven. In those subsequent films, you hear the same interest in lush, full orchestra to set the tone, opposite to contemporary percussion-heavy intensity-rampers like Hans Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg. With this kind of operatic score, there's a chance the film could overplay its emotions and fall into camp, but no, somehow the music elevates The Fly, especially during the heart-crushing final ten minutes, a climax so reliant on faces and action it could play as silent film.
The Fly stands tall as the peak of a string of excellent '80s horror remakes. John Carpenter's The Thing, Chuck Russell's The Blob, and Paul Schrader's Cat People honor their inspirations (Goldblum also played a supporting role in the effective 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Products of a new Hollywood style, these films push more naturalistic acting and dialogue, more explicit gore and makeup effects. More importantly, they all escape their origins by retaining one core idea and rebuilding the narrative into something fresh. New characters, new contexts, new versions of the monsters based on contemporary anxieties.
Where The Fly succeeds over its brethren is in its creation of a laser-focused, character-centric story, where a plausible, enviable romance leads to rash decisions and impossible choices. Thanks to its storytelling economy, The Fly leaves room to build its emotions to dizzying heights. This allows the story to be the best possible version of itself, simultaneously the zenith and the most fundamental Platonic idea of what a monster movie is. Within that simplicity, The Fly contains multitudes.
Good stuff. Also like your recurring images articles, BTW.
Excellent review sir.
Also I watched and really liked Ride The Pink Horse. "Too many angles."
BBC's 100 greatest American films
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...american-films
Quote:
100. Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951)
99. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
98. Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)
97. Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
96. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
95. Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)
94. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
93. Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
92. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)
91. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
90. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
89. In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
88. West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961)
87. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
86. The Lion King (Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 1994)
85. Night of the Living Dead (George A Romero, 1968)
84. Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)
83. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
82. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
81. Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
80. Meet Me in St Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
79. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
78. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
77. Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
76. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
75. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
74. Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)
73. Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
72. The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941)
71. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
70. The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953)
69. Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
68. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
67. Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
66. Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)
65. The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, 1983)
64. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
63. Love Streams (John Cassavetes, 1984)
62. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
61. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
60. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
59. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975)
58. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
57. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)
56. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
55. The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
54. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
53. Grey Gardens (Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, 1975)
52. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
51. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
50. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
49. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
48. A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
47. Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1964)
46. It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
45. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
44. Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton, 1924)
43. Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948)
42. Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
41. Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)
40. Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)
39. The Birth of a Nation (DW Griffith, 1915)
38. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
37. Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
36. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
35. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
34. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
33. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
32. The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
31. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)
30. Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
29. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
28. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
27. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
26. Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978)
25. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
24. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
23. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
22. Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)
21. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
20. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
19. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
18. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
17. The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, 1925)
16. McCabe & Mrs Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
15. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946)
14. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
13. North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
12. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
11. The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
10. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
9. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
8. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
7. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)
6. Sunrise (FW Murnau, 1927)
5. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
3. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
2. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
In case you missed it: Yes, critics around the world placed Forrest Gump ahead of Tree of Life.
I like Forrest Gump much better than The Tree of Life.
I'd like to know what the AFI thinks the hundred greatest British films are.
If there isn't some sort of AFI / BFI turf war, there should be.
http://www.lens-views.com/Index/West...ry_blu-ray.jpg
And now back to your regularly scheduled pendantry:
BBC =/= BFI
Closest American analogue to the BBC would be PBS.
(But it's still a great joke, though)
It's definitely a weird list, split between auteurist favorites (Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock) and forgettable Oscar winners. Also, no Sam Fuller: what the fuck?
Movies I think shouldn't be on the list: The Birth of a Nation only comes alive in the hysterically racist second half; during the first part, I can't always keep track of which genteel white family is which. Duck Soup and Some Like it Hot just don't make me laugh. Gone With the Wind is boring. It's a Wonderful Life is alright, but Capra was a vastly more interesting director in the early '30s before he won an Oscar (see American Madness and The Bitter Tea of General Yen). The Band Wagon is far from my favourite Astaire musical, though I should probably give it another look. The Apartment is second-tier Wilder (I prefer One, Two, Three! and Avanti!). West Side Story is pretty forgettable.
The Graduate is interesting stylistically and has a few good laughs, but there isn't much of a story; I prefer Carnal Knowledge. The Night of the Living Dead is easily the best zombie movie I've seen (unless one counts the misleadingly titled I Walked With a Zombie) but that's not saying a whole lot. In terms of storytelling, Mean Streets and Raging Bull both strike me as pretty choppy, though not so much as The Tree of Life. Grey Gardens seemed to me unpleasantly voyeuristic and mean-spirited the one time I saw it a decade ago (and I have similar reservations about Sunset Blvd., though it's a much better movie). One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a straight-up bummer and misogynist to boot; I prefer Loves of a Blonde, Taking Off, and Amadeus. I just read in Sidney Lumet's book Making Movies that Paddy Chayefsky didn't want Vanessa Redgrave for Network because she was a PLO supporter, which definitely explains some things about the movie. I loved Star Wars when I was eleven, but seeing it again, I found it just mildly diverting, and I have no desire to revisit The Empire Strikes Back. (I suspect I'd feel the same way about Indiana Jones if I were to see it again today--my last viewing was in 2004--but then, Spielberg is a much better filmmaker than Lucas, so who knows? It's also been a while since I've seen E.T.) Apocalypse Now is a series of set pieces in search of a structure, and the last half hour is pretty incoherent; I prefer Bram Stoker's Dracula. Heaven's Gate is wonderful to look at, but it's so stately and portentous than I can't really get involved in the story; I prefer The Deer Hunter.
Koyaanisqatsi is entertaining but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. I saw The Right Stuff once a decade ago and can barely remember it. Crimes and Misdemeanors is obvious and clumsy; I prefer Match Point. Seriously, The Lion King? Schindler's List is one of Spielberg's most moving films, but fundamentally, the two movie's two agendas--to educate people about the Holocaust and to entertain--are somewhat at odds with one another. The Dark Knight is stupid. And 12 Years a Slave is less nuanced and compelling than Charles Burnett's Nightjohn.
Also, one can only watch Casablanca, Veritgo, Psycho, and Annie Hall so many times before they start to get a bit stale.
Movies I haven't seen: The Shanghai Gesture, A Place in the Sun, Deliverance, Back to the Future, Thelma and Louise, and Forrest Gump.
I disagree with a lot of what you said (frankly, I believe that anyone who expresses a preference for Bram Stoker's Dracula must be a little touched in the head)--- BUT that was a terrific post.
The thing I don't grok is that the front 50 isn't all that surprising (everyone can quibble about a particular order by the content seems typical for this sort of thing). While the back 50 is all over the place. There's movies on there with serious artistic intent and real style next to crowd pleasers and pop corn munchers. It's all mixed together and a lot of it feels very flavor of the month to me (Back to the Future, Ace in the Hole especially).
Ace in the Hole feels "flavor of the month"? Or am I misunderstanding and you are juxtaposing it and Back to the Future together for how "serious artistic intent and real style [is] next to crowd pleasers"?