Sunset Boulevard

Well, that was a picture and a half.

I'm still kinda reeling from my first watch of Sunset Boulevard, I know I very much liked it but I'm still forming my thoughts even as I write. So let's start from the top and talk plot. Well I was already wrong in my pretense of what the film was actually about, I thought originally it was more of a character piece on fading movie star Norma Desmond as she locks herself away from the world and tries to live her years encased in a bubble, enslaved to her past films in a projection room and whose dreams are made of celluloid, a world one step away from The Twilight Zone. Yeah this movie really had me flashing back to the specific episode The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine, and the narration and lovely black and white cinematography just kept bringing me back to it. But the story really follows a writer named Joe who by pure happenstance kinda gets roped into Norma's world, he starts off ghost writing her own script and then...I don't really know. They kinda, sorta, get into a relationship but it's odd because Joe is kinda going for it, then wants to bail, then wants to stick around for the sake of Norma's feelings. It's very bizzare. In fact the whole movie has this bizzare, almost David Lynch quality to it in terms of plot developments and characters. Needless to say I was hooked and it got me super invested near the end. Gloria Swanson is pretty much perfect in this role, the overdramatic actions, the incredibly childlike modd swings and personal viewings of herself, she pulls it off without it ever once being annoying or even absurd to where you just roll your eyes at the melodrama. She is wonderful and I truly can say it is a great performance. The same goes for William Holden, I was having a hard time pinning down his character cause he really does just sorta ebb and flow due to the situation, he frankly wants nothing to do with Norma until she cuts her wrists then he's there for her everyday, yet kinda fancies this young lady, I wouldn't say it's all over the place but it is a prominent element of the film. He's very sarcastic, has that dry wit, he's a puzzle to work on in this film and one I enjoy trying to figure out at that. I will say however the set design is fantastic, the film just looks sort of this mix of Grey Gardens and 50s Hollywood, it's entirely unique to this film. Plus the fact this is a movie that openly acknowledges real world movie making is kind of unheard of to me in a film made 30 years into film as a medium's lifetime, I mean now yes, movies reference actual films, directors, and actors often, that's almost Tarantino in a nutshell, but for a film released in 1950 to actually get references and see directors and stars as themselves is really rare at least in my movie going experience. Which is funny because modern Hollywood at that time was not very fond of the potrayal the film spun in terms of actors and the landscape of the business, we all know it to be true now but movies and the process of making movies were known only to the select few who worked in that environment. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess. 4 stars from me, 8/10, check it out and see what you think of it cause I had a great time with it and I can see why it is considered essential viewing for any serious movie fan.

Blade Runner

I do not actually think it's fair to review a movie like Blade Runner on the first viewing. Yeah, it took me 22 years to finally see Blade Runner, a movie I've heard so much about and seen referenced countless times and only now have I seen the source material.

So Blade Runner is basically a sci-fi noir film following a detective on the hunt for human replicants for murder, and that's just the plot synopsis from what I saw. This is not a movie you can watch just once in your life, it's a difficult movie to fully describe. It's a quiet movie (I watched The Final Cut, so no voice over.) and you do have to pay attention to even slightly understand the plot. It's a visually rich film without a shadow of a doubt, and in retrospect Ghost In The Shell with Scarlett had much in visual style and art direction to be owed to Blade Runner. In fact almost every science fiction movie after 1982 owes some element to this movie. Now I know this movie is an adaptation of "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick, and I have read up on it briefly, but even then the movie is it's own entity. I don't know, it's just such a bizzare, mysterious, just strange movie and there's no way in hell anybody can form a true opinion on this film in one viewing, this is a movie that you have to watch multiple times so I may have to break a rule and next year I will rewatch Blade Runner and do an In Retrospect of it. There's just no movie with a look and story like this movie, so I feel really bad actually about writing this review, because I have no words to explain how I feel. I couldn't even really say it's a great or even good movie although I found little wrong with it, so it's just all depending on the person and how many times they are willing to watch it again. So that's why I absolutely have to watch this movie again and talk about it again, because it's just that kind of movie. I'm sorry I was all vague and not highly opinionated, but my mind was accepting what I was viewing and I was highly interested in the movie, it held my attention all the way through, but I just couldn't say anything very definitive besides rich visual appeal, so I have to say go watch this movie and please for the love of all things good in this world tell me what you thought of it, doesn't matter if you've seen it once or 50 times I would love to hear your opinions. All I know for sure is, I want that gun.

Sin City

This movie really did surprise me but not in the way you would ever expect.

Sin City is a pretty damn good adaptation based off of Frank Miller's graphic novel and it does a very, very accurate telling of the story. When I say this is a noir film, I mean it's a noir film especially in the visual sense. This is the noir film you could ever hope or wish to see, it's stylistic, dark, bloody, and faithful to the source material. Now the surprising bit I was talking about is the fact that the movie is split up into parts, almost like a compilation of short films done all in the same style. But not like you would expect. In this two hour and twenty minute venture into the dark and gritty world of Sin City, at about the 40 minute mark the end credits start to roll. Yeah, you read correctly. They literally split this movie into four parts, with closing credits and all. Hell, it takes 50 minutes before you see the title of the movie. Damn. That blows my mind, you never see this. Now storywise between all our short films, there really isn't that much connecting them like in Pulp Fiction, some plot points intersect but it is not the case with all the short stories. One follows a cop who took the fall after saving a little girl and his reuniting with her, a brick of a guy on a revenge hunt for the killing of a woman, and a man preventing an all out gang war between different sections of the city. And the I think genius part of it all is, it's played up. It's melodramatic, and almost theatrical in a way which is how old noir crime dramas, and even the pulp magazines which this movie took inspiration from were made. Another thing I found quite interesting is the fact the entire film shot on location here in Austin, although because of it's unique stylish and gritty backdrop most of the movie is computer graphics. And they did a good job with creating the look of this world with one exception. Okay so the entire film is shot in black and white as your typical noir film but there are pieces of color in the movie, usually around an object or a identifying aspect of a character. Like a guy has red shoes on, or a girl has blue eyes, but there is no real consistency with it! You see blood both red but also white, some characters have color on them and some don't, it seems so inconsistent like you think there would be some kind of rhyme or reason why this is red, that is blue, etc. but no! That's really the only bad thing I can say about this movie, everything is fine. I mean it wasn't great but it's not terrible either. Would I suggest it? Well maybe. Depends on if you like crime drama/noir movies or you enjoy seeing comic adaptations (even if it's from Frank Miller.) so I say approach it with caution. You really kind of have to be in a mood to watch this movie. But I thought it was okay so I leave it entirely up to you.

Pulp Fiction

Still my favorite Tarantino movie.

Pulp Fiction is a fantastic movie by Quentin Tarantino, combining very film noir-esque storytelling with a galleon of star power behind it. I mean we got Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and of course...Christopher Walken. Oh come on, how can you turn it down now? The plot is...a bit confusing cause you see, it is told out of sequence. No lineart strict progression from start to finish you really have to piece this puzzle together which is why I call it sort of a film noir but it is not a central character in the movie, it's you. You are present for all events and you try and figure out what sequence it went down in. And the plot itself is crazy and hell I don't even think I could recount it without giving something away but it revolves around quite a crew of characters, with a hitman and his partner, a mob boss and his wife, a boxer too, the Professor and Mary Ann, you get the picture. Still awesome and very quotable dialogue, good sense of humor but can still do tension filled scenes, memorable characters, and all around just a great film. Tarantino fan or not, watch this movie if you haven't already you will enjoy it.

And thus tomorrow we will look into more of a comic book film noir, in black and white and stylized like hell. Can't freaking wait man.