Hot Takes On Film

  #MotherMayI. Its May already. This month we will be looking at mother themed films. What I love about themes like this is that it crosses genres a lot. I will focus on films with the mother archetype. It doesnt have to be the main theme just front and center. I love how so many are in the horror genre. What does that say about motherhood? I am terrible in the horror genre space but I will do my best. The archetype is generally bonded with their child, she is female or female identifying but not always. She makes decisions for her child but not always good ones. This is where the archetype can go really wrong. She is nurturing and trusted but that can go wrong too. We are drawn to this archetypes even as fully realized adults. We still need to see her. Here is a brief list of genres that I have seen this theme Horror SciFi Drama Comedy Thriller Animation Fantasy Even Noir Yeah that’s a lot I know. What’s funny is that sometimes, not all, we don’t even realize we are looking at a mothe

  Ghost Dog (1999 US) starring Forest Whitaker. A mafia hit man in New York lives by the code of the samurai. The film sits on the edge of Neo Noir and some are calling it a Crime/Thriller. It had quite a few Neonoir shots with high contrast and German Expressionism. Unlike, most neonoir it had some quirky and humorous moments that could be seen as not neonoir but I think the dark story throws it back. Whitaker is awesome as a modern urban samurai complete with a code of conduct. Some critics are saying that this was an homage to the French film Le Samourai. I hated that movie so I would rather watch Battlefield Earth than something so pointless. Cool hat though. Needless to say, Ghost Dog was far, far better. For quite awhile I could not find this film except a used DVD. Thankfully its back. Its on Criterion, HBO and Amazon. Loved it. Go see it.

  Bound (1996 US) Todays second entry for #FemaleFilmmakerFriday is this Wachowski sisters neo-noir masterpiece. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon concoct a scheme to steal money from Tilly's mob boyfriend. Tilly rocks as the femme fatale. It just felt like she was loving this role. Gershon plays the sap and she knocks it out if the park. It’s really hard to shoot noir style in color. The Wachowskis pulled it off with muted color production design and black to get the proper contrast and shadow. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of having bright colors and crushed blacks to get the contrast. Happy colors don't scream noir. It screams Teletubbies. Wikipedia says the budget was 6 million but I heard 3. Why is that important? Lower budgets are really going to cut down on so many things including locations. There was limited locations in this. Either way audiences liked it and it made money at the Box Office. It’s on Tubi and Pluto for free and rentable on other streaming pl

  Stray Dog (1949 Japan) written and directed by Kurosawa. This film is beautiful. Kurosawa was the master of Mis en scene. And not only of sight but of sound too. Directors often forget that sound is half the film experience. Kurosawa does not disappoint. Like Raymond Chandler, Kurosawa takes us on a journey to the seedy underbelly of the city creating a thriving character not human in form but human in fu nction. Hell even the weather was it’s own character. The film is led by a hard boiled detective and a soft boiled detective trying to come to terms with post WWII Tokyo in their own way. It’s as if Phillip Marlowe was split into two characters, the dark and the light each having a mutual respect for each other. I could write a long essay on this for a film theory class. But that would be boring. Just watch it and take in Kurosawas brilliance. You won’t regret it. Find it free on Tubi.

  Lured (1947). This noir comedy stars, you guessed it, Lucill e Ball. Noir-comedy you say? Comedy and noir do not belong together, you even said so yourself. And you would be right but hear me out. Lucy was a brilliant comedienne. In fact she was so good that her identity or brand became solidly enmeshed with her. To this day when you see her your brain starts to fill in the spaces and anything she says or does is comedy whether it is or not. When you watch this film it is really hard to turn that off and it becomes another Lucy misadventure. BUT if you can turn it off this is a very solid noir and Lucy is quite good in it. This film doesn’t show up in lists as much as it should but definitely give it a go and tell your brain to shut up. Find it free on Tubi.

  No Man of Her Own (1950) Based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich "I Married a Dead Man". Eddie Muller of # NoirAlley points out that this film is not on lists of top noirs but should be. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as the guilt ridden, try to do the right thing femme fatale. Carole Lombard and Clarke Gable made a version of this story in 1932 but the studio wanted to remake it Post Hays code. What I love about Stanwyck is as Muller points out, she can convince an audience of anything: gaping holes in the script? Pish Posh Babs is on the job. Although, it runs a little closer to drama than say, D.O.A. it's still a really solid noir. Adapted for the screen by Sally Benson and Catherine Turney specifically for Stanwyck. These ladies knew how to make it work for a female led noir. I enjoyed it but of course Babs is one of my favorites. I had to rent it but it is available.

  Gun Crazy (1950) this celebrated Noir stars Peggy Cummins as the extremely fatal femme fatal and John Dall as the very sappy sap. They have a kind of Bonnie and Clyde adventure. Haven't heard of them? that' s cuz this was a solid B movie with B cast and crew including Russell Harland bringing his B movie ingenuity as the cinematographer. What I love most about this movie is the bank heist scene. Harland bolted a camera on a saddle and put it in the back of a limo. One long heist scene that is quite the marvel. B Movie director Joseph Lewis allowed Cummins and Dall to improvise the dialogue to keep it fresh and this is the best part: Only the bank knew (the cop was an actor). They did a bank heist scene with guns and the city didn't know. Nowadays, PD would shoot your butt. Why? Harland later revealed in an interview that they were broke. He didn't like the scene at first but grew to appreciate it. This is one of my favorite Noirs. Most streaming has this for rent.

  Brick (2005) This Neo-noir stars Joseph Gordon Levitt and was written and directed by then first time feature filmmaker Rian Johnson (Star Wars, Knives Out) and had a whopping budget of 450k (I have also heard 800k). This film was basically a Chandler story... in high school and Levitt was Marlowe. If you think that sounds weird. Well it is kind of but Johnson and Levitt made it work. Getting traditionally noir shots is hard and audiences and fans know their stuff. What I loved about this gem is that Johnson adds to the vocabulary of noir or neo-noir. How? New ways to get high contrast, deep shadow and the incongruent lines of German Expressionism. Johnson did his absolute best to get those lovely noir shots and he did quite often and with a budget of 450k. That's really hard. Johnson is one of my favorite directors. He just keeps surprising me. Like many low budget films this was all about natural light and locations. worth a watch. Rentable on most streaming.

 Nightmare Alley (2021 US) A grifter steals a "magic" act and makes money off of it. Based on the novel of the same name from 1946. Guillermo Del Toro writes and directs this Best Picture nominee. It is classified as neo-noir and that would be fair since the 1947 film is solidly noir. I liked it but...I'm a noir fan and prefer the 1947 version. Don't get me wrong the 2021 version is very well shot, the color is lovely. It has the traditional high contrast and deep shadows of noir but I really saw little of the German Expressionism typical of noir. German Expressionism cares little of lovely aesthetic and more about expressing anxiety. The lines are incongruent and misaligned. Where is the order? There is none and that's the point. The lines in this film for the most part were too symmetrical for that and even the color wheel De Toro used was too symmetrical harkening back to Wes Anderson films that are so symmetrical its like ASMR.  Yeah it had contrast but overal

 Promising Young Woman (2020 US) Its #femaleFilmmakerFriday and todays film is from Emerald Fennell. Cool Name.  Cassie lives out her trauma trolling night club  pred ators. There is a lot going on in this film so the logline doesn't really cut it. However, one of the takeaways here is don't mess with Cassie. This film had some neonoir vibes but in style it did not reach that level. I know the trend is to use bright colors to create the contrast for noir style in film. I don't like it. My opinion is that bright colors are too "happy" for noir. However, the color grading was great and production design was fabulous. At it's heart, Promising Young Woman is a revenge story, a very clever revenge story. Fennell should make a vengeance trilogy like Park Chan-Wook. It was really on that level. Young Woman won an Oscar for the writing (Fennell) and was nominated in other categories including Best Picture and Best Director which lost to Nomadland and Chloe Zaou. Fenne

Raging Bull (1980 US) Robert DeNiro stars as boxer Jake LaMotta. This Biopic from Martin Scorsese tells the story of a man and his brother (Joe Pesci) who have no idea what to do with their emotions. It works for them for a bit until it doesn't. Scorsese is a smart guy and the film is an in depth study of what we now call toxic masculinity. The film had an awful lot to say about the subject and Scorsese literally pulls no punches. Unfortunately, graduates of the school of "you missed the fucking point" have used the film as a how to manual. Criterion is saying stylistically this film was informed by film noir. To that I say sometimes. It was too uneven to label it a Noir throwback. Black and white does not make film noir. Remember that kids. The film was nominated for best picture and lost to Ordinary People, the film not actual ordinary people. Robert DeNiro won Best Actor. That was pretty spot on as DeNiro really dives into Assholeness and he convinces you to not like h

 Fargo (1996 US UK) Joel an Ethan Cohen brought us all this fantastic Neo Noir/Black comedy that has been chosen to be preserved by the Library of Congress. Thank God for that! Frances McDormand stars as a pregnant cop assigned to investigate a murder. This film oh this film is still one of my favorites. A cop investigating a murder is nothing new but a pregnant cop with morning sickness in the Midwest winter is quite unique. The jokes, and there were many, were so understated that you may have missed them so watch it again. The Cohen Bros had made an earlier neo noir with McDormand (Blood Simple) so they knew the drill with Noir. Some call this straight up Black Comedy but I say its a blend. How do you blend comedy and noir? Well like this silly. Now here is the kicker, this film that inspired so many filmmakers, was well done, unique and memorable LOST to the English Patient for best picture. Respect to the English Patient but I could only watch half of it before I was done. I still

  Decision to Leave (2022 S. Korea) written and directed by the insanely talented Park Chan-Wook. If you are like me and watched Parks “Old Boy” and now need serious therapy because you didn’t get a warning, thanks Josh, then you will be happy to know that he’s done traumatizing the world. The president of S. Korea had a little chat with him and he will now be using his powers for good instead of evil. Decision to Leave is good old fashion neo-noir complete with a helluva femme fatale for the romance aspect. Wow she was good. Park does not need high contrast and German Expressionism to make his noir. He has his own rules. The buzz last year was that Park would clean up like Parasite did at the Oscars. But nope! snubbed. WTF Oscar? We need to talk. You can rent this masterpiece on most streaming and free on Mubi.