For Friday Noir #150, in addition to a well deserved pat on the back, the column will take a look at some of the posters of the classic noir period. Loving movie posters is a curious passion. Today, the one-sheet theatrical poster that hangs in a theatre lobby or is plastered in subway stations or …
Love can be a many splendid thing…both in triumph and sometimes in tragedy. The emphasis of this sentiment is mainly on the latter as tragedy can be defined in various degrees of despair. Consequently, we have endured all sorts of conflict between lovers in cinema throughout the history of frequenting the movies. In You’ve Lost That …
40. Beauty and the Beast (1991) Lost to: Silence of the Lambs 1991 was the first time an animated film ever grabbed a nomination for Best Picture with Disney’s version of “Beauty and the Beast.” The film also picked up nominations for sound, Original Score (for which it won) and three – count ’em THREE – …
Using the murder of a Hollywood starlet as a catalyst to expose the web of dark secrets that runs through the City of Angels, the award-winning team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have put together the most intriguing comic of 2014. Brubaker & Phillips’ new crime noir is just getting started but it is already destined to be a cult classic. Brubaker’s name has been synonymous with the noir genre from the very start of his career, but The Fade Out is different from his books that came before it. Set in the Hollywoodland era of the 1940s, with painstaking attention to historical detail, The Fade Out relishes in classic Hollywood tropes – so much so that every page looks like a storyboard from an Anthony Mann film. The Fade Out is clearly, a labor of love from its creative team who go the extra mile by assembling a series of supplementary content that really helps readers get into the mind set of the time.
“Sabrina” is a classic of American cinema … an exceptional example of the assured best the studio system had to offer.
Set in the icy backdrop of the Swiss Alps, L’amour est un crime parfait (Love is the Perfect Crime) is a dark thriller that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. With a rich emphasis on the link between man, literature, and landscape, the film takes its audience for a chilling ride.
Hammett, Chandler, Cain: the modern mystery thriller starts with them. They are the godfathers of that sensibility that would come to be called noir which would, in time, overflow the printed page and onto the stage, the big screen, and eventually even to television. Identified primarily with mysteries, the concept of flawed human beings ethically …
Sightseers Directed by Ben Wheatley Written by Steve Oram, Alice Lowe & Ben Wheatley (with additional material from Amy Jump) 2012, UK Either Ben Wheatley is a boiling pot of pent-up rage, or he is the complete opposite and thus finds perverse pleasure in humouring the rage fantasies and violent tendencies of the frustrated working-class …
Double Indemnity Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler U.S.A., 1944 There is a perverse sort of delight a film viewer can extract from witnessing the fall of someone too cool for school. How many times have vintage film noirs featured a protagonist which always had the right words to say …
Throughout the month of December, TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Film Editor Ricky D will review classic Christmas adaptions, posting a total of 13 each, one a day, until the 25th of December. The catch: They will swap roles as Rick takes on reviews of television Christmas specials and Kate takes on Christmas movies. Today …
The CineClub is presenting biweekly screenings at the Crowley Arts Centre here in Montreal every other Sunday, and this week’s screening is one of my favorite films of all time, Double Indemnity. Below is a brief synopsis; Double Indemnity screens at 7pm; you can find the Crowley at 4325 rue Crowley, near Vendome metro. Admission …
“How come you only show us clips from movies none of us ever heard of?” She was 30, a single mom who’d admirably gone back to school for a business degree to better things for her and her family. She’d taken my film appreciation class as an elective, a break from the grind of her …
Barbara Stanwyck made her screen debut in 1927 and her strong screen presence established her as a favourite of many great directors, including Cecil B. De Mille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. She went on to appear in over 80 films, often portraying strong-willed, independent women, was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and …
A classy dame. A dynamite broad. A tough cookie. The language is definitely un-PC…and yet, it seems not only proper but singularly apt when talking about Barbara Stanwyck. It was the language of the day when her star soared off into the ascent, and it would remain so her over the course of a 60-year …
It is arguable that women live in a “man’s world”. Women, it might also be argued, possess certain physical attributes of appeal to men that allow them considerable advantage under some circumstances. Such attributes coupled with certain behavioral subtleties often lay bare men’s weaknesses to a point where they seem compelled to act irrationally to …
The debut of a number of distinctive personalities is one of the important features of film noir. Noir’s main character, for instance, may appropriately be labeled thenoir loser. He is a handsome, middle-aged man who seems to blur the line between protagonist and antagonist. Billy Wilder has very explicitly introduced such personalities as Walter Neff …
A term that translates to ‘Black Film’ already sounds interesting. Add to that dramatic, highly stylized cinematography and hard-hitting, gritty writing, and the appeal of film noir is clear. The term is mostly attributed to works such as Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, and The Maltese Falcon, all major works which helped popularize the genre after …