Neo-Noir Film #3: Memento

Happy Monday everybody!  A big thank you to everyone who made it out to our showing of Rian Johnson's directorial debut, Brick, we had a real nice turnout.
On to business.  This is the final week of the first leg of our Neo-noir series, which will pick up again Aug. 14th and continue for the following weeks (21st and 28th).
Now, after much deliberation, I have finally decided on Christopher Nolan's wonderfully inventive thriller: Memento, as the next entry in our exploration of neo-noir.

Memento is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan.  The screenplay was written by Nolan based on his younger brother Jonathan Nolan's short story "Memento Mori".  It stars Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano.  Memento is presented as two different sequences of scenes: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order.  The two sequences "meet" at the end of the film, producing one common story.  We follow Leonard Shelby (Pearce) as a man with anterograde amnesia (short-term memory loss) as he attempts to hunt down the man responsible for the murder of his wife.  Critics especially praised its unique, nonlinear narrative structure and motifs of memory, perception, grief, self-deception, and revenge.  The film was successful at the box office and received numerous accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Original Screenplay and Film Editing.  The film holds a 92% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes out of 167 reviews.
Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars saying, "The purpose of the movie is not for us to solve the murder of the wife.  If we leave the theatre not sure exactly what happened, that's fair enough.  The movie is more like a poignant exercise, in which Leonard's residual code of honor pushes him through a fog of amnesia toward what he feels is his moral duty."

We will be meeting this Thursday, July 31st at 6:15pm, hope to you there!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ploSYVE0uao

Neo-noir Film #2: Brick

Hey everybody, thanks to all of you who made it out last week for our first neo-noir film, Blood Simple.  This week we will be watching the excellent debut film from Rian Johnson: Brick.

Brick is a 2005 American neo-noir thriller film written and directed by Rian Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  The film's narrative centers on a hard-boiled detective story that takes place in a Californian suburb.  Most of the main characters are high school students.  The film draws heavily in plot, characterization, and dialogue from hard-boiled classics, especially from Dashiell Hammett.  The origins of Brick were Rian Johnson's Hammett obsession.  Hammett was known for hard-boiled detective novels, and Johnson wanted to make a straightforward American detective story.  He realized that this would result in a mere imitation and set his piece in high school to keep things fresh.  Of the initial writing process he remarked, "it was really amazing how all the archetypes from that detective world slid perfectly over the high school types."

Brick was released to positive reviews.  It currently holds an 80% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 134 reviews.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars stating, "What is impressive is his commitment to his idea of the movie's style.  He relates to the classic crime novels and movies, he notes the way their mannered dialogue and behavior elevates the characters into archetypes, and he uses the strategy to make his teenagers into hard-boiled guys and dolls.  The actors enter into the spirit; we never catch them winking."

We will be meeting this coming Thursday, July 24th at 6:15pm, hope you can join us!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7E0XGiyrc

Summer Film Club: Neo Noir

Hey folks, I am back and with my return comes also the return of Film Club!  For the remaining months of summer (July and August) we will be watching films that fit a theme, that theme is Neo-Noir.  Some of you may be unfamiliar with this sub-genre (some of you may even be unfamiliar with the genre of Film Noir altogether!), so allow me a moment to expalin.

Film Noir, as described by the internet (wikipedia), is as follows:  "Film Noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations.  Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.  Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black and white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography.  Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression."

Neo-Noir, as also described by the internet (wikipedia), is as follows:  "Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in film noir of the 1940s and 1950s."

Class dismissed.

SO, for the last three weeks of July (17th, 24th, 31st) and the last three weeks of August (14th, 21st, 28th) we will be watching films that fall into the sub-genre of Neo noir.  I sent out an email a few days ago explaining that I have not selected the second two films for July yet, but never fear!  For I have selected the first, and that's all that matters at the moment.  Regardless, here is the planned schedule:

July 17th- Blood Simple
July 24th- TBA
July 31st- TBA

Aug 14th- Fargo
Aug 21st- Chinatown
Aug 28th- LA Confidential

All films will begin at the regular Film Club time of 6:15pm.

Our first film in the Neo noir series is the stunning debut film by the extemely talented Coen brothers:

Blood Simple is a 1984 neo-noir crime film written, directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen.  The film's title derives from the Dashiell Hammett novel Red Harvest (1929), in which the term "blood simple" describes the addled, fearful mindset of people after a prolonged immersion in violent situations.  It was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a noted director, as well as the feature film debut of Joel Coen's wife Frances McDormand, who subsequently starred in many of his features.

Blood Simple is an excellent example of the updated style found in neo-noir films.  I hope you are able to come out and see this fantastic film!





Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0ov8zzfQA

May Film Club

Hello everyone, thanks to all of you who were able to make it out to see Wings of Desire, I hope you enjoyed it.

MAY!  It's a new month folks and that means a new film.  For the month of May, we will be watching a film by one of my personal favorite filmmakers, Terrence Malick.  The film to which I am referring is...*drumroll* The Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is a 2011 American epic experimental drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain.  The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth.

It's not the easisest film to describe or put into a nice plot summary because it's somewhat light on narrative and heavy on the visuals, the imagery, the sounds and the emotions that are conveyed.

This is one of my absolute favorite films of all time.  Terrence Malick is a visionary director the likes of which are rarely seen these days, from his early film Days of Heaven to his epic meditation on war and humanity, The Thin Red Line, and now The Tree of Life.

In January 2012, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards:  Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.  In the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, 16 critics voted for it as one of their 10 greatest films ever made; this ranked it at #102 in the finished list (making it the third film on the list which had been released since the year 2000, behind Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love  and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.)

This is one of those films you must see, espeically if you love film, music, art or whatever!  Just see it!

We will be meeting Thursday, May 15th at 6:15pm.  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0

April Film Club

Hey folks!  Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out to see Capote last month in honor of the late, supremely talented, Philip Seymour Hoffman (if you're looking for more of his work, ask me for a list!).  For the month of April, I've decided to show another, somewhat different film.  Don't worry, it's not as challenging as Last Year at Marienbad, but it is hopefully outside what you're normally used to watching.  The film in question is Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (the German title is Der Himmel uber Berlin or The Heavens Over Berlin).

Wings of Desire is a 1987 romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders.  Set in contemporary West Berlin (at the time still enclosed by the Berlin Wall), Wings of Desire follows two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, as they roam the city, unseen and unheard by its human inhabitants, observing and listening to the diverse thoughts of Berliners: a pregnant woman in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, a painter struggling to find inspiration, a broken man who thinks his girlfriend no longer loves him.  Their reason of existence is, as Cassiel says, to "assemble, testify, preserve" reality.  In addition to the story of the two angels, the film is also a meditation on Berlin's past, present and future.  Damiel and Cassiel have always existed as angels; they existed in Berlin before it was a city, and before there were even any humans.  The film is shot in both a rich, sepia-toned black and white and color, with the former being used to represent the world as experienced by the angels.


Come on out and join us for this very poetic and beautiful film, hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18gU7pY0P-Q

March Film Club

Hey folks.  Normally in the month of March I play something Irish in honor of St. Patrick's Day, but this year I've decided to forego that and play a film in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman who tragically passed away last month.  He was a phenomenal actor, probably one of this generation's finest and he will be sorely missed.  I've decided to show the film for which he was recognized with an Oscar for Best Actor:  Capote.

The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s-and the impact the writing and research would have on its author- is explored in this drama based on a true story.  In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small degree of celebrity for his work when he read a short newspaper item about a multiple murder in a small Kansas town.  For some reason, the story fascinated Capote, and he asked William Shawn (Bob Balaban), his editor at The New Yorker, to let him write a piece about the case.  Capote has long believed that in the right hands, a true story could be molded into a tale as compelling as any fiction, and he believed this event, in which the brutal and unimaginable was visited upon a community where it was least expected, could be just the right material.  Capote traveled to Kansas with his close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), herself becoming a major literary figure with the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and while Capote's effete and mannered personal style stuck out like a sore thumb in Kansas, in time he gained the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murder of the Clutter family, and with his help Capote's magazine piece grew into a full-length book.  Capote also became familiar with the petty criminals who killed the Clutter family, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and in Smith he found a troubling kindred spirit more like himself than he wanted to admit.  After attaining a sort of friendship with Smith under the assumption that the man would be executed before the book was ever published, Capote finds himself forced to directly confront the moral implications of his actions with regards to both his role in the man's death, and the way that he would be remembered.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor, for his critically acclaimed portrayal of the title role.  The film holds a 90% rating on Rottentomatoes.com out of 162 critical reviews and was awarded 4 stars by Roger Ebert who had this to say of the film, "Capote" is a film of uncommon strength and insight, about a man whose great achievement requires the surrender of his self-respect.  Philip Seymour Hoffman's precise, uncanny performance as Capote doesn't imitate the author so much as channel him, as a man whose peculiarities mask great intelligence and deep wounds."

This film is a great example of the monumental talent Philip Seymour Hoffman displayed in all his roles, a talent that the film world is worse off without.  We will be meeting Thursday, March 20th at 6:15pm, hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4BvvJ69pIQ

February Film Club

Hello everyone, thank you to everyone who made it out for Last Year at Marienbad.  Already we find ourselves at the second month of the year, and with it comes another film.  Don't worry, this one isn't as complicated as the last one.  For the month of February we will be watching the feature debut of director Sidney Lumet:  12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American drama film adapted from a teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose.  Written and produced by Rose himself and directed by Sidney Lumet, this trial film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt.  In the United States, a verdict in most criminal trials by jury must be unanimous.  The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set:  with the exception of the film's opening, which begins outside on the steps of the courthouse followed by the judge's final instructions to the jury before retiring, a brief final scene on the courthouse steps, and two short scenes in an adjoining washroom, the entire movie takes place in the jury room.  12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus building, and the difficulties encountered in the process, among a group of men whose range of personalities adds intensity and conflict.  Apart from two of the jurors swapping names while leaving the courthouse, no names are used in the film.

The film today is viewed as a classic, highly regarded from both a critical and popular viewpoint:  Roger Ebert listed it as one of his "Great Movies", and the film currently holds an enviable 100% "Certified Fresh" rating on rottentomatoes.com (click link for more info) out of 45 critical reviews.

This is one of the films that if you haven't seen it, you must, and if you have seen it, you should see it again.  I think we can get some really good conversation going from this film.  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7CBKT0PWFA