Noir is Calvinist, fated. You don't die redeemed.
Well, Victor Mature in
Kiss of Death
would disagree. He sends his daughters into the country, stays in the city by himself, and gladly takes several bullets to guarantee their safety. (In fact, he doesn't even die at the end!) But it's a classic film noir.
I don't think noir protagonists usually are
fated
to die, so much as they make bad choices, either mistakes (Harry Fabian in
Night and the City
) or intentional leaps into badness (
Out of the Past,
Victor Mature's initial suicide-by-cop attempt in
Kiss of Death
), get caught up in problems, and can't get out of them. It's pretty rare that a noir protagonist is just plain doomed; usually you can see the path of his downfall, often long before he can see it himself.
Ward 13 was awesome.
Indeed it was - I kept thinking "Tim Burton needs to start a production company (if he hasn't already) and sign this guy (these guys?) up pronto". Although, that was from Australia, right? So maybe PJ can scarf him (them) up.
I also really liked Rockfish, which surprised me since I thought Gopher Broke was total crap.
Never saw
Gopher Broke
but my one disappointment with
Rock Fish
was I was hoping it would turn out that
the guy was just a sportsman/big game hunter, rather than a miner, and that we'd see the head of the big beastie mounted on a wall at the end
. Visually stunning though.
Sin City has a lot of trappings of a noir, but I don't know. It felt off to me as a noir. (Yeah, yeah, my own eloquence blinds me.) It's not the theme that felt wrong, but rather the style. It's just... way too exuberant for a noir. Noir anti-heroes are not supposed to show that much sheer glee as they are getting crushed body and soul. The dark revel in all that luridness struck me more of of a Sam Fuller territory than a Jacques Tourneur. I expect a bit more restraint in my noir--rage should be bottled up for explosion at appropriate times, the vista should be more muted and bleak; More austerity, less operatic grandeur, etc.
God, I dislike Bruce Willis. He's no Ford.
As much as I adore H2G2, I totally see where there might not be a blockbuster level of appeal.
He makes crappy choices, but I think he is as good an actor. Check out
In Country
or
Nobody's Fool.
The latter and Pulp Fiction make me think he's really much better as a character actor than he is as a leading man. I tend to be bored out of my skull at movies with "BRUCE WILLIS IN..." over the title.
He makes crappy choices, but I think he is as good an actor. Check out In Country or Nobody's Fool.
I have 342 discs in my Netflix rental queue. I don't think he's in any of them. I may die having a horribly wrong impression of Bruce's work, but I'll just have to pay that price. Outside of
Death Becomes Her
and
The Siege,
he's poisoned all his movies for me.
Sin City
is something I'm seeing hoping to ignore him.
ita, did you not like him in
12 Monkeys,
or
Die Hard,
or
Hudson Hawk?
Those three movies pretty much cemented my love of the Bruce.
To me, Bruce Willis either looks smug or he's got his serious "Smell the fart" face on. The only time I didn't dislike him was The Sixth Sense.
