Oops, I replied under JZ's login

I haven't seen The Bad and the Beautiful but I'll definitely try to check out.

It's ripe melodrama but sharp and knowing too. Gorgeously shot (I have a thing for those little Hollywood bungalows and mid-century furnishings) and Lana's in her physical prime (Kirk too), but they both have limits as actors. Which isn't such an issue here since they don't have to stretch a ton. The movie has an interestingly ambivalent attitude about Kirk's bastard producer character.

Sunset Boulevard, 2/22. If you haven't seen it...What can I say?! It's one of my all-time favorite movies. Hollywood Gothic Supremo. Very darkly funny but also tragic, and deep deep in Hollywood lore.

Amen. So meta. So amazing.

It was cool, but I'm not as willing as that movie is to call Nora Desmond disgusting for being sexual at, what? forty? Much as I hate that "cougar" thing(and I absolutely do, no question) I prefer it to Holden's naked repulsion when she comes on to him. Both attitudes, though, make me wish I lived in France or somewhere.

Our local indie movie theater is in the middle of a film noir festival, and the lineup is pretty amazing. We went to see The Third Man and Footsteps in the Fog over the weekend, and Mark went out to see Quai des Orfevres last night. We're planning to catch Diabolique, Rififi, Pepe le Moko, Get Carter, and Odd Man Out, at the least.

I had never seen The Third Man before and was awed by the look of it: all those gorgeous, baroque old buildings, the Old World cobblestoned streets, the huge and lavishly furnished apartments and broad echoing stairways... all surrounded by piles of rubble, the litter and half-destroyed buildings left behind by bombing campaigns.

Storywise, I enjoyed the movie but didn't feel fully engaged with it. I'd completely forgotten Orson Welles was even in it until he showed up halfway through, and then I wished he'd been there from the start -- he was easily the most compelling character in the movie.

Footsteps in the Fog

This was part of the noir festival here this year, but I missed it.

Diabolique and Rififi are great. As is Pépé le moko, although I wouldn't call it noir.

I agree with Megan, natch. And yeah, Orson Welles gives The Third Man quite a kick in the butt, but maybe the brevity of his role is why it works so well.

Esquire has an utterly heartbreaking and beautiful article about Roger Ebert: [link]

I FINALLY had the experience where I look for a movie on the TV schedule on a whim, and it's there! With Laura. I just read the book, and read that the author wasn't crazy about the movie, but still. (There's this Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp reprint series that is not movies, but still of interest!)

That was a great article, Corwood. I often feel that I hear Ebert's posts in his speaking voice, because he writes like he sounds, if you'll follow me. And because I heard his voice for, I don't know, twenty years?

I FINALLY had the experience where I look for a movie on the TV schedule on a whim, and it's there! With Laura. I just read the book, and read that the author wasn't crazy about the movie, but still. (There's this Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp reprint series that is not movies, but still of interest!)

There was a novel that begat Laura? Did not know that (and I had a brief discussion with a friend of mine last night who'd just seen it for the first time).

Dear lord, that Ebert article was very, very hard to read. That is one dedicated man.

I often feel that I hear Ebert's posts in his speaking voice, because he writes like he sounds, if you'll follow me.

I feel exactly the same way. In the picture of Ebert on the first page, I was struck by the disparity between the sharpness of his eyes and the slackness of his face.