Film Noir is one of those genres everyone can picture, but never really say they've seen a film like it. You think of dark rooms, detectives offices, black and white, and crime. But I indeed have never seen a Film Noir until Chinatown. Chinatown is about a detective, played by Jack Nicholson, that specializes in marriage and cheating affairs. But after he gets involved in one clients affairs, it turns out to be more than expected. Lies, plot twists, and complications are all over this movie. It was really confusing at times, but once you see the end result, its very satisfying.

The main theme is Good vs. Evil. Jake is the good guy, trying to solve this case and also trying to prevent more trouble that could possibly happen. Chinatown is a great ride, truly showing the themes and characteristics of a Film Noir film. I give this a 7/10. Interesting genre. Interesting movie. Kinda confusing but alright.

Sorry this is so late. Love u

Prepare for Trouble and make it Double

     The genre of Film Noir is of a completely different landscape than what today's audience sees within contemporary media culture. I chose to watch Double Indemnity after hearing and reading about how it defines Film Noir as a whole. In Double Indemnity we follow the dark and mysterious downfall of one Walter Neff. Mr. Neff is an insurance salesman and is rather good at what he does. One day he happens across a lady; Mrs. Dietrichson whom, in short wishes to commit insurance fraud to gain a large sum of dough. Mr. Neff is head over heals for this "Dame" and so naturally she convinces him to aid her in her attempt at fraud.
     Mr. Neff knows the ins and outs of a fraud investigation and so he thinks it shall be easy for him to play the system. Unfortunately for him his story takes place in a Film Noir and nothing is allowed to go pleasantly for him. His best and loyal friend and co-worker; Keyes was on his trail from the beginning of the investigation and never let up. On top of this Mrs. Dietrichson was only playing him from the beginning and never wished for anything more than to use him. Mrs. Dietrichson's deceit is what leads to the unexpected climax into a swift revolution.
     I did like this movie, but I would only recommend it if you wish to learn more about the Film Noir genre as a whole. Personally I think your time could be much better spent watching a vast amount of other movies with more substance to the cinematography. I give this movie 7 broken legs out of 10.

Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup...

Set in '50s Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard tells the story of a screenplay writer by the name of Joe Gillis and his inability to sell his work to the studios. He is full of debts and is begins to think about relocating to his hometown to go back to his old job as a newspaper writer. While pondering his next move, he spots his creditors behind him. He blows his tire and dashes to a nearby, seemingly abandoned, mansion on Sunset Boulevard. The owner of the estate calls him inside, mistaking him for a coffin designer. Gillis soon discovers the woman is the former silent-movie star Norma Desmond. Norma's mind is slowly deteriorating so that believes she will return to the big screen, and is isolated from the cruel world by her butler, Max, who was her first director and husband before her cinematic fallout. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her return to the cinema. Norma creates a fantasy that Joe is her lover and after Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end. 

Sunset Boulevard is ranked #16 on the AFI top 100, understandably so. Though the film is slow moving at first, it quickly picks up and grabs the viewer's attention. This film represents everything Film Noir stands for; crimes of passion. *SPOILER* Once Norma realizes Joe will never truly be hers she decided he would be better off dead. I rate this film a 4.3 dead chimpanzees. 

Chinatown Review

So Jake (Jack Nicholson) is a private investigator in the 40's who specializes in marital investigations specifically cheaters. He is hired in the beginning of the movie to investigate Mr. Mulrey whose wife suspects him of cheating. In the end we discover he was indeed not cheating but protecting his wife's kid sister. The entire thing is super confusing however.
So obviously I loved Jack Nicholson because he's Jack Nicholson and can pull off any role, though this role seemed a bit boring and too tame for him. I was extremely confused the entire movie especially in trying to keep the characters straight. The writing was fantastic but I struggled because I believe the film was actually smarter than I was. Nicholson's character Jake was brilliant, he was always ahead of the investigation and had a natural instinct on the case which no amount of Criminal Minds episodes could condition me well enough to solve along side him. The film actually got my heart pumping and kept me wanting more the entire time. Even though I felt the ending was a bit unsettling and was dazed and confused for the better half of it yet I still felt a hungry connection to the case as well as the movie itself.
I give this film 4 out of 5 meatballs.

The Third Man Review

            The Third Man is about Holly Martins, an American writer offered a job by his friend in Allied-occupied Vienna, and his quest to find out what happened to his friend, Harry Lime, who supposedly died.  He encounters Lime’s girlfriend, Anna Schmidt, British Major Calloway, and many others through his journey.  He goes around asking Harry’s friends about his death, but they are giving little and inconsistent information.  He eventually sees Harry, who is not dead, in the shadows at night, but he runs away and Holly does not see him.  Major Calloway eventually reveals that Lime stole Penicillin from the army hospital, resulting in much suffering.  Holly agrees to help catch Harry and eventually kills him while the police chase him through the sewers.  This film, though not as much in the beginning, overall did a good job of maintaining my interest.  I noticed that it uses a tilted camera for many shots.  Lighting is used well when people are outside during the night.  The main theme out of the ten I think, is individual vs. Society.  Holly must deal with everyone in the city not telling him the whole truth for the first two thirds of the movie.  Then the last third, though it is not one of the top ten themes, the theme would be justice, as that is Holly’s goal upon Harry. I would give this movie a 3.5 out of 5.

Chinatown Review

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown. That quote sums up the whole movie for me. It's a rollercoaster of emotion, experience, and horrifying violence to an unsatisfying end. Jack Nicholson, as always, gives a fantastic performance and the writing is spectacular. Dealing with some complicated material, the film captures you, confuses you, and makes you feel for the characters in the meantime. Personally, I think everyone besides Nicholson was pretty bad, but nonetheless they still captivated me. The whole story felt like a puzzle being put together right in front of my eyes. Nicholson's character was much smarter than I was, but seeing his process of solving the case was interesting and very appealing. His journey from start to finish was riveting and ultimately disheartening. Without giving away too much, Chinatown leaves you breathless. It takes your high hopes and dashes them across the steering wheel of a getaway car. The entire story is a build up to solving a case, but the resolution never comes. It leaves your jaw hanging and a sick feeling in your stomach. The emotions it causes you to feel really puts in perspective the times. It was very corrupt and hopeless for the people that wanted justice. If you controlled the police you controlled it all, and money was power. The movie is still relevant today and was highly respected in its time. Its the best writing I've seen, but it was hard for me to wrap my head around. This movie was too hard to categorize but it was definitely a mystery-thriller. I give it 4.5 out of 5 Jack Nicholson's eyebrows.

Se7en

    This movie about the Seven Deadly Sins, which also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a classification of vices (part of Christian ethics) that has been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct Christians concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin. In the currently recognized version, the sins are usually given as wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony (From Wikipedia). Detective Lt. William Somerset and Detective David Mills are in charge of these series of crime. And when they finally figure out the killer, John Doe comes to the police and commits himself. When the first five crimes ended, John Doe offers them that he will show the two detectives the last crime scene. But, when Mills and Somerset hears the truth, Mills shoots John Doe and kills him. Lastly, he himself is facing the punishment.

  Personally I like this movie, because it tells people that we need to beware of these things and don’t lead ourselves into a wrong end. And just like Mills, we need to control our temper do not be so eager of some things, there are times we need to wait for staff. Although this movie is dark and kind of distortion, it still gives audience a positive message.

 rated 4.5/5

Shutter Island Review

Whoa. I’m always up for a movie that makes you think. The air of mystery in Shutter Island drives the plot the whole movie, keeping you on the edge of your seat pondering what could be the resolution. This is not a good movie to have any sort of spoilers given out because, while I think it would have value watching it multiple times, it’s got an excellent vibe for the first time viewer, which I was. So I’m going to flip the order around and start out saying: Go watch it. This movie’s good. And if for some reason you’ve got 150 movies in your Netflix DVD Queue you think could top this film, well, here’s why you’re probably wrong, without any spoilers.

Let’s talk genre. Film-noir, while this is a genre I haven’t gotten into, if all film-noir movies had this good writing and plot execution, I’d be ready to grab some popcorn for an all night marathon. I feel like there’s a lot of places to go with this genre, and the classic Film-Noir genre revived in the Neo-Film-Noir era is a fresh pacing in film with such a large drop in popularity around the sixties. With this great writing it adds to the genre as a whole, while being true to the time period in which they were first set, which I felt was a nod to the original works of art, with similar styles of dialogue, clothing, setting, and technology present. I was surprised to see Film-Noir listed as Shutter Island’s primary genre, as it had been talked up as horror to me. While I don’t see it as a horror film, I would say it is a suspense thriller in addition to film-noir. These two elements, however, only added to the gritty crime drama unfolding before the viewers that had deep dialogue while still pacing the plot quickly enough that no one loses interest.

On to themes! The first theme is man versus society. A man and his new partner go onto an entirely enclosed island of psychopaths. Creepy stuff. But these psychopaths are living in a mental institution that is portrayed as a community. This community is the society our main hero works so hard to fight against. Everyone on the island lives in their own world: refusing to cooperate with common practice, ignoring laws, and skewing treatment of the criminally insane. The marshal and his partner struggle to uncover the escape of one of the patients in the community, who is perhaps one of the most insane excluding Ward C, an area isolate from the rest of the community for the people the outside world would have addressed as dangerously hopeless. It is difficult for the two cops to face such an odd environment while keeping their cool.

This theme also predominantly focuses on man versus himself. This becomes more prevalent as the movie goes on, where the presence of the insane and the protagonist’s sickness start building up on themselves. We are given an insight to the mind that feeds back on his memories in World War II and those of his deceased wife, as well as a look at his mental ability to solve such an unorthodox case being pushed to its maximum potential.

I had wanted to see this movie for quite some time. I worked hard to make sure nothing was spoiled for me, and the experience was great. However, whether something’s been spoiled, or you’ve seen it, go out and rent this movie for some fine works, and some good stuff to think on. This movie seems like it could be one where a second perspective from a more omniscient view could be quite enlightening. Like I said before, this movie is good. I’d give this a 4.25 out of 5 patients.

The Third Man

The Third Man is a movie about a man, Holly Martins, who goes to Vienna, Austria to take a job for his friend, Harry Lime.  However, when Martins gets there, he finds out that Lime has been killed in an accident where he got hit by a car.  The story is about Martins discovering what truly happened, which is much more than what everyone thought.

            I did not like this movie.  When I read the back and saw it involved a mystery, I had high hopes for this movie.  It disappointed me.  The movie did not engage me and there was little to no suspense created.  Some of the parts were confusing or hard to follow well.  There were also some scenes where the camera was tilted that I found much more distracting than helpful in evoking some sort of feeling like it was probably intended to do.  I never got into the story because the movie did not make me want get into it.  If this were a book, then I think that it could have engaged me more because it would have had more time to explain things an help create suspense.  But it was a movie, and I thought that it could have been much better.

Of the themes, this movie contains the battle and individual vs society.  It has individual vs society because Martins kept investigating the death of Lime even though everybody, including the police, was convinced it was an accident.  It has the battle because Martins battles inside on whether to help capture Lime or not in the movie.  Overall, I give it a 2 out if 5.

Sunset Boulevard

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Giving new meaning to the term, “famous last words,” Sunset Boulevard is a crime drama centered on washed-up silent film actress Norma Desmond and her life leading up to the murder of Joe Gillis. Joe, who narrates the film, is a struggling Hollywood screen writer who wanders into Norma’s mansion, believing it to be deserted. The months following this encounter focus on Joe’s ever-changing relationship with Norma as he finds out just how insane the fallen movie star really is. I classified this film as Revenge film.

Overall, I really liked the movie. Gloria Swanson did a great job depicting Norma as this former movie star turned mentally-disturbed recluse; she could go from bossy to furious to oblivious all within the same scene and make it seem believable. One of my favorite scenes was when Norma forces Joe to watch one of her old silent films with her; there’s this somewhat-uncomfortable extended period of silence after Joe’s narration while they watch the film, and then Norma starts to speak. She starts out speaking very casually, but as she continues, anger continues to drip into her voice until jumps up and vows that she will act again. Then she turns her face towards the light of the movie projector as if it was a spotlight and cigarette smoke blows past her face. It’s as if you’re watching her slowly turn from some ordinary woman into a coldblooded murderer right before your eyes; the shot of her facing the light is quite powerful.

The final scene does a great job of wrapping up the film and showing Norma’s full transition from has-been movie star into deranged murderer. As she says the final line of the movie and steps towards the camera, Norma’s eyes are opened unnaturally wide and her attempt at a toothy smile looks more like a dog clenching its teeth before it attacks. She continues making this face and stepping closer towards the audience as the camera fades out. I felt like, had I watched this in a movie theater, I would have felt like she was going to try to kill me next… creepy.

Overall, I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars.

-Caroline

The Night of the Hunter

BRRUHHHHHHH this is a sick movie. And when I mean sick I mean its terrible because this man named Powell is doing terrible, sick stuff. Like bruh I cant even mannnn. Im glad he dies in the end though. But anyway The Night of the Hunter came out in 1955 by Charles Laughton. I have no idea who this dude is so i did not know what to expect.
 Also going in to this film I had no dang idea what film noir was. And no I don't really know what it means now unless it has something to do with double identity cause in that case YES. In the movies there is a lying preacher just to get what he wants. He reminds of the preacher in a movie we watched last year in Dongells class (I think his name was Sonny). Yea but this preacher (Powell) was a total nub becuase he marries this widow for her husband's 10,000 that he stole. He ends killing her and also attacking the kids. LIKE WHO WOULD DO THAT THOUGH. But this was better than i thought it would be, although it did seem cheesy at some points but thats just becuase it is old and I hate old movies that are in black and white. BUT THIS OLDIE WAS ALOT BETTER THAN CITIZEN KANE.
 I had a hard time thinking of the theme for this novie (mainly becuase i dont have the sheet). But I think the one that works best individual vs. society. No one is ever on Powell's side in this movie. Although he does trick people to think he's good, that doesn't really count for people being on his side. HE's EVIL. But i would rate this movie 7 widows out of 10 widows.

DANGIT ANDREW- a review of "Strangers on a Train" by Sam Hayes

Strangers on a train is a film-noir that does things a little differently. It doesn't follow the trace of the detective trying to unravel the strange and mysterious crime, but instead it follows a suspect in his quest to prove his innocence.
Guy Haines is an up and coming tennis star who boards a train set for his hometown when he bumps into Bruno, a psychologically disturbed man who wants to "try everything" before he dies and often plans out the perfect murder in his head. After talking to Guy a while (who doesn't want anything to do with the man), he decides that they ought to perform this perfect murder as Guy has a cheating, flirty, conniving wife who he has to divorce, and Bruno has a father he is not particularly fond of. Long story short, Bruno kills Guy's wife and puts him in a position where Bruno can say they planned it together, or Guy has to kill Bruno's Father. The rest of the movie becomes a thriller in which Guy must find a way to get out of this predicament without being arrested, and without having to kill Bruno's father.
The movie does a very good job, I believe, of creating tension. It makes you constantly worry about how Guy will get out of the situation while the police are suspicious of him, and Bruno turns against him. Robert Walker does an especially good job of making Bruno truly seem calm yet psychopathic. Altogether it's a good film, although it was devoid of any real mystery or sudden plot twists that the genre seems to do so well.
Strangers on a Train was a teensy bit tedious and some points, but it was pretty well executed otherwise. I give it a 3.75 monogrammed lighters out of 5.

Strangers on a Train is kinda actually not so good

So the storyline: Guy, a tennis player, is riding on a train when some random guy (Bruno) gets into his personal life and tells him that they should exchange murders: he will murder Guy's wife in exchange for Guy murdering his father.

So then Bruno goes and actually does it.

Guy is shocked, and he also feels a bit guilty because he really didn't like his wife. Anyway, Bruno starts stalking Guy to try to get him to complete his murder. Eventually, Guy goes to Bruno's father's house and tries to warn him about Bruno, and since he doesn't complete the murder, Bruno tries to frame him for the murder.

So anyway, I thought this movie was actually quite boring. Something that I notice about a lot of older films is that I feel like they have boring dialogue and really stiff acting. Here is an overview of the emotions Guy shows:

Happiness: :|
Fear: :|
Anger :|

On the upside, the guy playing Bruno does a very good job of being crazy and making the viewer concerned. There is a decent amount of suspense that results from Bruno being crazy. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make for a good movie. The movie is boring, and just because something has suspense does not mean I want to watch it. Suspense is not a good feeling unless you actually care about something in the movie, and there really isn't anything about the movie that makes me care about the characters.

The most prevalent theme in this movie is man vs. himself, as Bruno seems to be a reflection of Guy's more evil desires, which he wrestles with. I give this movie a 1.5 out of 5 stars.

The Killing

   I watched the film noir movie The Killing by Stanley Kubrick. The movie is about a group of guys who decide to steal about 2 million dollars from a horse race track on the day of a really big race. The guys are led by a man named Johnny. Each of the men has a different job while Johnny is the one actually robbing the room with all the money. One man creates a distraction by starting a bar fight. Another man, who is a bartender at the track, gets a shotgun into the place for Johnny to pick up and use in the robbery. Another man, who works at the betting counter, gets a door open for Johnny so he can get to the room with the money. Another man shoots one of the horses while its running the race to cause a further distraction. And one man, who is a police officer, picks up the money from under a window so Johnny can make it out safe.

   The movie had many plots going on the same time and the same scene was often seen through someone else's eyes. This kept the story a little repetitive at some points. However, this ensures the viewer will fully understand what is going on as I had trouble hearing what the characters were saying at some points (due to accents and actual volumes of voices). It reminds me of a tarantino film just a simplified form. 

   I would recommend watching this movie as it gave a classic heist movie feel to it. The viewer is aware most of the movie that a heist is going to happen however, the viewer does not know if the heist will be successful or not. I would give this movie a seven out of ten.

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity

Directed by Billy Wilder

Review by Aurora, Wang Yi

            This is a classical movie during the time of WWII. This movie comes up with darkness and cruelness. It tells a story about Walter helped Phyllis kill her husband to get double indemnity. At first, I think this movie may just be a story about conspiracy. Later, I find this is a movie on humanity.

            Wilder use flashback to let Walter tell the audiences what happened in the past. This movie want to tell us nothing is impossible, humanity is complex and greedy is sin. Nowadays, people may think these are boring because they already know about that, but for 1940s, it is a modern one.

            Somebody told me that movie is time period. I did not very understand before, but now I understand. WWII is dark and cruel. It is a time period for different humanity. Many people pain and gain in the war. They do not know what will happen in the future. They think the ending will become what they want, but they forget nothing is impossible.

             All in all, this is a good movie to watch. I give 5/5.