My 1/2-Ass Movie Blog

  THIEF James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, James Belushi. Dir. Michael Mann, United Artists, 1981 Is Michael Mann's first film, 1981's THIEF, better than his 1995 LA Noir epic HEAT? I don't know. Is Canadian whiskey better than bourbon? And does it matter? I took an unplanned 40 year break between viewings of THIEF. I loved it first on Movie Channel in 1982, and fell back in love with my next two watches, ten days ago & yesterday.  Rewarding myself for a few months of budget discipline I treated myself to the Criterion Collection bluray & two-day delivery at the start of March. It's one of the best presents I've given myself. That comes from a guy who has taken delivery of THE GETAWAY, NETWORK, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE CONVERSATION,  MAGNOLIA & HATEFUL EIGHT in the last few weeks. In between, I've rewatched BOOGIE NIGHTS, SEA OF LOVE, THE LAST DETAIL, & DONNIE BRASCO, to give a full basis of comparison.

  BRICK Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Emilie de Ravin, Richard Roundtree. Dir. Rian Johnson, Focus Features, 2005 Raymond Chandler was born in 1888. In 1933, a washed-up exec in the oil business, Chandler published his first pulp fiction short. For the rest of his life, Chandler helped invent modern P.I. fiction, as well as what we now generalize as crime noir, with a literary elan suggesting Lawrence or Maugham on their off-days. While Chandler toiled in his now-immortalized Los Angeles, Dashiell Hammett & his P.I., Sam Spade, worked to promote San Francisco's virtues. Though it probably goes without saying, it's hard to imagine either foreseeing a world in which their shared style would forge a literary/filmic template often imitated, frequently parodied, but never replaced - film noir. It is impossible to imagine either envisioning a future in which their filmic champions include both Rian Johnson & Shane Black. According to Ye Olde Internet one of the more popular fan t

  GATTACA Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Tony Shaloub. Dir. Andrew Niccol, Columbia, 1997 Between 1990 & 1997, Jon Peters & Peter Guber, exec producers of '89's mega-smash BATMAN, ran SONY Studios, releasing no significant hits & a number of notorious bombs over seven years which should have witnessed the hapless team run SONY/Columbia out of business, altogether. During those years Columbia invested in genre:scifi, scifi-horror, horror, including two films riffing on Stevenson's Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. One, 94's MARY REILLY, a literal retelling through the narative view of Jeckyll's Irish maid, flopped in large ways (though I happen to like it.) The other, Andrew Niccol's figuratative retelling involving genetics and faking one's DNA - like faking a piss-test - gained traction & a devout cult audience over the next decade+. Writing about the former film recently, I opined on the nature of Jeckyll's formula allowing him to b