In an era where it seems like most major studio releases are one giant computer-generated sequence after another, there’s something desirable about watching a film with practical effects. Realism is overrated when there’s something tangible before us, even if it… Read More ›
noir
The Cine-Men, Episode 96: Film Noir with special guest Marya E. Gates
Of the many things associated with November these days, in the cinema world, there’s only Noirvember. On this incredibly special episode of The Cine-Men, hosts Darryl Mansel and I are joined by the creator of Noirvember, Marya E. Gates. After… Read More ›
Warner Bros. Pictures’s presents a first-time 4K UHD restoration of John Huston’s classic noir “The Maltese Falcon.”
Beginning as a character in a serial, Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled detective Sam Spade has appeared in the original 1930 tale The Maltese Falcon, two films of the same name, several short stories, and several short films. Of the characterizations, the… Read More ›
Explore the mysteries of Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” via three home release special features.
Few directors can have a small body of work and yet feel so pervasive, so integral, so inspiring as writer/director Guillermo del Toro. When he’s not writing or directing one of his own projects, he’s producing or raving about someone… Read More ›
Noir “Nightmare Alley” boasts a packed cast and stunning visuals.
“Is he man or beast?” barks Willem Dafoe’s Clem, the man who runs the oddities exhibit at a carnival, enticing people to look down upon an enclosure where a figure is hidden. These people have come to see something horrendous… Read More ›
Writer/director Lisa Joy’s neo-noir feature debut “Reminiscence” offers a new perspective on a time-tested genre.
There’s an interesting line in writer/director Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence, which suggests that our past doesn’t haunt us. It’s gone. We, however, through our memories, haunt it by revisiting moments in our mind over and over. There’s psychological proof of this… Read More ›
John Farrow’s noir thriller “Alias Nick Beal” received the restoration treatment from Kino Lorber.
Welcome to Fistful of Features, a celebration of film preservation through physical media and the discussion of cinematic treasures to maintain their relevance in the cultural lexicon. Today we’ll be discussing a buried gem from the age of film noir…. Read More ›
Director Samuel Fuller’s Cold War noir “Pickup on South Street” is one of the latest films restored for The Criterion Collection.
The line between politics and art is often fine, if not entirely overlapped. This is most obvious in stories from Marvel Comics’s X-Men, a series exploring the ultimate minority group trying to make peace against great xenophobia. In a similar… Read More ›
Ran Slavin’s feature debut, “Call for Dreams,” is “A Page of Madness” for the 21st century.
According to the press notes for Call for Dreams, Israeli director Ran Slavin started the project in pursuit of a “new cinematic form.” Slavin began with the idea to collect dreams from strangers that he could use as inspiration for… Read More ›
16 years later, Michael Mann’s “Collateral” is as strong a neo-noir as ever. But does HDR improve or distract?
In the included commentary for Collateral, director Michael Mann comments that the film picks up in the third act of a standard film. He’s not wrong at all with this description as the audience is given a clue of location… Read More ›
Observe the birth of the modern police procedural in Jules Dassin’s “The Naked City,” restored via the Criterion Collection.
From modern programs like Lucifer, The Flash, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Blue Bloods to more classic ones like Law and Order, The Mod Squad, and Hill Street Blues, each of these procedural variants owe their existence in large part to the… Read More ›
Now available via the Criterion Collection, director Jules Dassin’s “Brute Force” remains as explosive an indictment of prison reform today as in 1947.
Released June 30th, 1947, Jules Dassin’s (Rififi) Brute Force opened and took audiences and critics by storm. The film, a prison break picture, would startle and terrify as it depicted life inside prisons as one of moral decay, not because… Read More ›
“Dreamland” is a super stylish and entertaining noir.
Bruce McDonald isn’t a director that a lot of people are going to be familiar with. Sure, he has credits to his name, but nothing that the average filmgoer will be able to recognize. However, the most famous movie in… Read More ›
Writer/director Sarah Pirozek’s teenage noir “#Like” pulses with the energy of a ‘70s thriller. [Brooklyn Film Festival]
There’s a constant argument between generations about who had it worse vs. who had it better. The “always on” digital generation may scoff at the concept of their predecessors’ reliance on books for information, while the analog generation derides their… Read More ›
Noir and comedy intertwine for Jack Eve’s “Bees Make Honey”.
There’s no denying that writer/director Jack Eve’s got ambition. Watching a single frame of genre mash-up Bees Make Honey makes that abundantly clear. With bold strokes, Jack sets about combining aspects of straight period pieces and film noir mysteries, with… Read More ›
Curiouser and Curiouser, Vaughn Stein’s feature debut ‘Terminal’ is a candy-coated neon nightmare into the bowels of Wonderland.
Appearances can be deceiving. Always be the smartest person in the room. There’s no such thing as coincidence. These may be rote clichés, yet the failure to adhere to them will get you killed in Vaughn Stein’s feature debut, Terminal…. Read More ›
‘Blade Runner 2049’ is a deserving sequel to a divisive series.
Written by Michael Green and, one of the original Blade Runner screenwriters, Hampton Fancher, and directed by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 wonderfully captures the essence of the original, then builds upon it with something utterly new. For those unaware,… Read More ›