Word: dahlias
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...After much wrestling with the issue however, I don’t think “The Black Dahlia,” Brian De Palma’s bizarre new film, is secretly a clever exercise on the demerits of neo-noir. (Hillary Swank, I feel, is actually incapable of farce.) “The Black Dahlia” is more mundanely the result of poor directing and a ludicrous script, factors which combine to make Josh Harnett look as if he is going to cry in every scene, not that you could blame...
...script is rather terrible--at one point Hartnett says, “I just don’t get modern art” and Swank replies, “I doubt it would get you either”--the acting is what truly sinks “The Black Dahlia...
...required to maintain its status. And that says nothing of Hollywood, whose morals everyone had suspected for decades. How closely this fictionalized portrait of a seamy, teeming Eden turned anti-Eden actually matched reality is a good question. But it sure made for good reading (and viewing). The "Black Dahlia" case actually derived its name from a pretty good film noir, starring Alan Ladd, that had been released the previous year...
...Black Dahlia is far from being a perfect version of that story. It is, in fact a major disappointment, despite the fact that it seems, superficially, to be an ideal subject for Brian De Palma, given his passionate, long-standing obsession with the sex and violence nexus. Mostly, the movie is a tin of red herrings. That's particularly true of the triangular relationship between the cops and Kay. She, too, has been sexually abused and the movie seems to want to say that violent crimes against women were-are-more common than we like to pretend, which is doubtless...
...with it too; the DVD re-releases of its classic titles and cult favorites have been delicious reminders of noir's wonderfully stylized strengths. And some of neo-noir's best titles, from Chinatown through The Grifters, have been real additions to the American canon. But The Black Dahlia is tired when it is not self-parodying, and it suggests that our nostalgia for its genre tropes has become idle and a vacuous waste of our time and of our filmmakers' energies...