Word: noir
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...just look at those titles--has gone blackly cynic. In Roland Joffe's twist-filled but flawed new feature, religion serves only to provide a respectable front for the depraved or to highlight its golly-gee practitioners' cluelessness. But that's not the main thrust: In this noir comedy, lust, greed, jealousy, betrayal and just generally people's worst sides stand in mocking contrast to any form of decency (i.e. gullibility...
Once upon a time, the jazz or jazz-inflected scores for movies like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Man with the Golden Arm were breakthroughs. Today the sound of a saxophone wailing in the night is as tired a film noir cliche as the battered fedora--the stuff of Carol Burnett sketches. But Blanchard, a trumpet player and film composer himself, finds new beauty and wit in the originals, fashioning mini-suites from the above-mentioned scores (and others) that shift between cinematic lushness and small-group drive. Blanchard's bruised, lyrical solo on Chinatown is a highlight...
...some artsy duds and head to a screening of "Phantom Lady" and "Film Noir" on Dudley House's oversized TV. A preceding lecture will explain everything that's going on. Dudley House, Lehman Hall, Harvard Yard. 6 p.m. FREE...
...films begins a little self-importantly, awash in its Picasso Blue period palette, mimicking the voice-over style and groove of the Bogart noir, only Porter's not a dick, just a guy who gets back stabbed by his wife and partner in a heist. He vows revenge, but takes his time reacquainting himself with the city and its environs, plotting. We get the feeling from the start that he's just biding his time, a shark circling its prey, but he does take the whole thing a little too seriously. His bad-ass persona seems a bit silly considering...
...last year's High Art, has a chance with two new films, the dysfunctional-family weepie The Autumn Heart and the music-industry romp Sugar Town. But your best bet might be Sarah Polley, a 20-year-old Canadian actress who stars in the way-cool teen comedy noir Go and in Guinevere, a serious coming-of-age story about a May-September romance...