Word: noir
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...begin, you can't lose with City of Angels: it is an ingenious capsule of the LA. myth as known through film noir, delivered with punch and spirit. It works with the typical film noir techniques of flashback, voiceover and femmes fatales, in a cruller of a plot that cult leaders, media moguls, starlets, prostitutes and stepmothers--a veritable buffet of the desperate, despicable and demented, In a musical that can finally be only derivative and parodic, the mainstage production of City of Angles surprises and moves with disarmingly evocative music and a clawingly ambient might only have ever existed...
...that's ok, I suppose. Film noir faded,black and white went, even the 40's had to end, sowhy not a good show. Somewhere on the lit stage,there are still women with legs that will not end,and men who live everyday like it's Monday.CrimsonSamuel P. Tepperman-Gelfant...
...Rounders, he just sits there, like a poker game that has its ending broadcast in the first hand. Rounders offers convincing evidence that the actors involved should carefully adjust the directions of their careers. John Dahl should return to the genre which made him famous--the sexually charged neo-noir thriller that he basically reinvented. Matt Damon should go for range and dive into a weird character--maybe even a villain. (Sacre bleu!) Gretchen Mol should have a heart-to-heart with Meryl Streep. John Malkovich should just relax. Rounders should be a transition piece for all these artists...
...example, that the stale tortilla coated with brown paste and overflowing with sour cream and jack cheese might with pride be called a burrito, or that the proper recipe for guacamole calls for mayonnaise. Just as Hank Quinlan--the crooked cop Welles plays in his recently re-released film noir--might have done in their shoes, they are better served drowning the lot in hyper-colored treacly margaritas served in icy troughs...
Forty years later and Citizen Kane hitsthe top of the AFI 100 charts. Universal Studiosheadlines its Universal Noir tour with a restoredversion of the famed director's film, Touch ofEvil, and the accompanying blurb: "'UniversalNoir' is the first of what Universal Studios hopeswill be an on-going series of classic films fromour library, organized by genre or director orstar, which will enable audiences to enjoy atheatrical moviegoing experience the wayfilmmakers intended." There's some hope left. Butbefore we get too excited and lose sight of whythe restoration effort had to occur in the firstplace, just remember what Welles...