Word: noir
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cameras roll, Timberlake—in a trendy blazer or vest-and-tie outfit—shows off his slick moves. The caliber of the cinematography immediately catches the viewer’s eye, as flashing bars of light signal the video’s opening and the noir-ish palette contrast is cleverly manipulated by rapid switches between black and white backgrounds in the dance scenes. Yet it becomes a little trippy—and borderline tacky—when objects drawn from the lyrics start to appear and subsequently float around in slow motion: string instruments when Timberlake...
...Daly may not be a natural action hero as Dr. Richard Kimble, but Mykelti Williamson at least makes a commanding Lt. Gerard. This is a competent, movielike action hour - nothing more, nothing less - that owes far more to the explosive Tommy Lee Jones movie than to the often menacing, noir-y 1960s ABC series. It is interesting, in a fall when the executin'-est governor in the U.S. is running for president, to see a network reviving a series based on a miscarriage of justice. But the interest is pretty much theoretical...
...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...
...film is the relationship that develops between Hartnett's Bucky and an heiress named Madeleine Linscott (Hillary Swank). They meet in a lesbian bar (more L.A. decadence for you), but she turns out to be resolutely heterosexual, very rich and-need we say it?-that most conventional of film noir figures, the spider woman luring the besotted male close to doom and even closer to the solution of the labyrinthine, and, in this case, utterly risible, plot...
...ploddingly plotted, enlivened by the occasional shock occurrence, lacking that attention to mood and nuance which made Curtis Hanson's version of another Ellroy novel, L.A. Confidential, such a rich, rewarding entertainment a few years ago. You begin to wonder: maybe it's time to give film noir a rest. The academics have had their fun with it; no genre has attracted more scholarly attention in recent years. And we've had our fun 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...