Word: noir
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...melodramatic sulfur of the mad mom in one of David Sedaris' "memoir" stories, the domineering vindictiveness of a shrew-mother from 40s movies. In fact, she's played in the film by none other than Ann Savage, the virulent megabitch Vera in Edgar G. Ulmer's cheapo noir classic Detour. That was 62 years ago, and now, at 86, she is the icy Queen Maddin, standing in for all the city's overbearing women. (As narrator, he says, "Never underestimate the tenacity of a Winnipeg mother"). Still she pops up unbidden in her filmmaker son's memories. Again she quizzes...
...dreams (even as animation is, in a way, the key to unlocking the feeling of dreams). A police detective hopes to solve a murder by telling his dreams to the sexy Paprika, who is also a staid researcher Atsuko. They're aided or threatened by the usual scifi-noir suspects; but the plot is so complicated, it's best not to worry about parsing it and just go with the somnambulist flow, which is where the movie finds its true life. Paprika alternates dream and reality, or abruptly fuses the two, until the detective, and the viewer, can't tell...
...know it, I want to drink whites at room temperature so I can really taste them, and hell, yes, I want to get my mom to try something other than Yellow Tail, and goddam, I do want to break up these stupid cliques of Pinot Grigio chicks and Pinot Noir snobs and Chardonnay old ladies. But mostly I just want to hang out with Gary Vaynerchuk. Which is all he was going...
John is the latest from David Milch (Deadwood, NYPD Blue), working with "surf noir" novelist Kem Nunn. It follows the troubled Yost surfing dynasty: Grandpa Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) is a retired ascetic; son Butchie (Brian Van Holt) is a champ turned junkie; grandson Sean (Greyson Fletcher) wants to surf competitively, over Mitch's objections. They meet John (Austin Nichols), a pompadoured stranger who may be an alien or God (his last name is Monad, a Gnostic reference). Actual, literal miracles begin happening...
...This extreme-rendition style went against the grain of the Hollywood '40s, when actors tended to whisper their threats and endearments, and the film noir aesthetic insured that movie sets had no more lighting than today's Baghdad after curfew. Not Hutton: she stuck her face into the nearest klieg light and shouted her lines and lyrics, cascaded all that talent and adrenaline...