Update-o-Rama Part 5: Sunday

[pantryslut]

We have been trained to scrabble for crumbs and praise them as a full and satisfying meal.

This is the only explanation I can come up with for why so many people have liked Sin City.

I'm glad Robert Rodriguez made the movie. I'm glad that he had the vision and the will and ambition. Because Sin City is an ambitious failure. For the most part, it fails in new and interesting ways.

This does not make it a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. Mostly, the interesting failures are purely visual. (Neon blood? Neon blood!)

And note I said "for the most part." Because it also fails in a couple pretty predictable and worn-out ways. Here's the big one: how it interprets 'noir.' This isn't Noir for Dummies; this is noir as schtick. Beyond stylized and simplified, until it reaches cardboard ridiculousness. Particularly with the characters. Folks, if you can sum up a character with one sentence, they're not a character, they're a shtick. Mickey Rourke's much-praised character, for instance, doesn't even need a sentence -- he just needs a profile. His character is summed up by his jaw.

Also, we all knew Frank Miller's forte was not dialog. But wow, how that shit stank up the screen.

Oh, and if I want dazzling visuals, I'll go to a gallery, thanks. If I'm going to a movie, I want a story I don't have to laugh at to ease the pain of its obviousness.

P.S. It was the praise for the whores of Old Town that made me believe we're scrabbling for crumbs. Cute outfits and big guns do not a new and groundbreaking portrayal of sex workers make. I would spend a few words deconstructing the "truce" and how it reveals their ultimate powerlessness, but why bother? It's like deep sea diving into a puddle.

Comments

[beckastar.livejournal.com]

as far as the story goes, i could take it or leave it. but the filmmaking? hell yeah. it *felt* like watching a comic book, like the movie was under glass. yeah, it was schticky, and pseudo noir (and even for pseudo-noir, a tad too easy to digest) but i took that as appropriate, given the source. it seemed to me an r-rated live action saturday morning cartoon.

i thought that for that, it was rather well done and very good candy indeed. i confess to abandoning my analytical predisposition and having a hell of a good time watching it.

as for the sex worker depiction? i'm not sure what the hell was supposed to be so radical about it; just because they could kick ass doesn't mean that they were autonomous ... they were dependent ultimately on men. not to mention the fact that they lived in a ghetto on the outskirts of town. god forbid sex workers should be depicted as respecful citizens.

just echoing your basic sentiments ....

well i think this line sums it up

[bucky-sinister.livejournal.com]

"Oh, and if I want dazzling visuals, I'll go to a gallery, thanks. If I'm going to a movie, I want a story I don't have to laugh at to ease the pain of its obviousness."

wrong movie for you then. i loved this movie, because i loved the way it looked. i quit reading the comic after a few issues because the story left a lot to be desired.

the last movie i saw that i thought was an awesome story was He Loves Me He Loves Me Not, starring Audrey Tatou. The storytelling in that one is astounding.

do you netflix?
b

Re: well i think this line sums it up

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

But, see, I like trash. I have a big appetite for it, in fact. I don't need *astounding* storytelling. Just satisfying. I'll put up with a lot, so I expected to be able to at least tolerate Sin City a lot better than I did. But this felt like gilded garbage.

I think some of it may have also been the repetition: one howler of an overdone noir line is one thing, for example, but one per story is another. (I know the repetition was supposed to provide structure. Oh well.)

Trash...hmm.

[bucky-sinister.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with Larry Cohen? I just watched It's Alive this weekend. What a fantastic crappy movie. He can be absolutely brilliant at times. I always like movies like God Told Me To and Q: The Winged Serpent.

The reason i'm suggesting so many movies is that to get the taste of a bad one out of your mental mouth, you need to take in another.

I just watched 45 minutes of Sasquatch Hunters on my lunch break. I sent it back without watching the rest.

Re: Trash...hmm.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

That's right, I didn't answer: yes, I do Netflix. Thanks for the suggestions!

You can add me as a Netflix Friend if you want

[bucky-sinister.livejournal.com]

bucky at lastgasp dot com

I'm kinda obsessive movie wise. I watch 5-10 per week.

Re: Trash...hmm.

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

We Netflickity and also have Tivo. My honey recorded something from around 1960 that was called "Wild Women of Wongo", and that title tells you a lot.

But you know what? It was SO much worse than that, even.

Next up: "Call me Bwana", where Bob Hope goes on safari into the jungle to recover a lost moon capsule. Yes, you read that right.

Some random thoughts masquerading as a comment

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that "Sin City" didn't engage me the way I want my movies to. It was visually interesting, but that isn't a movie.

A movie is a narrative with characters and a world that draw me into it. Of the comic book movies I've seen in the past year --Sin City, Sky Captain, Thunderbirds, & The Incredibles-- The Incredibles was by far the best at giving me characters I cared about and got invested in. Surprisingly, Thunderbirds came in (an albeit distant) second, while the two most visually-admired works, Sin City & Sky Captain, left me cool. The difference was that two of them were about people and two of them were about looking cool. Sin City is the cinematic equivalent of the Stand & Model crowd.

On another note: I just picked up a copy of "Die Hard" on DVD and I'm looking forward to the original exploits of John McClane and Hans Gruber rinsing the taste of Marv, Hartigan, Nancy, and the rest out of my brain.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

This isn't Noir for Dummies; this is noir as schtick. Beyond stylized and simplified, until it reaches cardboard ridiculousness. Particularly with the characters. Folks, if you can sum up a character with one sentence, they're not a character, they're a shtick.

I would have said "archetype", myself.

Come to think of it, I really should actually write the review I have in mind for this before it falls out of my head.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I would have said "archetype", myself.

Why? (I wouldn't, at least in context.)

[thomasroche.livejournal.com]

I couldn't disagree more on the quality of the film -- I think it was fabulous. However, IMHO it's not without its serious problems....among others, the fact that the acting, with some exceptions, BLEW.

I still loved it, and I tend to HATE movies that depend on their visuals.

I'm also not a huge fan of most of the movies Tarantino and Rodriguez have done, which all my friends seem to think are brilliant -- so it's not just that I'm a cheap date....though ultimately I sure am....

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

I have to see the damn thing, alas ... it's research.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, lots of people did like it. Maybe you will too.