Sin City – A Dame to Die For.

Sin City is the title for a series of neo-noir comics by Frank Miller[1]. The first story originally appeared in "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special" (April, 1991), and continued in Dark Horse Presents #51–62 from May 1991 to June 1992, under the title of Sin City and serialized in thirteen parts. Several other stories of variable lengths have followed. The intertwining stories, with frequently recurring characters, take place in Basin City.

Can Hartigan still protect Nancy - even though he's dead?

The first movie adaptation of Sin City was released in April 2005 based on the first, third, and fourth books in Miller's original comic series. An extra included on the DVD release explains how Miller was reluctant to release the film rights, but Roger Rodrigues, a long time fan of Millers graphic novels, talked the author into doing just that by shooting “The Customer Is Always Right”, which in fact ended up as the opening sequence in the first film. It was also this sequence that was used to recruit Willis and some of the other major stars to appear in the movie. 

Can Ava Lord become the femme fatale of femme fatale's? 

The sequel, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For was released in August 2014. One of the smaller plots of the film is based on the short story "Just Another Saturday Night", which is collected in Booze, Broads, & Bullets, the sixth book in the comic series. Two original stories ("The Long Bad Night" and "Nancy's Last Dance") were created exclusively for the film written by Miller.

Can Marv or Dwight save the day?

Both films were co-directed by Robert Rodriguez [2] and Frank Miller, and star an ensemble cast including returning cast members Mickey Rourke as tough guy Marv, Jessica Alba as Nancy Callahan, Rosario Dawson as Gail the overlord of the women that run the red light district known as Old Town, Bruce Willis reprises his role as the only good cop in Basin City John Hartigan, Jaime King appears as both Goldie and her twin sister Wendy, and Powers Boothe is the most powerful man in Basin City the rich and corrupt politician Senator Roark . Newcomers to the series include Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Ray Liotta, Lady Gaga, Julia Garner, and the wonderful Juno Temple.

 

Can there ever be a better looking working girl than Sally?

Again we have a rather unique looking movie, not quite as unique as it was ten years ago but still unique. We are presented with wonderful graphic noir atmospherics, the steamy black and white footage where red is the colour of dresses and cars and of course at times blood, the brilliantly spoken pulp narrative as if you were being read a bed time story by the king of pulp novels himself Mickey Spillane. In fact it does at times remind you of Spillane’s disgust for women, especially through Eva Greens character Ava Lord where one minute she is placed on a pedestal and the next thrown in the gutter – go back a century or two and she would have been burnt as a witch.  All this along with the ‘writing style’ gives you no doubt that it has been successfully lifted from the pages of a comic book – no wonder Miller agreed to release the film rights, know he can see what was originally in his mind eye in all its dazzling spender up on the big screen. Sexy, violent and humorous Sin City 2, just like its predecessor, is a joyous piece of nonsense that must be seen – but remember, “Never lose control. Never let the monster out”. Goodbye suckers I’m off to Kadies!!

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[1] Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American writer, artist, and film director best known for his dark comic book stories and graphic novels such as Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. He also directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and produced the film 300. He is also known for creating the comic book character Elektra.

[2]  Robert Anthony Rodríguez (born June 20, 1968)[3] is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in Mexico and his native Texas. He has directed successful and groundbreaking film sagas such as the Mexico Trilogy, From Dusk till Dawn, Sin City, Planet Terror, and Machete. He is a friend and frequent collaborator of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. In December 2013, Rodriguez launched his own cable TV channel, El Rey.

Red 2

I think to be fair, it you enjoyed Red (2010) then I would expect you to also enjoy its sequel Red 2 (2013) but if you didn’t read no further!

If like me you’re a bit of a sucker for a noisy violent comic book adaptation then you’re probably still reading this blog.  Of course there no need to tell you that its an American action comedy film or that it was inspired by a limited comic book series of the same name written by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. This time the German director Robert Schwentke is not at the helm but the American Dean Parisot who I am told was responsible for episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The cast is certainly as appealing even if we have lost the services of Morgan Freeman.

 

Helen Mirren don's the washing up gloves. 

Bruce Willis returns as Frank Moses who has fallen head over heals in love with Mary-Louise Parker’s character Sarah Ross (who can blame the old bugger) who now joins him on his gun-totting bullet flying adventures. Also part of the team are the LCD addled Marvin Boggs, you remember Marvin he’s the secret agent with the dodgy dress sense, and M16 assassin Victoria Winters who if not regularly piling up bodies gets withdrawal symptoms, Victoria is again played by the wonderful Helen Mirren. Added to the cast this time is Catherine Zeta-Jones as a very fetching Russian secret agent who has a crush on Frank. Also tied to our narrative in one way or another are Brian Cox head of the Russian secret service, David Thewis as The Frog who seems to collect very expensive bottles of wine and keys to red mercury bomb cupboards, Anthony Hopkins plays Edward Bailey a mad inventor of weapons of mass destruction and up to his neck in Project Nightshade? We daren’t leave out CIA man Jack Norton (Neal McDonough) for no other reason than he appears to kill every one he comes into contact with!

 

Catherine Zeta-Jones chills out on the sofa.

The story’s not that important and I won’t bore you with it at this stage but suffice to say it involves lots of shooting and blowing things up. My best advice is to suspend your disbelief, stick the old fleshy organ inside the mouth well and truly in your cheek, sit back and enjoy this humorous action packed adventure movie.

Mary-Louise Parkers's been up west.

Pulp Fiction.

At the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club an extremely privileged audience spent two and half hours in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘cool universe’. A place that is hard and fast, funny, stylish and filled deliberately with some clever references to other cinematic works. We were watching a film that veers back and forth between humour and violence, a film where your never sure if you should be laughing or cringing. Monday night’s big screen showing of one of my own personal top three films of all time:  Pulp Fiction (1994) is a film that defined American cinema in the 90’s. A piece of cinematic work that is central to its age, influencing many films that followed including our own British Film industry. Would films like Trainspotting (1996) or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) had been made without QT’s inspiration and would our own British postmodern film noir been so proficient. But far more importantly it influenced the financing of the America independent movie because up until that point it was almost impossible to get finance for anything outside of the Hollywood controlled film industry. It was because of this cross over from what could have remained an independent cult classic to a mainstream hit that really opened the door’s. Only one other filmmaker had received so much acclaim so early on in his career and that was another boy wonder Orson Wells. ‘Not since Citizen Kane has one man appeared from relative obscurity to redefine the art of filmmaking[1]”

How did this 1994 American film noir directed by the young and brash Knoxville Tennessee born Quentin Tarantino, a movie known for it extensive and diverting dialogue, ironic mix of humour and violence, nonlinear storyline and a host of cinematic and pop culture references, originally come to fruition?

Honey Bunny and Pumpkin enjoy a quite cup of coffee.

In 1992, after the breakthrough success of his debut film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Tarantino went to Amsterdam to write a script for his next film. Originally Reservoir Dogs seems to have been part of the script idea for Pulp Fiction but it had become a full story in its own right. Some of the ideas that went into the script came from friend Roger Avary (who had been a co-worker at the famous Video Archives store where Tarantino had worked and allegedly honed his love of the movies). Avary had written the segment that became Butch’s gold watch story, and he had expanded it into a feature film script called Pandemonium Reigns, but Tarantino brought back the script and it became a section of Pulp Fiction.

Once the script for the film was completed, Tarantino and his producer friend, Lawrence Bender, took it to Jersey Films, which had offered Tarantino close to a million dollars for a script. Tarantino and Benders Company, A Band Apart, (named after a Jean-Luc Godard film Bande a part 1964) had negotiated a deal with Jersey Films that involved an offer of initial financing plus office facilities in exchange for partnership in the film and permission to shop the script to a studio. Jersey took it to Columbia TriStar Films who decided not to produce it: the rumour is that the studio heads were bothered by the violence and scenes in which John Travolta character shoots up heroin. But according to the Los Angeles Times, TriStar apparently got cold feet and decided not to go forward with production because they feared it could be hard to market. The studio’s rejection of Pulp Fiction, an under $10 million movie, was explained away by a source at the studio who explained that TriStar was currently looking to make and release more higher profile, bigger-budgeted mainstream movies with ‘stars’ and at this point had little interest in more offbeat fare, even if the financial risks were lower.[2]

Mia Wallace and ....

........her husband Marsellus Wallace.

Fortunately, another company Miramax, which had bought the US distribution rights for Reservoir Dogs and made lots of money from that experience, agreed to finance the new film. In fact, it was the first movie that Miramax (which had recently become a Disney subsidiary) financed in its entirety. Tarantino was given the same scriptwriting fee that he had been promised at TriStar, and the film went in to an eight-week shoot with a budget of $8.5 million. The largest part of which went to building the Jack Rabbit Slim’s set (but some savings were made by having the production offices at the same site so as to cut down on transportation costs). Something else that also helped keep costs down was a plan that Lawrence Bender devised in which all the main actors were paid the same amount of money, rather than according to hierarchy of celebrity and importance, which is normally the case.

Butch Coolide doing what Butch Coolidge does best!

Incidentally some of the casting history is quite intriguing. For example, there was evidently some thought of giving the role of Vincent Vega (Travolta) to Michael Madsen, who played Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs. There was also talk of Daniel Day-Lewis playing the part. Similarly, there was some competition for the character of co-hitman Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson), with Laurence Fishburne testing for the role. A number of actresses were also suggested for the Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) character including Meg Ryan, Holly Hunter, Brigitte Nielsen and Rosanna Arquette who became Lances wife in the film (Vincent’s drug dealer). And a recurrent story has Pam Grier originally being considered for the role of Lances wife. (Who would go on to appear in Tarantino’s next feature film Jackie Brown 1997)

Jack Rabbit Slim's famous twist competition.

Production began on the 20^th September 1993. In May 1994, Pulp Fiction had its premier at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Palme d’Ore, the Festivals top prize, from a jury presided over by Clint Eastwood. This success encouraged Miramax to give the film a big publicity push. Thereafter it was nominated for seven Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Travolta), Supporting Actor (Jackson) Supporting Actress (Thurman) Best Original Screenplay and Editing, it won Best Original Screenplay. Eventually taking over $213 million at the box office, that did not include DVD’s, published scripts and of course we must not forget the soundtrack which plays an integral part of the narrative, with QT we don’t get a composed film score instead we get an assortment of surf music, rock and roll, soul and pop songs.

Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield looking cool.

There was ambiguities over credits: at the Golden Globe Awards, for example, only Tarantino was named as best screenwriter, but at the Academy Awards, Tarantino and Avary shared the Oscar. The actual credits on the film state ‘Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Story by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary.”

To a certain extent the film is in fact politically correct. There is no nudity and no violence directed against women. There’s interracial friendship and cultural diversity, there are strong women and strong black men with QT swimming against class stereotypes,[3] although some critics took exception to the word nigger, which is something that’s also coursing problems with his latest movie Django Unchained (2012).

Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield looking decidedly uncool covered in Marvin's brains!

Following the screening of this intoxicating film a short discussion took place, subjects included how Tarantino revitalised the career of its leading man John Travolta, who went on to appear in many other award winning films, the narrative structure which is presented out of sequence forming, what some have referred to as a circular narrative and the films success and its legacy to the cinema.  I got the feeling that this discussion could have gone on all night, with perhaps a second screening late into the early hours, those were the days?

I would like to thank the RBC for programming this film. It gave some of the younger members of the audience a chance to see this movie for the first time and fans like myself, who have seen it many times, another opportunity to see it as it should be shown: on a big screen with a decent sound system.[4]

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[1] Dawson 1995

[2] Los Angeles Times June 1993.

[3] Alan Stone. Boston Review 1995.

[4] I would like to thank Dana Polan whose reference work BFI Modern Classic was a great help in the research for my film introduction.

Moonrise Kingdom.

Set on New Penzance, a coastal island off New England, in 1965 Wes Anderson’s latest movie is a story of two twelve year olds pen pals who fall in love with each other, but out of love with their self contained world and who can blame them? Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) complete with Davy Crocket hat and thick horned rim specs is a very unhappy Boy Scout, hated by the rest of the Khaki Scout Troop for no apparent reason and not wanted by his foster parents. He leaves a resignation note with Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) and sets off to meet the love of his life, Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) with the implicit intention of running away together. Suzy’s dysfunctional family consists of her three obnoxious wee brothers and her unhappily married parents Mr and Mrs Bishop (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) who indecently are both lawyers. When its realised the youngster’s are missing a search party, consisting of the Scout Master, his troop of scouts and the islands police force Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), (que Hank Williams; your need to see the film) sets out to discover their whereabouts and social services (Tilda Swinton) is informed.  In the mean time our missing young lovers are setting up camp in a tidal outlet which they rename Moonrise Kingdom (2012). During the hubbub a dog is killed with a bow and arrow, a scout is stabbed in the kidney with a pair of scissors and Suzy gets her ears pierced with fishhooks!

Suzy and Sam

Wes Anderson’s stage is always a completely autonomous world of his own making, as a certain BBC comedy programme used to say ‘now for something completely different’. The grown ups in Andersons movie completely complement the superb feature film debuts from Gilman and Hayward. The director, and co-writer with Roman Coppola, treats trivial things with the utmost seriousness and serious things as if they were completely trivial[1] the humour is deadpan and off the wall but extremely funny. What a perfectly delightful evenings entertainment this film turned out to be. It was  a real shame there was not more people at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre to enjoy it.

Social Services.

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[1] Paraphrased from a critique by Sam Davies. 

Red.

Frank Moses.

When I blogged A-Team (2010) I said, amongst other things, that it was good Saturday night viewing being both amusing and entertaining. Well it’s much the same for German director Robert Schwentke action comedy Red (2010) that is based on a short graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. It’s the type of film that you know you shouldn’t admit to enjoying, but to hell with it, it’s a cracker.

Red stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous’ and describes the Bruce Willis character Frank Moses. Frank has retired as a CIA agent; he now lives a quiet suburban life the highlight of which is his regular telephone chats with Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) who deals with Franks pension payments. Our brave CIA agent eventually askes her out for a date. But in the mean time Franks house is shot to pieces by a band of hi-tech assassins and it does not take Frank long to realise that someone has made him a target. To find out the reason for this intrusion he visits an old peoples home where another retired agent resides, the ex intelligence expert Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman). They discover that a reporter has been murdered because of a list of names that she has been compiling. Our intrepid duo decide that they need help to get to the bottom of the mystery and recruit two other retired agents one of which is Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) who lives on the edge of a swamp and has had his brain fried by eleven years of CIA LSD experiments. The final retiree is the still beautiful Victoria Winslow (Helen Mirren) a valued member of the local women’s institute and occasional assassin, well she’s got to keep her hand in!!  Along with Sarah, who has fallen for Frank and the excitement of the chase, they all set about shooting and blowing up things.

Victoria Winslow.

The film is not designed to be looked into, but to be looked at. It never misses a beat, has great action scenes, it’s extremely funny at times, has a cast to die for who seem to be enjoying themselves. As I said before it’s a cracking light hearted action adventure that fun and entertaining. Treat yourself.

Marvin Boggs and Joe Matheson.