Showing posts with label film noir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film noir. Show all posts
19 February 2015
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28 April 2014
26 November 2012
Watch Alan Moore's Jimmy's End
Been a kid from UK who loved comic books in 1980's I didn't go for the typical Beano, Dandy, Topper,I just loved something a little darker, gritter sometimes surreal like 2000AD, Watchmen and V For Vendetta. It was unusual choices as I first went to primary school in 1980 starting high school 1988. There's one man I have to thank is Alan Moore the British cult comic book writer and his latest story come film Jimmy's End has appeared online in it's entirety.
Jimmy's End is a 32 minute short film which is part of a bigger project revolving around the same narrative, characters and locations. When you watch the film you can see a big David Lynch feel to it, very intense, surreal and full of sexual tension, it's neo-noir ala 1950's style at it's most disturbing. After you watch the film check out the 19 minute prequel Act Of Faith and spend an glorious hour in the company of Britain's finest comic book writer Alan Moore!
Did someone say bizzare?!
We’ve all been there: in the lapses after midnight, stumbling down unfamiliar gutters after one too many for the road and looking for inviting lights before they call last orders. James is trying to lose himself, but in a fractured men’s room mirror finds the eyes that have been waiting for him.
Following from the unnerving prelude Act of Faith, Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins unveil a phantasmagoric English dreamtime made of goosefleshed pin-up girls, burned out comedians and faulty lights, with judgement just behind the tinsel
Jimmy’s End pulls back the purple drapes upon an intricate new planet of desire and mystery. We’ve all been there.
source:Bloody Disgusting
12 November 2012
It Always Rains on Sunday DVD Review
Robert Hamer’s engaging drama, is arguably much less well known than Ealing’s comedic offerings, but its relative anonymity compared to the studio’s later offerings hides a stylistic and thematic ingenuity that prefigures not just nourish thrillers which would flourish shortly after, but also the working-class graft of the British New Wave.
Trapped in a joyless existence of bleak domesticity, dejected housewife Rose (Googie Withers) finds her dull life upset by the sudden reappearance of old flame, Tommy (John McCallum), on the run from police having recently escaped from Dartmoor Prison. As the routine of a typical Sunday unfolds around her, Rose desperately attempts to keep the presence of her former lover a secret from her husband, stepdaughters, and the cluttered, tangled lives of the street’s inhabitants: petty thieves, inquisitive journalists in search of a story, prying policemen and wheeler-dealer businessmen whose lives all contribute to a neat tapestry of supporting and intruding narrative threads.
It’s a bit of a conundrum to explain why It Always Rains on Sunday is not regularly included amongst the pantheon of Ealing greats. Perhaps the plain truth is that it was too much, too soon; a dangerous, determined piece of cinema intent on confronting the problems and realities of a post-war Britain, rather than playing on past glories.
The stylish Noir-tinged finale, the breathless chase through the Stratford train yard, faultlessly photographed by Douglas Slocombe would seem to echo that most illustrious of British thrillers, The Third Man, were it not for the fact that Robert Hamer’s daunting, dizzying chase through the shadows pre-dates Carol Reed’s masterpiece by two years. The low-key grind of daily life amongst the bomb-scarred terraces of the East End also provides us with a glimpse of the kind of social realism that wouldn’t be fully exulted for a decade or so.
If you are already familiar with this largely unheralded gem, do yourself a favour and reacquaint yourself. If not, find it and discover a wonderfully progressive masterwork of British cinema.
Chris Banks(@Chris_in_2D)
Rating:PG
DVD Re-release Date:12th November 2012 (UK)
Directed By:Robert Hamer
Cast: Googie Withers, Jack Warner , John McCallum
Buy:It Always Rains On Sunday (Digitally Remastered) [Blu-ray]
/ DVD
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