classicalsteve

I loosely define a "modern film noir" as movies made after circa 1970 which contain many of the elements we associate with the sub-genre film noir ("dark/black film), spanning a period circa 1940 to 1960.

While there is no absolute definition which characterizes a "film noir", aspects include crime, cynicism, cruelty, brutality, and even surrealism. "The Usual Suspects" is one of maybe a dozen films produced after circa 1970 that could be characterized as a "modern film noir". You could include "Reservoir Dogs" directed by Quentin Tarantino and "The Departed" directed by Martin Scorsese. (Interestingly, gangster movies and murder mysteries are often not defined as "film noir".) "The Usual Suspects" is one of those films which was not universal lauded by critics. Roger Ebert gave the film only 1.5/5 stars in large part because of the ending. Rolling Stones and Washington Post movie reviews praised the film. Just about everyone agreed that Kevin Spacey's performance was out of the ballpark and he won Best Supporting Actor.

I believe it's a brilliant film with an outstanding ensemble cast of weird but strangely fascinating low-lifes. In a nutshell, "The Usual Suspects" is not the easiest film to define. We are brought towards the end of a barbarous incident on a cargo ship on a dock in San Pedro Bay on the California coast. A ghost-like character kills another helpless character. Then the "dark man" sets the ship aflame using a cigarette lighter. We learn quickly that most everyone on the ship had died and part of the story is about law enforcement trying to figure out why something like two dozen people were either murdered or died from the flames.

There are two parallel stories: the investigation into the killings on the ship and the events leading up to the murders on the ship. The secondary "plot" (and after you see the film you'll understand why "plot" it's in quotes) is about a bunch of hoodlums who were wrongfully accused of a petty crime six weeks earlier. They meet each other at a line-up in a police station. None of them are particularly likeable but they're saving grace is they are compelling and all them have a history of criminal behavior.

Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) appears to be the most intelligent criminal of the lot, McManus (Stephen Baldwin) the most high-strong, Fenster (Benicio de Toro) the most enigmatic who tends to slur his words, Hockney (Kevin Pollack) the most indifferent to opinion about himself, and Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) the most unassuming of the bunch being meek and a cripple, and one of the only survivors from the atrocities on the ship. He earned the nickname "Verbal" because he tends to ramble about things unrelated to the current conversation. (At one point he muses about having been in a barber shop quartet when asked about the murders on the ship.) They are hired by an unknown and unseen character, called Keyser Söze, a Hungarian crime boss who we learn is the epitome of evil. There's a flashback where we see thugs hired by a rival crime boss to force Söze to concede his power. The thugs threaten to kill Söze's family. Söze's solution is one of the most brutal moments of the film but we never see Söze's face; we only see him from behind.

When Söze's name is mentioned, Verbal becomes insufferably afraid during his interrogation. In the flashback, the five "suspects" are brought together. They one Kobayashi who could be Indian or Pakistani who tells them of his "employer's " intentions. Keyser Söze has dossiers on each of them as a way to compel them to complete a task, which turns out to be the crimes on the boat.

"Suspects" is one of the most compelling and thought-provoking movies I've ever seen. For me it's an amazing piece of cinema from beginning-to-end but it is not for all tastes. In some ways we have even more questions than answers by film's end. But I think that's the fun of it.

But I would not characterize this movie as "joyful" but more of an exploration of the darker sides of human behavior. It is probably in my top 100 favorite movies. I watch it about every few years.

If you're looking for just a pure entertaining action film where the bad guys and good guys are well defined, like "Die Hard", "Heat" may not fit the playbill. "Heat" is quite an extraordinary film. It's sort of "The Italian Job" meets Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

The premise is pretty straight-forward: LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is pursuing heist leader Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and his gang of low-life and murderous thieving thugs. If you're going to pair Pacino and De Niro, the latter has to be the baddie. But to give a lot of credit to De Niro, his character of McCauley is very different than Jimmy Conway from "Goodfellas".

The story beings with a relatively straightforward heist of an armored vehicle containing bearer bonds. The idea was to steal the bonds and let the guards live until one of the gang members executes the guards. Now it's not just robbery but cold-blooded murder, so begins this nearly Shakespearian drama set in contemporary 1990's Los Angeles.

Part of what makes this film more disturbing than you're typical action movie is the characters on each side. They are not terribly likeable. Part of the story, unusual for an "action movie" is we learn about other people in the lives of Hanna, McCauley, and even some of the other gangs members, particularly their wives and/or girlfriends. Part of the intricate web is that some of these people have nothing to do with the crimes but are innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire.

In some ways, by film's end, we learn that the relationship between Detective Hanna and Thief McCauley is they are as intertwined with each other as their own significant others. And that's what makes this film much more than a simple action movie. It's high drama with some shoot-outs.

The greatest painting in the world is by far "La Gioconda", known in the English-speaking world as "The Mona Lisa" by the quintessential renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci. The scholarly art world believes the sitter is Lisa del Gioncondo, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant in Florence, part of the Gherardini family of nobles and merchants.

And yet this documentary spends way too much valuable screen time on the notebooks and uncompleted works and much less time on the Mona Lisa. One unfinished work on a battle scene receive two to three times the screen-time of Mona Lisa! Ultimately it was unfinished!

I think a golden opportunity was missed. I hope it wasn't one of those erroneous beliefs sometimes made by documentary filmmakers that everyone knows about certain things. Not everyone does, especially in an age where people don't read books as much as they used to. Many people don't know about Mona Lisa's origins and history. Yes it is somewhat shrouded in mystery but even that should have been explained.

The documentary doesn't even arrive at the Mona Lisa until near the end. There's lots of earlier set-ups about it, where the narration says that Leonardo's greatest work was to come. When Mona Lisa finally arrives, it is a bit of a disappointment. I wanted to hear about the original commission which was rejected by the Giocondo family. Why it was rejected by the family is nearly as interesting as why it is now considered to be possibly the greatest portrait ever created. There is some analysis by art experts about it's greatness but I also wanted to hear about the history.

The documentary's other shortcoming is the music. They didn't use any music from the time of Leonardo. Lots of music from the late 15th and 16th centuries are extant and there are many recordings of this music. Instead the filmmakers opted from kind of string quartet with lots of violin solos. The violin doesn't appear in Europe until circa 1530, about 10 years after Leonardo's passing. And the kind of virtuoso music used in the doc doesn't begin to be written until the very end of the 17th century, nearly 200 years after Leonardo's lifetime.

The notebooks are essentially the star of the show. I like the notebooks but I think far too much of the doc was spent on them at the price of giving a thorough discussion about Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is the star artwork of the Renaissance, possibly of all time. In this case she ends up in a supporting role. I found this doc to be less than satisfying.