“Say hello to another dissapointing 50′s style film noir.”

It seems that 50′s style detective movies with a flare of noir have come into style recently. First Hollywoodland then The Black Dahlia. The movies share some similarities in that they deal with real topics that the director takes some liberty in addressing in a quasi-fictional tense. The Black Dahlia is one of the novels in an apparent trilogy of novels that are written by James Ellroy. The other one that is well known is none other than L.A. Confidential, a movie that got it right. Well kids, sorry to say, but The Black Dahlia doesn’t get it right.

Brian DePalma did The Untouchables. I say this forthright to put the image of The Untouchables in all of your heads, as just how awesome this could have been. DePalma has shown that he has a flare for that time period. And he doesn’t dissapoint visually. The movie was shot incredibly well. There are moments where I felt like I was watching a movie from the 50′s as DePalma uses softening lenses, specifically with Scarlett Johanson. The preformances here weren’t bad, with Josh Hartnett being a pretty dependable protagonist. I like Aaron Eckhart, but his felt too played up. Hillary Swank was a real preformance here, as she once again shows her range, actually looking like a chick for once. Scarlett Johanson doesn’t really tap any emotions here. She’s pretty drab. That being said, the story and script were a mess.

Once again, a story gets caught up in trying to do too much and not focus on the importance of the issue at hand: The Black Dahlia. I felt like the story was about what the case did to the two detectives rather than them solving the case. The suspense was better in places and DePalma fell back on some old Untouchables moment (i.e. The stairs and fountain). I found myself thoroughly bewildered by the entire plot and getting damn near bored. This was goind down fast until DePalma picked it up and finished it quite nicely. His take wasn’t terrible on 50′s film noir, it just wasn’t the right script/story to do it with. While there are refreshing moments in this, it was long and frankly didn’t hold my attention. The script wasn’t held together really all that tightly. I’d hate to compare it to Hollywoodland, but if we could mate the two movies, then something nice would be at the end. All in all, DePalma misses the mark in a big way, but looks pretty cool doing it. This get’s a 5 out of 10, by not doing what it should have.

RATING:

 “Great acting supports a shoddy script. Doesn’t soar but doesn’t crash and burn.”

 The mystery behind George Reeves death is still an unclosed case in Hollywood today.  The case is still pretty much open as questions regarding the actual investigation and testimonies have been called into play.  It seems like real-life mystery is actually pretty good.  Wouldn’t this be perfect for a detective story?  I would think so as well.  Except in Hollywoodland the film-maker wasn’t sure whether it was a detective story or biography he was making.

Let me say this to start: Affleck rocked the shit in this one.  I was very impressed by the way he created a character out of an actualy person. A memorable preformance, not to be eclipsed by Adrien Brody, who’s stellar as the gumshoe and hero of the story apart from Reeves.  Other great preformances are turned in by Bob Hoskins, Diane Lane and Robin Tunney.  The film totally captures Hollywood during the “star-system” era and totally gives off that 1940′s/50′s film-noir, Chinatown sort of vibe.  The visual effects themselves were also very creative.  It looked polished and was preformed quite effectively, and while the film provided a great underlying situation, the problem was in the actual organization.

This movie tried to do too much in too little.  The movie runs a bit long as it really doesn’t have an action-beat basis.  It’s confusing as to what to expect however, as your introduced to it almost as a biographical reflection, but then thrown into the detective story investigation.  There can be a happy medium between the two, but the film-makers just didn’t find it, leaving to many dull moments that didn’t seem to bring me into any suspenseful places.  If you’re going to use real material as the basis to your detective story, make it suspenseful.  Don’t change the facts, but create situations using the already shown story.  They attempted this, but in fact failed.  They are quickly rebounded by strong preformances and a polished look.  Hollywoodland , as a movie, is in many ways like Reeves life: Handsome, Interesting but never quite knowing which way to be taken.  This movie gets 7 out of 10 Bones for a lack of clarity in vision backed by superb preformances.

RATING:

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Didn’t see it.  Don’t want to.  There; Answered your question.  At this point I’ll have had half the readers proclaiming themselves as marquee players in this conversation simply because they have spent 1 1/2 to 2 hours of their life watching Samuel L Jackson swear and kill snakes…on a plane.  I am not interested in this movies plot, the humor it may provide or what not: I have grown weary to these cult movies that seem to take off in other aspects of media before the movie does incredibly well, or recieves cult status.

I don’t presume myself to be a person who will like something until it get’s popular.  I still like Boondock Saints and Donnie Darko, two movies that happen to be part of what I’m discussing.  The point is, the reason why Snakes on a Plane failed at the box office is the same reason it was expected to soar; it didn’t take Hollywood seriously.  For every scene kid, every MySpace nerd that adored the very thought of this movie simply for it’s apparent “coolness” there were three people that were impressed with it’s stupidity of concept.  For every person that said to me how cool it could be, there were more who were skeptical about wasting their time.

Snakes on a Plane was this years Napoleon Dynamite.  Granted it wasn’t independent but it generated the same cross culture marketing buzz.  How many T-Shirts for Napoleon Dynamite have been made and sold?  How many posters? Magnets? Buttons?  Retro clothing? Liger drawings?  Now match that to the proceeds from Snakes money-making apparel.  Not only did it have the T-Shirts and posters, but it had an alt-rock CD following and personalized ring tones to name a few things.  What I’m saying is, when a movie becomes a “cult” following after it comes out, I’m skeptical.  When it’s a “cult” before it comes out, I’m damn right scared.

When a movie gathers a cult following, it’s almost not enough to like the movie anymore: It’s a living, breathing object for a group of people at only one moment in time.  How many people “owned” Donnie Darko? How many people relished in their Napoleon Dynamite fandom?  I felt like when I wasn’t wearing the T-Shirt I didn’t like the movie.  When I wasn’t plastering it on my life, I wasn’t worthy to just like a movie. How can you enjoy the simple nature of a decent movie, such as Donnie Darko or Boondock Saints when there is a blitz in alternative culture to have that movie as the “scene” or “it” movie of the moment?  Too much of a good thing can make it bad.

I’m all for making money off of something you create, whether it be action figures or novelty items.  But what Snakes on a Plane did, while being very creative in marketing, is mock what Hollywood has created as a scheme.  It seemed brilliant until opening weekend.  It became annoying all too fast.  It was all too much because maybe that’s the only play the movie had.  It’s like a losing hand in poker that they thought they could bluff their way out of by being so aggressive they move everyone else out.  Maybe blitzing everyone with the message is the only move they could make to make money.  And that’s why they failed.

I would feel bad for the film, but I can’t.  I already feel inundated with gripes from people who give me the “Oh-my-God!You-Haven’t-Seen-It-Yet?!You-Have-to-see-it!It’s-so-stupid!” treatment.  It must be good because it’s the “it” movie of the moment. 

But I’m open to ridicule on this one.  Change my mind loyal Bones Report readers.  If you think I should see it and perhaps eat my words, then comment this.