Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

One thing I have often asked myself while watching film noirs is why aren't there any black people? The cool black person should have played well with the white audiences, even back in those incredibly racist '40's. Maybe not as the lead, but having more black characters would have lent itself to the noir style.

Devil in a Blue Dress however, is so similar to the way a "black guy" noir would have played that I can see why they weren't made. Maybe the message about racism wouldn't have been as heavy-handed as it was in this 1990's film, but no doubt it would have been there. It isn't that message which I disliked, it was more the way it was presented.

Devil in a Blue Dress is set in 1948 L.A., and follows the honest, hard-working black man who is dumped on by the whites, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins (Denzel Washington, in a role which he so often plays). Out of luck, and employment, he takes a job from a detective DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), who originally says he is employed by mayoral candidate Todd Carter (Terry Kinney), but turns out to be far more sinister. He is employed to find the mayoral candidate's former lover, Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) who happens to sympathise and hang out with black people at illegal nightclubs.

Easy then tracks down a friend of hers, Coretta James (Lisa Nicole Carson), at an illegal black nightclub. He goes to her house and sleeps with her, while finding out a fake address for Daphne. Coretta turns out to be dead the next morning, putting detectives Mason and Miller (John Roselius and Beau Starr) on his tail. To help him find and help Daphne once he realises who DeWitt really is (a criminal), He brings in gun-toting badass Mouse Alexander (Don Cheadle) to help him find her.

The movie oozes with class and style. The cinematography is very impressive, and more than suitably in the style, even though it is in colour. The music is suitable, with a very nice rendition of "'Round Midnight" during a montage as well as a generally jazzy score. Denzel Washington has the sound of a typical gumshoe down, and the voice-over is also quite good. Don Cheadle is electrifying as Mouse Alexander, and Sizemore is menacing as well.

The issue is the predictable story. Most neo-noirs try to get a story which is original and fresh, and put it over the classic noir backdrop. This story is quite uninspired by those standards, and by regular noir standards. The plot is twisty, but the resolution only really serves to hammer in the hammy message of tolerance. The message is poorly handled throughout acutally, with some clumsy scenes thrown in there to try to ingratiate the viewer with the plight of the blacks in the '40's. The third act drags a little as well.

Overall it is pretty good neo-noir, oozing with style as well as giving viewers the first noirish black lead since Shaft, though Shaft is a blacksploitation flick. The story is predictable, but most noir stories are. In the end it is very solid, but it lacks the skill of neo-noirs like "Chinatown", "Blue Velvet" and "L.A. Confidential."

3.5/5, good but could have been better without such a heavy-handed message obscuring the already thin plot.

I'm not Harry Jenson. (2009)

New Zealanders have a certain inherent innovativeness about us. We always look for cheaper solutions to complex problems. We often cobble together these solutions with little more than some no.8 wire, and a can-do attitude. We are also beset by small country syndrome, where we often strive to be the best at what we do to prove to others that we aren't just some speck on the map. These two qualities have led New Zealanders to punch well above their weight in many things, including sport and economics.

They also aid our film industry, which is virtually non-existent. Outside of the very few New Zealand Film Commission grants for film funding, there is no other underlying structure except for Peter Jackson's Wellywood, which is primarily geared towards more expensive US productions. This means that New Zealand directors tend to cobble together films on a shoe-string budget, often improvising solutions to staging and technical faults.

I'm not Harry Jenson is a fantastic example of what New Zealand film-makers are capable of achieving on a low budget. Written, Directed and Edited by James Napier, this is a professional-looking production through and through, suggesting the tremendous amount of time that he, and many others, would have put into this movie to make it this good.

The film follows crime novelist Stanley (Gareth Reeves), who wrote a very successful novel under the pseudonym Mike White. He is struggling to write his next book, about serial killer Harry Jenson, who killed 37 people. On the advice of his agent he goes on a trek in the New Zealand woods, with strangers Marissa (Jinny Lee Story), Jon (Ben Mitchell), Bill (Ian Mune), Margaret (Ilona Rodgers), Rick (Cameron Rhodes), Kevin (Tom Hern), Anna (Rachel Blampied). They are led by tour guide Colby ( Renato Bartolomei.)

The first day is all fun and games, but on the second morning they awake to find Jon murdered. This drives a stake through the group as they grow more and more suspicious of each other, eventually settling on Stanley as the killer after another person turns up dead. We follow from Stanley's perspective, often given insights about him via stories told to others.

The story is told with a mixture of present thriller techniques, combined with some Hitchcockian ones as well. The twists at the end are very good, with some great misdirection throughout the film building to them, which throw you off-guard. I will not spoil them here, in case others (Patrick) want to watch this movie.

The film is wonderfully shot by DP Rhys Duncan, with a great colour scheme and some very sophisticated camera work, including some dazzling helicopter shots of the woods. The camera is very good at capturing little details in people's faces and looks very clear over-all. There are a couple of minor shaky-cam issues, but given the logistics of mounting a camera in some of these situations they are easy to overlook.

The editing is mostly pretty slick as well, particularly in some of the transitions between Stanley's thoughts and what is actually happening. The shots are given plenty of time to linger, and the pace seldom feels rushed and events unfold in plenty of time.The acting was good as well, with brilliant performances from Gareth Reeves and Renato Bartolomei, and solid work from the others.

As a young aspiring film-maker it is very heartening to see that such a professional, polished thriller can be achieved in New Zealand on a low budget. There are many great New Zealand comedies, and a few great dramas, but genre films are rarely made by New Zealanders successfully, and this Hitchcockian thriller is in that respect a great achievement.

my rating is a 4/5, a very good film.

Mystery Team (2009)

The Mystery Team is the first feature film from comedy troupe Derrick Comedy, who have many members in US TV comedy shows, mostly on NBC. This is about a team of Hardy Boy-esque young detectives in a small town, who are still solving similar mysteries now that they are 18, and about to finish High School. They are then given the task of solving a murder of two parents by their younger daughter, and then the movie turns from there, with a balance of these immature buffoons solving the case, and some heavier dramatic stuff about who they are, and why they behave like small children still.

The main mystery team member is Jason (the hilarious Donald Glover from "Community"), who really wants to be a detective, while his dumber side-kick Charlie ( Dominic Dierkes), and "boy genius" Duncan (D.C. Pierson) follow along with him. These three do have very good chemistry together and, as they wrote the film, deliver the lines brilliantly. The love interest of Jason, Kelly (Aubrey Plaza), who is the older daughter who had her parents murdered, also has her moments comedically, but serves more to bring out some of the more dramatic moments.

Donald Glover though, is far and away the best of the main actors. He seems to be innately aware of what he looks and sounds like with the camera pointing at him. His every gesture comes across brilliantly and unforced, while he creates a character which is both hilarious and poignant. The only shame about his performance was that he wasn't able to be delivering lines with his "Community" co-star Danny Pudi, who would have fitted in well to the movie.

The cinematography was also surprisingly good for a comedic first feature. Using almost all non-handheld shots, with some great lighting and dolly use. The cinematography would have only appeared competent in a serious feature by an experienced director, but in a movie like this it truly stands out as being a cut above normal.

The film does have some pretty serious flaws unfortunately. The pacing is one thing that really does not work. The opening couple of scenes set the mood very well, but the solving of the murder does drag a bit, and the dramatic scenes between the mystery team don't always fit smoothly with the comedy. The ending scene is also very effective, showing that for all the change they have gone through they are still just as immature as ever.

The music is also not as good as other elements of the movie, with some musical cues that are re-used far too much. The comedy is a bit hit-and-miss, for example a scene where they fetch a ring out of a toilet is comic gold, whereas a scene with a kid that seems just a bit too mature for his age is quite unfunny as he keeps on coming back. The comedy seems just a bit too much to be based around the child-like mental state of the mystery team, and as a result is inconsistent. When it does hit though, it is often hilarious.


In the end, it is a pretty ambitious first attempt from these guys, and it is often hilarious, but in the end it just didn't quite connect well enough for me to be a brilliant comedy. I will definitely be looking forward to their future work though, whether it be on TV, or another feature like this.

3/5, good in parts but inconsistent overall.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Sometimes a movie can be so enjoyable that you are able to look through shortcomings in story-telling and just focus on the spectacle. Robert Zemeckis has made a few films like this (Back to the Future trilogy), but this would undoubtedly be his best effort at one of these spectacle films. In fact, convincing my twin Stephen to watch was probably the hardest part of watching this movie, which was an enjoyable, easy viewing experience.

A film noir/comedy set in a world where cartoons interact with real-word characters, The film follows private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) as he takes a job for one of the large animation companies, unwittingly taking pictures of Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner, with concept art above) that would help to frame her husband, and popular cartoon star Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) in murdering 'toon creator Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). This framing turns out to be part of a larger plot to create a freeway system in L.A by destroying 'Toon Town (where the 'toons live), and the tram system. These lead us to the real antagonist Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), who has had a prior run-in with Eddie Valiant and his dead brother.

The animation is simply superb, and the interaction between the animated characters and the real people is amazingly well done, down to the 'toons shadows. These are not simply characters drawn in post-production, the filming stage was so well designed and planned that the animated characters fit perfectly into the film world. The animated characters appear to move and touch objects just like the actors are, and the timing is perfect with the interactions between the animated and real characters. The brilliant editing and cinematography play a large role in that as well.

The story is told in a straight-forward manner, which is easy to follow for all-ages, particularly small children who were a key audience of the film. This does mean that the story lacks a lot of exploration, with a few exposition-heavy sequences doing the bulk of the story-telling work, while the rest of the movie continues as a spectacle.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" also plays with many of the tropes of film noir, as well as a few specific noir films (mostly "Chinatown", as the framework of one of the sequels features prominently in the plot of this movie though there are more direct references). The femme fatale Jessica Rabbit is brilliant at weaving around and showing up suspiciously, but isn't actually bad, she's just drawn that way. She is actually trying to help Valiant and Roger the whole film, subverting the trope via some great misdirection in every aspect of her character.

There are negatives about this movie though. As a family-friendly movie it lacks a certain edge that you would expect from a noir, though it does make it up for it with some hilarious sexual innuendo ("Dabblin' in Watercolours Eddie?", "Pattycake"). The main part which feels poorly done, as a result of the family-friendly tone, is the ending. The relentlessly upbeat ending is a little out of context, and has far too many flukes and twists (even for a noir, which are famous for twists). The end feeling is a bit unsatisfying, though it was definitely a fun ride up until the kidsy ending.

I felt it was just fun to watch. There was no expectation on of anything greater than a fun movie with a good story, and it mostly succeeded. A major technical feat at the very least, in my opinion a cinematic achievement in creating a family-friendly film that you can watch without your family and still enjoy.

A 4/5, as I was let down by a couple of things that are noticeable, but don't detract from the overall sense of fun I had while watching.

Psycho (1960)

Have you ever had that spooky feeling that something isn't right, or that someone isn't right. Psycho is an exploration of those ideas by brilliant director Alfred Hitchcock. I had already seen Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest, along with various episodes of Alfred Hitchock presents, so I was already comfortable with the visual style and storytelling method of his films. Psycho is in many respects similar to that style, but is also a bit different.

Psycho tells the story of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary who is given $40,000 to put in the bank by her employer. She runs off, and we follow her until, after a few days and some close calls, she is forced to pull over due to weather and stay at the Bates Hotel, ran by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who lives there with his mother. Marion is killed about halfway into the film, in a scene (pictured above) that is so brilliantly executed that, even though it has been referenced and parodied endlessly, it still is terrifying today.

In fact the whole film is so magnificently crafted that though, as an avid film and TV watcher I already knew the plot, the movie was giving me chills as each scene went by, and each new development happened. The shower scene may be the most memorable, but the reveal about Norman's mother and who killed Marion Crane, is equally potent and scary today as it must have been in 1960.

The Black and white cinematography is very good, with some nice touches such as the voyeuristic look through the peephole and the initial discovery of the Bates hotel. The professional quality of the production team makes this into a film that is very slick for such a low budget. The string score is very unsettling in addition to the B/W shots, and perfectly complements the movie, particularly the shower scene though the musical themes are well-managed throughout.

The acting isn't a strong point in the film, with some good performances by Bates and Leigh, but the rest of the cast often seems just a little bit stilted and a little hammy as well. The acting quality though is certainly one of a budgetary issue more than anything else, and doesn't detract from the overall quality of the film.

In the end though, despite a gripping plot and some very impressive shooting, I can't help but feel that this is just a feature-length version of one of the Hitchcock Presents episodes. Though that is partly the intention of the film, it means that it lacks the scope and characterisation that made Vertigo and Rear Window such great films. Characters in Psycho really aren't given elaborate backstories, as the whole thing is largely an exercise in misdirection, as well as experimenting with a low budget. This means that when characters do things, they do them without explanation, until the framing device that is the ending of Psycho.

The film is certainly good on it's own merits though, and certainly a great film in the Hitchcock canon but I can't quite shake the TV show feel of it though and that in my mind puts it below his other works, as his TV show often had problems with the ending, which carries on into the film. Psycho definitely started a massive sub-genre in horror though, and other Hitchcock films merely tended to work from an existing model.

Overall a 4.5/5, so close but not quite a perfect film, let down by some often poor acting by the supporting cast, and the TV show feel of it.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Full Metal Jacket is one of Kubrick's later works, and one that is often seen as his last great film. Kubrick is a very polarising director so it could also be seen as just one in a pile of his films.

Full Metal Jacket holds up very well, and has very good pacing, unlike some other Kubrick films like 2001: A Space Odyssey. It follows the Marine Core during the Vietnam war in two stages. It first looks at their eight-week training course, where we are introduced to a group of trainees, focussing on Private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio pictured above) and Private Joker (Matthew Modine). It then looks at the Marines in Vietnam, beginning after the Tet offensive and working around that period, where we also follow Joker, and fellow trainee Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and his squad, though not Pyle, as he kills himself in an iconic scene.

Kubrick again shows his meticulous research ethic in portraying what is often called the most realistic look at a boot camp in film. The way that the drill instructor Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) systematically destroys Pyle, while giving the rest of the group someone to hate in the process, is a brilliant story that has a serious emotional punch to it at the end. The whole process is portrayed as very demoralising, only preparing them for what is to come.

There are some very impressive shots in the boot camp, with the opening scene following Hartman as he inspects the new recruits brilliantly setting the film out, but the truly jaw-dropping shots are left for their Vietnam stage. Every scene in Vietnam just looks stunning and incredibly well-staged by cinematographer Douglas Milsome, obviously working very hard to make the scenes work with Kubrick, with a refreshing lack of hand-held camera in heavy war scenes due to the amount of time put into the editing and the filming. The Vietnam story largely looks at the futility of the situation as the soldiers grow more and more demoralised about what they are achieving. We are also introduced to some more colourful characters, including the instantly recognisable Adam Baldwin (Chuck, Firefly) as Animal Mother, a trigger-happy nutcase.

The acting is brilliant as usual from a Kubrick film. He is often able to coax great performances from his actors due to his relentless drive and perfectionism. I would say that R. Lee Erney and Vincent D'Onofrio stood out as doing the best job in this movie, but it was against very steep competition from the rest of the cast.

The power that this film has is a testament to Kubrick's genius. The way that the story is told is masterful, with both segments brilliantly worked to tie together a very demoralising theme. The closing scene shows a large amount of what went wrong with the Vietnam war from a non-American perspective. Three men are downed while going after one well-hidden sniper, as Animal Mother pushes on to get the sniper. This relentless drive is able to show how mis-guided the Americans were during the Vietnam war, with this sequence representing a microcosm of the war effort.

Overall I would say this would be the best war film that I have ever seen, modern "great war movies" like Saving Private Ryan simply cannot compete for strong story-telling and lush cinematography. 5 out 5

Death in Brunswick (1991)

Often films will switch stylistically part-way through, or try to create a film that is equal parts of two or three genres. It is a tough trick to pull off, as you already have to be invested in the characters for the sudden switch to work. When it does work beautifully you get films like "Blue Velvet", which is able to hold two genres in the balance with ease and improves the film by using the two genres to tell the story.

Death in Brunswick isn't exactly in the same league of film as "Blue Velvet" but it does use the stylistic switch effectively, moving between dark comedy and crime quite well.

This Australian film is about 34-year-old man Carl Fitzgerald (Sam Neill), a bit of a loser who is struggling to find jobs as a cook, as he gets another job at his old mothers insistence, and gets himself mixed up in something far worse. He accidentally murders kitchen hand Mustafa, and has to get his friend Dave (John Clarke) to help him cover it up.

It originally seems as though it is going to be a darkly comedic slice-of-life film, up until the murder. From there on the second half of the film has some darker crime elements, which are at the forefront up until the conclusion. The switch is a little sudden, but not jarring as the characters behave much the same just in a different situation.

The comedic elements often work very well, with the sort of fantastic interplay that you would expect from Neill and Clarke, two of New Zealand's best actors. Neill and Yvonne Lawley as Carl's mother also play off each other quite well. Not every joke lands though, which leads to some slightly uncomfortable scenes which come off a little forced.

As mentioned last paragraph, the acting of Neill and Clarke is top-notch as always and they liven up every scene that they are both in. Other actors such as Zoe Carides, who plays Carl's love interest, aren't quite as good and often feel dwarfed when in scenes with Neill and Clarke. In Carides case, that is quite often.

Director and Writer John Ruane clearly knew where he was going with this, and it shows through the slick pace at which the film moves most of the time, and the music by Phil Judd is good at setting the tone as well. There is a little in-joke relating to Phil Judd's involvement in Split Enz which is quite funny in addition to the music.

One aspect which was a little frustrating to me was the time-stuck setting. For older people it would probably have some nostalgic value, and would have seemed quite fresh at the time, but to someone not alive at this time the setting is so very '80s that it leads to some teeth grinding at points in the film.

I think that this is a quite well-made film, with very few major errors, which I enjoyed quite a lot of.

3.5/5