Noir-vember: Hard Eight (1996)

It took me long enough, especially considering how big a fan of his filmography I am, but I finally got around to watching the feature debut written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, expanding his short, "Cigarettes & Coffee", from a few years earlier. A lot of things feel in place here that would recur throughout the next few decades, but it's also clear that the director is working on a smaller scale than he would prefer.

Philip Baker Hall plays Sydney Brown, a well-dressed and very polite man who decides to one day help a broke and broken man named John Finnegan (John C. Reilly). He doesn't just help him though. He, metaphorically speaking, teaches him to fish, showing him how to make his way safely and profitably through the waters of Las Vegas casinos. Things go well for a long time, but a situation develops when John falls for a cocktail waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow). And when things start getting risky, that's when Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson) sees his chance to profit from the situation.

There's not much to discuss here when it comes to the plot and the characters. Everything is constructed well, Hall and Reilly are as watchable and captivating here as they have been in any other film roles, and the air of predictability is offset by the earliest scenes setting everything up as a tale more about people looking for ways to pay things forward than get some kind of payback.

While I think a number of the main cast members have done better work elsewhere, there's nothing to criticise in the performances of Reilly, Paltrow, or Jackson. There are also small moments for Philip Seymour Hoffman (stealing a scene, but not given enough time to steal the entire movie) and Melora Walters. Hall absolutely owns every minute of the runtime though. It would be a bit short-sighted, considering the near-200 roles he had in his decades-spanning career, to nominate this as his best ever performance, but I'm still tempted. If it's not the clear winner then it's pretty damn close.

The small cast, the way certain shots are framed, and the economy of the whole thing signify that it's a debut feature, but the confidence and ambition, as well as the main players, help it to feel like a well-made work of art helmed by someone already paving his way to even bigger and better things. This could have easily been a slight bit of entertainment, and it could have leaned more into the expected stereotypes and tropes of the gambling movie. The fact that it still feels so impressive and effective is all down to Anderson being one of the most brilliant and naturally-gifted directorial talents in modern cinema. You could say that it was clear from the very beginning that he had multiple aces up his sleeves.

8/10

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Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher hasn't made a bad movie, I'll say that right now so that people know how biased I am when it comes to his work. I'd even go so far as to say that he's made at least three modern masterpieces. One of those modern masterpieces is Seven, a movie which really reinvigorated the thriller genre after too many years of safe, but enjoyable, movies that all had a movie sheen to them. Zodiac certainly isn't Seven, but it's most definitely made by the same man who shows such attention to detail and seems to always find some new way to treat material from any genre.

Zodiac is about the Zodiac killer, and the lives that he changed. The strange thing, and the thing that many people will know before the movie begins, is that the Zodiac killer was never caught. A Jack The Ripper for the modern age, he committed his crimes, taunted the police and deliberately kept changing his M. O. to stay one step ahead of those trying to catch him. The fact that he was never caught explains why Zodiac is half a film about a serial killer and his crime spree and half a film about the obsession that he sparks in those who become involved in the investigation. The murders start to consume Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) and even a cartoonist who starts to weigh up the evidence and begin his own amateur investigation (Robert Graysmith, who wrote the book that the screenplay was based on, played by Jake Gyllenhaal).

Closer in feel to All The President's Men than Seven, and all the better for it, this is a tour de force mix of great acting, superb attention to detail and sheer bravura (as Fincher paces the film perfectly while also jumping through the years to various pivotal points in the investigation and the life of Graysmith).

The actors already mentioned give performances that show just why they're often heaped with praise, but the supporting cast features other people effortlessly doing what they do best. People like Elias Koteas, Anthony Edwards (so good here that it makes me wish he had more good roles through the years), Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, John Carroll Lynch, Candy Clark, Dermot Mulroney, Zach Grenier, Charles Fleischer, Clea Duvall and Jimmi Simpson. You may not know recognise all of the names, but you will know most of their faces.

The script by James Vanderbilt may be hampered by having to stick to Graysmith's interpretation of events, but it's pretty flawless in all other respects. Dialogue informs the viewer about both procedural events and each character is nicely rounded out, both in the usual way and also in the way that the ongoing murders begin to affect them.

Everyone deserves praise for working together and achieving such a great end result - director of photography Harris Savides, David Shire who created the score, the hundreds of people that it took to get the look and feel of everything just dead on - but it's all overseen by David Fincher, who shows, once again, just why he's a director I always support. I know that there are people who will pick at least one of his movies to highlight as a bit of a mis-step, to say the least, but I really don't feel that. He's a master of the medium, able to elevate even average material into something well worth seeing. With the story that he's handed here, it's almost another masterpiece. Almost.

To hear my gushing praise, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I view this as a perfect film, but there are a couple of minor flaws that see it falling short of perfection. First, the fantastic script also has a few too many lines that make for great soundbites as opposed to real exchanges/replies. That worked better in The Social Network, but seems a bit incongruous at times here. Second, the first half is understandably a bit rougher than the second half, with so many characters needing introduced and the whole situation being set up. The second half becomes rather more streamlined as people fall out of the big picture, leaving only those most caught up in the events to see it all through to the very end, whatever that end may be.

Despite those small flaws, I was still tempted to rate this film as perfect, but I ended up going with near-perfect instead. See the film for yourself and find out whether or not you agree with me.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zodiac-Directors-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B0013BCWEW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364751546&sr=8-2

The Amityville Horror (2005)

Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George play George and Kathy Lutz respectively in this remake of the much-loved 1979 haunted house movie. While it may lack some of the original's more memorable moments and Lalo Schifrin's haunting score it certainly does enough to entertain modern audiences and at least keeps the character of the house, and it's "face", intact.

Many people already know the (in)famous tale but for those who don't it's relatively simple to recap. A couple bought themselves a house with a troubled history (most notably, the murder of the DeFeo family by Ronald DeFeo, Jr) and only managed to stay there 28 days before fleeing a place they claimed was evil and full of demonic influence.

Let's be very clear about the aim of this movie; it's an entertaining horror and not meant to be an accurate depiction of something many people are already very well-informed about. Yes, it takes liberties with certain truths and even puts its own spin on certain character motivations but the gist of the matter is still all about the effect the house itself purportedly had on those living within and, in that regard, the film does a very good job.

One of the main, and most interesting, differences between this movie and the original is one of its strengths. The original Amityville movie was classed by many as a "mortgage horror", one of a subset of movies detailing how horror could impact on day-to-day activities and social standing, whereas the remake weaves a more interesting strand in adding to the financial strains the family experiences with the weight of Reynolds' character stepping into the shoes of a much-missed husband and father. This group dynamic really helps to create small divisive cracks that look set to become chasms with only the smallest of help from the malevolence residing in 112 Ocean Avenue.

Director Andrew Douglas doesn't do a bad job at all and, in fact, manages to create one or two moments that are arguably better than anything in the original movie. He gets decent performances from everyone involved, especially the child actors (though a bad child performance from Chloe Grace Moretz seems impossible now that we've seen her in so many great roles). Reynolds really only manages to show what he can do when allowed to show the darker side of George Lutz but he's very entertaining while he does it. Philip Baker Hall plays a priest, and you can imagine his presence not being very welcome in the house, while Rachel Nichols plays a pretty irresponsible babysitter who gets a comeuppance way too harsh for her misdeeds in a most memorable manner. Reynolds is probably the weakest of the cast members but it's unfair to really be too negative to the guy when he still manages to make so many scenes work as he gets more and more freedom to succumb to darkness.

Scott Kosar has crafted a screenplay that nicely updates the  material for a new generation. It has a lot of familiar moments for fans of the original movie but also hits a few, enjoyable, fresh beats and does plenty to avoid feeling like a pale imitation.

Many people have found that this was yet another horror movie remake they could easily complain about with an abundance of computer effects and a few scenes involving far too much snappy editing. It is easy to complain about, agreed, but it's also quite an easy movie to enjoy and provides some enjoyably entertaining scares in a way that may not change the face of the genre but may remind some people of the "ghost train" reaction they can get from simple, well-executed scares. It's also worth noting, in the film's defence, that one of the more tense sequences actually sticks to a simple set-up with no visible flashiness or major CG histrionics. I certainly enjoyed it and hope others do too, though it's definitely not a movie to be taken seriously and it's not for anyone interested in the argued actual history of the case (from the DeFeo murders to the Lutz's ordeal). Just turn on and let yourself be entertained for 90 minutes.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Amityville-Horror-Ryan-Reynolds/dp/B000AND8L0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348168741&sr=8-1