Bambi vs. Godzilla

This is surprisingly not a film noir. Regardless, it's amazing.

Touch of Evil

If we're being especially pretentious, this is one of the last examples of a "real" film noir.



Watching this as I work through The Wire, I was surprised as to the similarities between the two. The central conflict in The Wire is between the aspirations of the various characters and the limitations imposed upon them by a variety of institutions. The story of The Wire centers on what happens when these limitations are circumvented through some sort of moral, ethical, or legal compromise. I think a similar conflict is at the center of Touch of Evil. Orsen Welle's Hank Quinlan is not above planting evidence or framing suspects. On the other hand Charlten Heston's Ramon Vargas insists on following proper procedure.

The conflict of the film arises as Vargas questions the integrity of Quinlan's investigation into a car bomb on the Mexican/American border. Eventually it is revealed that Quinlan's investigation, while rife with evidence tampering and witness badgering, has led to the capture of the man who actually did commit the crime. However, this revelation comes only after Quinlan's downfall. Furthermore, Vargas' attempts to discredit Quinlan leads to his wife being captured and drugged. Both characters are arguably attempting to do the right thing, and the film does not hesitate to show the negative effects of the compromises required to do so.

Mulholland Dr.

If Memento is considered noir, than so is Mulholland Dr.



I can't say not too much about the plot of this, not because it would ruin anything, but because it is mostly incomprehensible. The story starts simple enough, with an attempted murder and a case of amnesia, but everything gets very strange very quickly. Mysterious figures begin manipulating the production of a feature film, there is an incredibly strange scene at a playhouse, and, by identitis and circumstances have fractured and recombined. I'm at a loss as to describe exactly what it all means. Maybe it's a bizarre treatise on acting, maybe it's all a critique of Hollywood, maybe the first two acts are a dream of the main character, maybe the whole thing is a dream (but of who exactly?).

I'm going out on a limb here, but Mulholland Dr. might just be the most surrealistic film ever classified as a noir. With that said, it has all the classic elements, the tone of the whole film is pessimistic, there are few noble characters, there is mystery, there are even detectives. Even if you aren't a fan of David Lynch, this is really worth seeing. It's weird, it's disturbing, it's mostly incomprehensible, but it really is an excellent piece of fimmaking.

Psychedelic Noir

I've gotten a hold of a bunch of noir-ish type movies (mostly neo-noir I guess) so expect some pretentious film discussion in the next few days.

The title refers to the tone of the new Batman and Robin series. After reading the first issue, it certainly seems apt. Although Superheroes David Lynch Style would also be appropriate I think. Even the art is a little creepy.

$200K Power Outage

We lost power on campus for a little over an hour today. Normally this wouldn't be that big a deal, mostly people just went home. However, when the emergency generator on the giant electromagnet fails to turn on... we have a big problem. I'm guessing the generator wasn't connected properly which is awesome because it'll cost upwards of $200,000 to recharge the magnet, not to mention the repairs to the amplifiers and the cost of actually connecting the generator.



I'm guessing this is going to delay our projects a bit as well.