The Collective Shelf

From Humphrey Bogart’s depiction of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon to masterpieces such as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Touch of Evil, classic film noir continues to garner huge amounts of praise and appreciation from cinema goers and critics alike. However, it is perhaps the genre that has proved most difficult to recapture and maintain in the modern era, due in part to the fact that the particular style and tone synonymous with these great films owed much to the backdrop of the Second World War and The Great Depression under which they were produced. As Martin Scorsese puts it, "we don’t have the advantage of their disadvantage". Relatively few directors have attempted to add to the genre since the end of the classic period, and far fewer have done so successfully. The Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing act as rare examples of fruitful reincarnations of the original cinema form, while the recently released The Black Dahlia shows how easy it is for modern noir to unintentionally become a pastiche of its more illustrious ancestors.

In 2005 however, first time director Rian Johnson took Hollywood by storm, appearing from oblivion to create a film that perhaps comes closest to the calibre of noir last seen in the 1940/50s. Brick not only manages to capture the essence of the style and tone of noir, it also reinvigorates the genre. Johnson sets his story in an American high-school rather than in the murky back-alleys of the criminal underworld that audiences have become so accustomed to. This brave decision allows him to integrate a fresh set of visual cues into the traditional style and also helps to make the story more relevant to contemporary audiences, effectively placing a modern storyline within the a noir context. The film does however stay true to its routes, the opening piece of dialogue "I gummed it! I did what she said with the brick, I didn’t know it was bad, but The Pin’s on it now for poor Frisco and they’re playing it all on me." could have been taken straight from a Dashiell Hammett novel. This influence of hard boiled detective fiction is noticeable throughout, just as many of the classic noir films were adaptations of just this kind of literature; Double Indemnity for instance was adapted from a piece of pulp fiction written by James M. Cain as well as being heavily influenced by Raymond Chandler. This importance placed on diction is almost reminiscent of Shakespeare, the heightened attention paid to language means that even the simplest of lines are loaded with meaning and double entendres. For instance perhaps one of the greatest pieces of dialogue in film history takes place between Dietrichson and Neff when they first meet in Double Indemnity:

Dietrichson: ''I wonder if I know what you mean"

Neff "I wonder if you wonder"

This richness of language and wordplay is also a key element in Brick and the dialogue, updated to incorporate modern slang, is equally poetic:

Brendan: ''Look, I can't trust you. I didn't shake up the party to get your attention, and I'm not heeling you to hook you. Your connections could help me, but the bad baggage they bring could make it zero sum gain or even hurt me. Better coming at it clean"

The use of such vocabulary, which initially appears so out of place coming from traditionally inarticulate teenagers, could easily have destroyed the film's atmosphere, turning it into a sort of comedic farce. Somehow though it works perfectly, transporting the viewer into the type of environment seen in the best Billy Wilder movies (according to the press notes, Johnson even had the cast watch Wilder's films in order to capture the speech mannerisms). These quick fire lines of dialogue are a source of humour due to their sharp and witty wordplay, but at the same time they also manage to incapuslate the type of universe and values that are at the heart of film noir.

Brick not only deserves the title of modern noir, it is perhaps the film that comes closest to the quality of the classic films of Billy Wilder and John Huston. It succeeds in ticking the relevant boxes in terms of generic and stylistic conventions, but more importantly it also transforms the genre into something relevant to modern audiences, it manages to be an original piece of work while remaining faithful to its predecessors. Brendan is the perfect disenchanted protagonist, and the two females play out their separate roles perfectly, as their characters transform themselves into classic noir personas. The film took five years to make, and this certainly shows in the level of meaning and symbolism that the director has inserted into the script. All this serves to make repeated viewings equally enjoyable, a quality that only the greatest pieces of classic noir possess. Nothing in Brick is incidental, everything has its own purpose, and the story is stylistically brilliant as well as presenting a gripping and compelling plot, the film succeeds on both psychological and artistic levels. To truly deserve the title of a ''modern noir'', the film must adhere to the conventions of the genre but it also needs to bring something different to the format, something original to the 21^st century. This is where Brick truly succeeds, it not only plays out its function as a film noir, it adds depth and originality to the genre, matching and perhaps even bettering those that have gone before it, which is high praise indeed.

Much was made of the scheduling of four straight to DVD Futurama movies in 2006, especially after the show's cancelation by Comedy Central had so disapointed its cult following. However, the first of the quadriology (what a stupid word), Bender's Big Score, proved disapointing. The producers broke their golden role of no time travel and showed just why it mustn't be broken again. Although some of the jokes played (Al Gore: Finally, I get to save the Earth with deadly laser blasts instead of deadly slide shows!), similarly to The Simpsons Movie it felt stilted in the longer format

So The Beast with a Billion Backs, although in my experience the core Futurama fans are so fanatical as to ensure any future content will be relatively successful (which is what Groening and Co. must be going for by putting them out straight to dvd). As typical of the show's style, the plot is complex and convoluted, more of an amusing vehicle than a centre piece. The crew fight a planet-sized, octopus like, alien who brainwashes Fry into leading a religion which convinces the human population to abandon earth, leaving robots to inherit the planet; all pretty standard stuff for the series.

Straight off the bat the humour seems more forced, fans will laugh but only on first viewing. Their seems to be far fewer subtle jokes than in the tv show which unfortunately follows a similar trend to the later Simpsons episodes, which continue to bludgeon its remaining viewers with the obvious slapstick humour one would expect of a cheesy 80s sitcom.

As quickly as the major (alien) plot device is introduced, it is forgotten, and soon we find ourselves following two sub plots involving Fry's battle with the concept of polygamy and Bender's childhood fantasy of an underground cult of Robots. As the narrative moves forward you begin to wonder just where its all heading, and without giving too much away the ending is the most ambiguous i've ever witnessed in the series.

Their is a general message concerning the concept of love but this seems tagged on and has been covered much more effectively in the series. The plot seems to lack a distinctive sense of purpose that could have been used to keep the more wacky sci-fi elements on track and at least mimic the tradition movie format.

On the plus side, The Beast with a Billion Backs is certainly better than Bender's Big Score. You get reacquainted with a lot of familiar characters conspicuous by their absence in the first film, and the comedy is far more consistent and free flowing than in the first effort. The first film was aptly described as ''Futurama gone drama'' at times, and this one is much funnier, especially if you can catch the references to the series.

Above all the these features were made for the die hard fans, but this latest effort while better than the first, still feels a bit like meeting you're ex-girlfriend. It's biggest enemy certainly remains its former self.

On Amazon.com: Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

On Amazon.co.uk Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

I've been watching The Wire recently, and am now fully convinced that at the moment TV is where the real innovation and quality is coming from, rather than from its more illustrious big brother.

The problem with film at the moment is that creators have forgotten the purpose of the medium. Film is like literature, theatre, poetry and anything else you can think of, just another way to tell stories. Because of its advantages, it's incredible visual qualities, giant screen and immense sound, at its best i think it can be the most effective of these art forms at fulfilling such a purpose; nothing truly grabs your full undivided attention like a cinema screen circling around you.

CGI, computer generated ships and swords fights or what have you are all fine, but who really cares? Most people aren't going to art galleries any more so why would they go to a cinema just because ''the effects looked good''. People didn't love POTC because of the pretend boat! We love it because Captain Jack Sparrow is a great character going on a captivating mission; so don't make a sequel where you triple the amount of fake sea, exaggerate the character and forget the plot, because if you do you invariably get what you're making.

That's the great thing about television, for the moment at least. They don't have the money to carry out these kinds of effects and so they focus, as they must over the course of a thirteen hour long season, on what really matters: character and story.

The extended running time serves as an advantage too. I can't watch shows on TV, I don't time shift and i hate ads, so watching one episode of Friends is about my limit. However it seems studios have realised a far more effective way to keep audiences hooked and coming back is not to tag on a big question mark at the end of each episode neighbours-stylie but to get us really interested, to make us care about what's happening on more than just a superficial curiosity level. This leads to both better ratings and better content, a wonderful positively reenforcing circle.

This is exactly what great TV shows (and there are loads of them going round at the moment) like The Wire, Prison Break, The Sopranos, The Shield, Lost etc etc etc are doing. When i watch The Wire season one i find myself caring just as much about side characters, such as the junkie snitch Bubbles or the naive drug runner Wallace, as i do about the main characters.The episodes are intensely engrossing because the viewer is interested in every character's story arch, and each one is given time to develop.

This means that each episode edges the story forward; when i finish one i often end up asking what actually changed in that episode, why i found it so enjoyable... then i stop asking and press play on the next one. This pattern inevitably continues into 5 am; the hallmark of any great show in my book.

Amazon.com: The Wire - The Complete First Season

Amazon.co.uk: The Wire : The Complete First Season

I was recently struck by the similarities between The Savages and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, films that couldn't be more far apart in origins and more similar in subject matter. The Savages, directed by Tamara Jenkins was a Paramount mantlepiece project, given a hefty and ultimately unsuccessful Oscar push in 2008. Moartea domnului Lazarescu on the other hand is a small Romanian project, shot and edited over 90 days, which gained considerable acclaim and notoriety on the festival circuit winning the Cannes Un Certain Regard award.

What interests me is how both projects deal so brutally and naturalistically with the tragedies that so often accompany old age. ''Lazarescu'' follows 80 year old Domnul as he's carted round hospitals in Budapest after experiencing stomach pains; it delivers a damning commentary on the Romanian sanitary system as well as portraying the tragedy of this old and grumpy man, clearing feeling frightened and alone. The Savages meanwhile shows how Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman try and care for their farmer after he's diagonised with Parkinson's disease and slowly loses his mind and life. Both films notably end with the death of the central character.

The thing is though, both works are clearly advertised on their so called comic attributes. The Savages is a ''Black Comedy about life and death'' and 'Lazarescu is ''the most acclaimed comedy of the year''. I'm not sure whether to put this down to missmarketing (as was definitely the case with the horror oriented advertising for The Village), or just to me not understand this kind of comedy. The films shows the gradual disintegration of the protagonists' lives as for instance Lenny Savage writes his name on the wall using his feces, or Domnul desperately tries to regain his daughter's attention over the phone. To me these moments are sad, even tragic and can't be classed even as black comedy.

In my opinion these are just two more cases where the distributers can't figure out how to push a film that doesn't fall neatly into a familiar genre. These aren't comedies by any will in the world. Certainly they have moments of comic relief, but they end on distinctly sad notes (of course the Hollywood movie has a slightly happier ending) and their overall tone certainly don't correspond to the upbeat feeling of the trailers (found Here and Here). Don't get me wrong these are two very good four-star films, but by essentially tricking the audience into the cinema distributers are at once admitting that their 'product' isn't mass market fair, and leaving at least a section of the audience bemused, as they are not getting what they paid for (although i would say what they're getting is better; at least than the average 'comedies' out there today).

These kinds of works resist marketing and labeling because they're far more interesting and complex than that. If something is new and different by definition it won't fit in the boxes the studios have layed out for us. In my opinion anything that doesn't fit into these boxes is worth seeing, even if we have to be tricked into ordering the ticket.

Find on Amazon.com: The Savages The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Find on Amazon.co.uk: The Savages The Death Of Mr Lazarescu