Heat / Brick
Feb. 12th, 2007 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishMichael Mann (dir.), Heat
"You know what they're watching? Us. The po-leece. L-A-P-D. We just got made."
One of my all-time favorite movies. I think it was John Tynes who said that Heat is a season and a half of the best crime drama on television, compressed into the space of three hours. It's simultaneously a portrait of a cop and a criminal who aren't so much opposed as they are two sides of the same coin, and a gigantic narrative with dozens of fleshed-out characters. The opening ten minutes or so are absolutely perfect: we get the characters, prepping for a heist, spending more time on the important ones. Twenty seconds on Waingro and we already can't stand him. The heist itself is a joy to watch unfold, even when it goes slightly offtrack. Then Hanna (the cop) shows up, and the intro is complete. Amazing.
Heat also gave me Neal's philosophy on life, "Do not have any attachments, do not have anything you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner," which I still respect even though I can no longer live by it. But then, despite the heart-rending scene outside the hotel, neither could he.
Rian Johnson (dir.), Brick
Brick is a noir set in a high school, in the same way that people sometimes set Shakespeare in (say) 1940s America. The language and characters (the hard-bitten loner detective, the femme fatale, the criminal boss, thecop assistant vice principal) remain the same, but the setting twists sideways. This reveals much about the genre: who knew that all the petty manipulativeness you see in 30s mysteries was so much like high school?
The plot tangles nicely (as it must), the characters are well-drawn but for the most part lack nuance. It's the dialogue that drew me in. I think this is the first movie that upon finishing I had an overwhelming urge to watch again, just to hear them talk. "Act smarter than you look, and drop it." "C'mon, hash-heads-- I got all five senses plus I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you!" "Keep up with me here: I didn't know, but I thought you might." It's jarring at first to hear Raymond Chandler's words coming out of the mouths of sixteen-year-olds, but I got used to it pretty quickly. And then it just flowed.
Two tiny complaints: first, there's a chase scene that dips deep into the Well of Implausibility; second, I found the Big Reveal at the very end ("she called me a dirty word") to be a little weak. Not unnecessary, just . . . weak.
Man. Now I want to go watch it again. Good stuff.
"You know what they're watching? Us. The po-leece. L-A-P-D. We just got made."
One of my all-time favorite movies. I think it was John Tynes who said that Heat is a season and a half of the best crime drama on television, compressed into the space of three hours. It's simultaneously a portrait of a cop and a criminal who aren't so much opposed as they are two sides of the same coin, and a gigantic narrative with dozens of fleshed-out characters. The opening ten minutes or so are absolutely perfect: we get the characters, prepping for a heist, spending more time on the important ones. Twenty seconds on Waingro and we already can't stand him. The heist itself is a joy to watch unfold, even when it goes slightly offtrack. Then Hanna (the cop) shows up, and the intro is complete. Amazing.
Heat also gave me Neal's philosophy on life, "Do not have any attachments, do not have anything you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner," which I still respect even though I can no longer live by it. But then, despite the heart-rending scene outside the hotel, neither could he.
Rian Johnson (dir.), Brick
Brick is a noir set in a high school, in the same way that people sometimes set Shakespeare in (say) 1940s America. The language and characters (the hard-bitten loner detective, the femme fatale, the criminal boss, the
The plot tangles nicely (as it must), the characters are well-drawn but for the most part lack nuance. It's the dialogue that drew me in. I think this is the first movie that upon finishing I had an overwhelming urge to watch again, just to hear them talk. "Act smarter than you look, and drop it." "C'mon, hash-heads-- I got all five senses plus I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you!" "Keep up with me here: I didn't know, but I thought you might." It's jarring at first to hear Raymond Chandler's words coming out of the mouths of sixteen-year-olds, but I got used to it pretty quickly. And then it just flowed.
Two tiny complaints: first, there's a chase scene that dips deep into the Well of Implausibility; second, I found the Big Reveal at the very end ("she called me a dirty word") to be a little weak. Not unnecessary, just . . . weak.
Man. Now I want to go watch it again. Good stuff.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)Also, apparently The Big Lebowski was modeled after the conventions of the "film noir" genre, which I didn't see while watching the movie but in retrospect I can recognize them.