I second the good ratings given by followers here to The Long
Good Friday, an excellent film, not to be missed. It's not a
top film but it stands well above average being really
gripping, noir and even ironic at times. Bob Hoskins is
perfect (we could say: as usual- he however is under used as
film actor in recent years).
Somebody asked if there were other modern British Noir films
of value. Well.. yes. But this is not frequent and Noir is
not well represented in the modern British film (compared to
the number of productions). But there are some gems.
-Mona Lisa (Bob Hoskins again), already cited by others
-Blue Ice (B style film with Michael Caine) - HB, fast and
interesting, even if not a top realisation.
-Divorcing Jack : off-beat, surreal, ferociously ironic,
black humor at its best... a really good film. Modernism with
a purpose. Way from the emptiness of the Tarentinesque
pasticcios and their affiliates.
-When I went Down: certainly influenced by the Cohen
brothers' films, but... with some realism, social content,
real time sequences and interesting plot. Skillful low budget
film, with a style of its own.
-Stormy Monday: film with more intellectual pretension and
unnecessarily convoluted at times. But still a very good Noir
film.
- And now something different: it's Noir for sure, it's grim
and horrible, but really fascinating... Totally iconoclastic.
A great film! It's: 'Pig Boy'- if you really like cinema, you
cannot skip this one.
OK, it's not British, but Australia was related to the
Crown:
- Heaven's Burning -(Australia) : very good off-beat film
with first class editing and film construction. Poetic, full
of black humor, violent and borderline anarchist. My only
regret are the last 3 minutes of that movie (too conventional
to be genuine- maybe the Australian censorship wanted some
cop triumph, who knows!) Russel Crowe has a leading part
therein - that was before Hollywood tried to phagocytize
him.
Oh, before I forget: I did not find Lock, Stock and two
Barrels a very good film; self pastiche of Noir genre leads
to nowhere, especially with artificial constructions produced
by recipes(in plot and in filming) and with violence being
the icing in hope to mask the deficiencies- as seen in that
film. Same goes for most of Tarentino's. Yes I'm one of
those...
E.Borgers Hard-boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
--- Chris Bahn <
Chris_Bahn@citysearch.com> wrote:
> The 1980 gangster movie "The Long Good Friday"
is
> showing in Minneapolis in
> mid-August -- has anyone here seen it?
Worth
> checking out, or tripe?
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