RARA-AVIS: re: Chandler radio show

From: Carrie Pruett ( pruettc@hotmail.com)
Date: 02 Jul 2002


>real player was giving me some problems so i took it off my computer >about
>a year ago.

you should be able to download the basic version for free, maybe the bugs are fixed by now. I've found real player better than media player for most things.

>i did read the spielberg thing though [slate artice]. made me want to >see
>bogie and >bacall talking dirty to one another in "the big sleep."

it was kind of a stupid article because the author missed the point that the Bogey and Bacall "racehorse" scene is the least noir thing about Hawks' film. I guess the reasoning is that "The Big Sleep" is a classic noir flick, so everything about it must be quintessentially noir. I personally think that Bacall's beefed-up part in the newer version, while perfectly entertaining in its own right, detracts from the noir-ness of the movie.

>and it was interesting to hear about "minority report". i didn't have >any
>idea of what it was about.

it has its moments (I don't want this to turn into a big movie discussion, but I get the impression the PK Dick story is pretty hardboiled so I believe this is more or less on topic). If the movie had ended 20 minutes earlier than it did, it would be a good noir. The best comment I read about the last segment is that it's closer to "murder she wrote" than anything by Dick. Spielberg and Cruise obviously inserted the stuff about Cruise's kid into the "Minority" film, but I think it was a good move. the idea (in the slate article) that noir heartbreak has to be about sex misses the point entirely. Losing a child is probably the greatest heartbreak there is and it certainly falls into a perfectly respectable HB tradition (Pelecanos'
"Shame the Devil" and Lehane's "Mystic River" are two obvious recent examples; Scudder's backstory rests on the death of a child, etc, etc). There's certainly nothing inherently schmaltzy about the theme and I think Spielberg handles it just right. Anything Spielberg does is going to be too schmaltzy for some but that's the way it goes. On the other hand, the man never has known how to end a movie, so just don't go to this one expecting any different and you won't be too let down. The plot does more or less hold together, to the extent that any story involving time travel can hold together (aren't they inherently circular?)

carrie

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