High and Low
After many years on my to watch list, I finally saw it two years ago.
The Cinematography, naturally was very nice. Toshiro Mifune was superb as always. The big issue for me was the character of the chief police inspector and his almost childish amateurish lines and acting. I was very confused how to take this blunder by such a great filmmaker as Kurosawa.
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The Usual Suspects
I've seen this once or twice. There are some very nice moments. As whole, I find it just OK movie.
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I'm one of those people who cooled on Usual Suspects over time, but after watching it again more recently I can say it's a very good movie, albeit with a gimmicky twist ending. It didn't quite make my list.
I've never heard of High and Low. I'll check it out.
Last edited by stillmellow; 2 weeks ago at 07:47 PM.
1. Killer Joe (#66)
3. Gone Baby Gone (#64)
4. The Player (#47) 6. The Usual Suspects (#20)
7. Body Heat (#22)
9. Mona Lisa (#78) 10. High and Low (#19)
11. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (#62)
12. Body Double (#69)
15. The Driver (#79)
17. Night Moves (#40)
21. Manhunter (#77)
22. Sin City (#26)
24. Bound (#59)
The Usual Suspects 8.5 IMDb rating is tied for the third highest in the countdown, along with The Departed.
Akira Kurosawa is another of the directors that crossed over between countdowns. He had already placed Stray Dog (#32) and Drunken Angel (#70) on the Film Noir Countdown.
20. The Usual Suspects - I've seen this film a few times, but I've got a feeling that if I watched it again today it'd be the viewing that cements it as a great in my mind. Full of great performances (Benicio del Toro invented his character's garbled speech pattern to make his character more memorable, and my god it worked.) As per film noir tradition, it has a complex, twisted narrative that you have to completely rethink when the film ends. I've never reacted to the film as strongly as most other people, who champion it with a passion - therefore it obviously didn't make my ballot. I need to see it again, because I think having a better understanding of classic noir would make me appreciate this true neo noir champ a lot more.
19. High and Low - Another great neo noir film that I don't have on my ballot. I've only ever seen the once, but it did impress me a great deal. I gave it an extremely high rating, and said at the time - "For 1963 this film is ambitious and beyond most everything I've seen from that time period. I'd say that many police procedural films have taken a cue or two from it. It's genuinely exciting, captivating and emotionally wrenching. There's a final scene that just puts an added stamp on the excellence that has gone before." Pretty vague. I have it on Criterion, but when you've only seen a film once it doesn't all stick. Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune are absolute legends.
I hope some more of the films that made my ballot are hiding in the top 20, snugly near the apex.
Seen : 57/82
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one vote. high and low was my #23. easily the best of kurosawa's noir films and one i should definitely revisit soon (at least before it finally gets hit with an american remake). i used to like the usual suspects, but now it just strikes me as another one of those films you watch early on when becoming a cinephile and then naturally move on from as you get deeper into film - maybe that gives it more staying power than what it actually merits on its own terms, but still.
Nightcrawler was on my list at #16. I am not sure why, but I always have trouble getting people to watch this with me. I don't know if it's the cover or if there is some weird epidemic of dislike for Jake in my circle of friends. When I do finally break down their defenses and get them to sit down and watch this film, there is almost universal praise and applause. See, I knew they would like it! Like others have said, I like this more and more each time I watch it. Very dark, and one of Jake's best performances.
Body Heat is a film I really bounced off of when I went to watch it. It was somehow a blind spot for me from the 80s, and I think it's because I had conflated it with Body Double for years, and always just assumed I had seen it already. I put it on a couple of years ago, and had trouble getting past the performances of both leads, which came across as corny to me for some reason, especially Turner. I kept thinking I was watching one of her cheesy books brought to life from Romancing the Stone. The style was there, as far as noir was concerned, but I will just have to add this to my growing list of films I need to give another shot at some point.
The Usual Suspects easily made my list at #21. In years past, I would have probably had it n the Top 10, but I have cool a bit on it over the years, or maybe it's just been a while since I watched it. Anyway, iconic stuff from the 90s, and a really fun screenplay.
Sadly, I have never even heard of High and Low.
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I am not sure why, but I always have trouble getting people to watch this with me. I don't know if it's the cover or if there is some weird epidemic of dislike for Jake in my circle of friends.
Maybe they think it's an origin story for Nightcrawler, the X-men character haha.
Nightcrawler was on my list at #16. I am not sure why, but I always have trouble getting people to watch this with me. I don't know if it's the cover or if there is some weird epidemic of dislike for Jake in my circle of friends. When I do finally break down their defenses and get them to sit down and watch this film, there is almost universal praise and applause. See, I knew they would like it! Like others have said, I like this more and more each time I watch it. Very dark, and one of Jake's best performances.
I haven't seen a lot of Gyllenhaal's performances, and Nightcrawler might have actually been the first one. I will say, the face, and especially the pitch of his voice doesn't match the general stereotype of the type of character that shows up in seedy movies like this. Coupled with the synopsis, I could imagine someone having some resistance to, "is this actually going to work or is it going to be kind of a softened-up, generic take on the seedy, night time degenerate movie."
It's a shame that Gilroy's follow up movie, Velvet Buzzsaw was, "meh." I suspect it's hurt Nightcrawler's real estate in our minds (not negative on it, just not as present. Though it did pretty well here, so maybe I'm just talking about my mind).
Kurosawa’s High & Low was fifth on my ballot. In some ways a spiritual successor to his earlier Stray Dog (1949) – which was #32 on the MoFo Top 100 Films Noir countdown – as it examines again the steamy margins of society where our criminal dwells. But this time we also get to see how the other half lives. The beautiful, modern house of a wealthy shoe executive (Tishoro Mifune) is disrupted when they receive a call demanding a large cash ransom for the safe return of his son. He has enough cash to satisfy the kidnapper, but it will mean he cannot take financial control of his company, a bold move he was about to execute. There is momentary relief when the supposedly kidnapped child calmy comes home. Was it a prank? No. The dilemma is given another dimension when they and the kidnapper both realize the wrong boy was taken. It is not the rich man’s son but his friend and playmate, the son of his chauffeur (Yutaka Sada), who has been abducted. Giving the cash for the safe return of his own son was going to be painful but the easy choice. But for a boy who isn’t his? And the money may not even guarantee his safe return.
In contrast to the modern, air-conditioned structure atop the hill where the rich folk live, the mysterious kidnapper (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and his accomplices live in the sweaty, heroin-laced ghetto below. While one was about to leverage his fortune to potentially become even wealthier, the other sat brooding, watching, coveting. Can the Police find the culprit in time? Fantastic thriller. That’s why I gave it twenty-one of its 164 points.
Nightcrawler was also on my list, right behind the Kurosawa. This 21st Century update of Ace in the Hole’s slippery slope of the media’s thirst for bloody stories and the lengths one can go to deliver that product is gangbusters. In the 1950s Kirk Douglas’ character was practically a carnival barker who could rationalize staging or exaggerating for a news cycle. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom is scarier. He presents himself as a straightforward seeker of the American dream who is willing to work hard to achieve it, but once he happens upon the scene of a car accident and sees the independent video vultures that swoop down upon tragedies looking for saleable if not exclusive footage he quickly reveals the sociopathic side of that American dream, the one that has zero moral qualms about anything at all, as long as it advances your goal and gets the adrenaline pumping.
Tense, thrilling, darkly comic, and it has something to say. That’s a cinematic home run, Kids. Nightcrawler was sixth on my ballot which makes a baker’s dozen of my choices, with another six coming.
HOLDEN'S BALLOT 4. Night Moves (#40) 5. High & Low (#19) 6. Nightcrawler (#21) 7. The Grifters (#45) 8. One False Move (#73) 9. Blast of Silence (#48) 12. To Live & Die in L.A. (#43) 13. The Naked Kiss (#51) 14. Angel Heart (#31) 15. Shallow Grave (#95) 17. Dead Again (#90) 22. The Hot Spot (#85) 24. Blue Ruin (#82) 25. Johnny Handsome (DNP)
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
Jackie Brown - When a flight attendant with a criminal past finds herself in the crossfire between her arms dealer boss and the federal agents that caught her smuggling money, she enlists the help of a bondsman to help her.
Blow Out - When a movie sound recordist accidentally stumbles upon a fatal car accident, he realizes he might have accidentally recorded evidence with his equipment which puts him in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy.
Blow Out is great. Probably my favorite De Palma and my favorite Travolta film. I have a review written on Letterboxd that I might transfer here, but I'm a big fan of how De Palma puts the focus on the minds of Jack and Sally, instead of the whole murder/conspiracy, which reminds me of something that Eddie Muller said in one of the videos I shared when this started: the mystery *is* the "detective" (or whoever is doing the "investigating"). The mystery itself is, more often than not, secondary. Bottom line, I love it. Had it at #13.
Jackie Brown is a film I've been meaning to rewatch for years, but for some reason still haven't. I remember I wasn't very impressed after my first watch, maybe because I was expecting the same bombastic approach from Pulp Fiction and instead found this more straightforward and meditative character study. When I rewatched it some time later, it went down way better and my feelings towards it improved a lot, but still, it's been easily 20 years since I last saw it. Need to definitely refresh my memory so I didn't include it.
SEEN: 58/84 MY BALLOT:17/25
My ballot
1.
2. The Grifters (#45)
3.
4.
5.
6. Nightcrawler (#21)
7. The Man Who Wasn't There (#27)
8. Following (#84)
9.
10. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (#35)
11. Thief (#29)
12. Bound (#59)
13. Blow Out (#17)
14. The Naked Kiss (#51)
15.
16. Blue Ruin (#82)
17.
18. Red Rock West (#88)
19. A Simple Plan (#46)
20. Killer Joe (#66)
21. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (#42)
22. Mother (#67)
23. Body Heat (#22)
24. To Live and Die in L.A. (#43)
25.
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