I. Memento is about our protagonist, Leonard, who suffers a short term loss memory after an attack on his wife. Throughout the film, Leonard is attempting to find the man responsible for his wife's rape and death, but runs through many trouble because of his condition.

ll. Classic Noir
-The film is told in reverse, but the black and white scenes are told in chronological order.  the black and white scenes are of classic noir. It's also set in some cheap motel.
-In these scenes,Leonard is on the phone with someone who is not mentioned telling his story. These scenes also take place as the narration throughout the whole film.
-Reminds me of Walter from Double Indemnity when he is foretelling the whole story of the recorder.
-Femme Fatale- Natalie manipulates his condition to do what she wants him to do.
- Sympathetic Criminal; In the movie, we are meant to like Leonard, but he has killed 2 men purposely and maybe even more. He sets himself up to kill innocent men so that he doesn't have to deal with his own reality.

lll. Neo-Noir-
-Most of the film is in color and is reversed. We have to watch each scene and connect it with the next. It's pretty new for noir.
-Although Natalie is a typical femme fatale, she was not a main character; just a side story. She appeared often but she wasn't a big part of the story. Usually in classic noir films, the femme fatales are one of the main characters.
- Everyone takes advantage of his short term memory loss, and oddly enough Leonard does also. He fools himself into believing Sammy Jankis was a client of his, but in reality he is Sammy.
- Leonard also tricks himself to constantly find his wife's attacker although he has already been found and killed. Can't face reality and move on because he's stuck in time. He sets himself up every time.

Source 1.
Context- According to Tim dirks, in the article Film Noir.
Quote from the source- "Very often, a film noir story was developed around a cynical, hard-hearted, disillusioned male character..."
Significance-  Leonard fits perfectly with these characters mentioned, he is at constant axiety throughout the film. He is a very disillusioned male character because of his memory loss, he is uncertain of more things.

Source 2
Context-According to an un-named source on the article Memento as Neo-Noir on Roadrunner.com.
Quote from the source- " Leonard is the Man who is frozen in time. He's forever stuck in the past. His present experience is forever disappearing."
Significance- Leonard can never move forward from the tragic incident because he is stuck in time. He can never heal because he can't feel time. This explains why Leonard ultimately choses to manipulate himself over and over, because his options of moving on are far of reach for him.

Cited Summaries.

Blsciblogs (Neo-noir elements of Memento)
- The blog starts off by addressing the film as neo-noir and not noir. By the format of the story and the "anxiety of cinema", which is a film to keep you at the edge of your seat. Also that a classic element of noir is to not know who to trust. Which character is lying or not. Usually the stories are narratives in one perspective. They could easily be lying. I basically found a blog that is having the same assignment on noir, it's not professional but it brings up good points.

Samplereality.com (Memento and Film Noir)
- The writer states that in noir films, the protagonist is flawed, and in this case Leonards flaw is his amnesia. Which makes him an unreliable source. He also points out that the chronological parts of the film in black and white are aspects of film noir and the lighting and the venetian patterns just like how the movie Double Indemity is when Walter is confessing on the dictaphone like Leonard on the phone. Also with Natalie being the typical Femme Fatale.

Roadrunner.com (Memento as Neo-Noir)
- I love this page. It's basically a small outline on the neo-noir. It's outlined by the type of story: detective. Also that Leonard is a sympathetic criminal because he did start off by killing innocent people just so he  can stay productive and not take fault for his wifes suicide/murder.

Filmsite.com
- It was hard finding a few legit articles for memento and film noir. This site just breaks down the exact definition of noir and its features. As i read i realized how on point memento was with classic noir. I feel like the film is leaning more towards classic noir than neo-noir. Especially when the site defines the male protagonist to be a "cynical, hard-hearted, disillusioned male character", it described Leonard perfectly.

Memento

I first heard about this movie in psychology and always wanted to watch it. It's now one of my favorite movies. The flash-forwarding made it very confusing but a great noir feature. Also the black and white clips throughout the movie were in chronological order while everything else was basically backwards.  The movie had me at the edge of my seat until the last few minutes that unraveled the plot.
I expected a great film by Christopher Nolan and got it.
I recommend everyone to watch.

Neo Noir Elements of Memento: Chamandeep. 02,  March 2010.
http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng3940h/2010/03/02/neo-noir-elements-of-memento/

Memento and Film Noir: 26 September, 2005. http://www.samplereality.com/gmu/fall2005/660/2005/09/26/memento-and-film-noir/

http://home.roadrunner.com/~jhartzog/mementonoir2.html

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

90210

      Beverly Hills is well known to have fine real estate, swanky stores and fabulous people. The narrator even spills a few celebrities names here and there as if there was some association.
     She even noted that when she was driving towards Beverly Hills that the roads were like "butter". It was smooth and more cared for. The people are stereotyped to be snotty and rich. I'm sure Los Angeles' reputation isn't the kindest. They aren't known for being the humblest of people. This story just adds to that speculation. They don't have to work much because of their fortune, so their hobbies are gossiping, and doing it well. Although with such fortune comes a price with the overwhelming amount of robberies and crimes.
  

Film noir and neo noir have the obvious differences. With Neo meaning "new" in French, I guess neo noir could be film noir's baby? It's a little more up to date and interests a newer generation. It's in color, updated style, themes are more exciting..etc. First in Midnight in Silicon Alley, we are brought to places like Arcadia and San Gabriel which has a large population of the Asian community. So you can sort of picture the Chinese mob capturing Chen. Especially in those areas, it sort of can be seen as noir like, with the descriptions of the brothels and such. It's quite unappealing. They are first in socal, but then it redirects us to Silicon Valley, where i think is part of Norcal? but it makes the narrative interesting because we have these images in our heads of the specific places. It's an advantage for us because we live in the Los Angeles area, but what about other readers who are not familiar with the area. it probably wouldn't be as visual. Even the name with Valley changed to "Silicon Alley". Alleys are usually dark small spaces, where a lot of crimes happen. I think i just talked about two different topics...

Ruthless

I found a review for the Double Indemnity film that caught my eye. The site is named "Ruthlessreviews.com", harsh criticism is some what amusing. With that site title i was expecting a more harsh criticized review, but was shocked. The review by Matt Cale seems like a dream for the director, Billy Wilder. Matt claims for The Double Indemnity to be "The ultimate and best Film Noir and deserves a Nobel Prize". I was hoping for at least some criticism with how some of the scenes went and the flaws.

It's most likely because this is the first old film that i have seen and the styles and acting in unfamiliar to me. It seems over acted.

Walters wedding ring definitely distracting, i noticed it throughout the film multiple time and i caught myself staring at it more than him. Also, it look as if Phyllis is wearing a wig? i'm not too sure but it's pretty unrealistic.

Just some of my opinions, but i feel as if i am too used to how movies are now, that i don't grasp the quality of how they were back then.

The conclusion was satisfying to me, but then unsatisfying.
Towards the ending chapters of the book, you begin to suspect ten different ways the story would go. That it was Phyllis and Walter, then Phyllis and Sachetti, then i even thought Lola and Sachetti. The author gave the readers an edge and sort of made us want to solve the case ourselves. The ending was quite unpredictable, especially since i was pretty sure that i knew what was going to happen in the ending.

I'm quite disappointed with Walter and Phyllis' conclusion. Walter did the right thing by telling the truth and writing the statement (which is the whole book), but i felt as if he didn't get anything out of it. Lola married Nino and he had no money. And what about Phyllis? Did she really get no conviction at all for the murders? She really got a away with murder and it sickens me. But we were also never really confirmed that it was all true. Especially since we have been mislead throughout the story multiple times. The whole story was of Walters knowledge, we have no idea of the actual truth. He could have been given false information about certain things.

The ending was confusing to me. Did they commit suicide? But like i said, this was just Walters information. We have no idea of what really happened to Walter and Phyllis. Maybe she would turn her back on him once again and let him jump off the boat, or vice versa.