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.

The Neo-Noir 90's

Question #1 

   It is apparent that the "Noir" style has been and still is an inspiration for several topics. Although the original style and concept of the genre has changed in a negative manner,  it still inspired many works.
   It mainly originated throughout Europe and the influences from the Nazi's and the heartless, dark experiences people saw them do. Which fully explains the emotional sense of noir.
   Film Noir has a different approach on imagery. It is very dark and gloomy. The title itself defines to "Black Film" in French. It was also turned into basically a lifestyle. With clothes in dark shades, music, movies and so on. It seems that most of the remakes in the genre have failed to impress the original content. Maybe for a Film Noir movie to exceed, it depends on the history and knowledge of such angst in the director. The article claims that the movie, "Chinatown", was depicted the best of Film Noir in its time, which was directed by Roman Palanski, who had lived through the holocaust and knows of such darkness and strong vivid images of terror.
   I definitely had no idea, or ever heard anything about Film Noir. It has been washed out and not brought back. But it seems that in the article it really has been lost, it says that the dark and dirty fun gets lost in the recent films. The authenticity of the genre has been brought down by the interests of the new generation today.

   Hopefully i'll find the time to see one of these original dark films and find some interest to them.