Noir

Spider-Noir – Step Into My Office

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spider-Noir – Step Into My Office
  • wiki: link

Distinctly different than the original comic character or the character shown in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (also voiced by Cage), the opening episode of Amazon Prime’s Spider-Noir series introduces Private Detective Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) as a former super-hero turned struggling gumshoe just trying to make a living in the big city which is still reeling from the Great Depression and machinations of crime lord Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson).

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Last Moment of Clarity

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Last Moment of Clarity
  • IMDb: link

2020’s Last Moment of Clarity is a failed attempt at a neo-noir thriller from writer/directors James and Colin Krisel that eventually limps to the finish line after failing to hit its mark. The film is far more notable for the amount of skin shown by Samara Weaving than anything having to do with the film’s plot or its performances that otherwise would feel right at home as throwaway TV-movie of the week.

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Killer Heat

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Killer Heat
  • IMDb: link

Killer Heat is a flaccid attempt at neo-noir starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a private detective hired by a widow (Shailene Woodley) to look into the death of her husband (Richard Madden). The film is also burdened with a subplot of the family life our private investigator fled from which haunts him (when convient to the script). Adapted from a Norwegian short story, I don’t know if something got lost in translation or if there just wasn’t much here to begin with.

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In a Lonely Place

/ / Home Video
  • Title: In a Lonely Place
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Tuesday takes us back 75 years to the 1950 thriller featuring Humphrey Bogart as the temperamental screenwriter Dixon Steele who local police wrongly believe is responsible for the murder of a young cocktail waitress (Martha Stewart) which leads to continued harassment, although the events of that night do introduce him to his lovely neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) and the beginning of a love affair. Despite the amount of time spent on its aftermath, including a memorable scene in the police station where Dix is first questioned, it’s actually little more than an unusual setup to our two leads together.

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The Great Films – The Third Man

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Third Man
  • IMDb: link

Set in post-WWII Europe, director Carol Reed‘s cinematic masterpiece begins with the arrival of American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) in occupied Austria only to learn the friend he had come to visit on his last dime, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), is dead. Despite everyone he meets telling him he should return home, Holly sticks around the city playing amateur detective hoping to learn more about how and why Harry died.

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