Guillermo del Toro’s vintage noir, ‘Nightmare Alley,’ is easier to read than it should be
Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, and many more star in this sweeping, grim-dark remake of the 1947 classic.
Tag: Noir
Extra Milestone – Gilda (1946)
This month on Extra Milestone, we jump back in time 75 years to discuss Gilda, a cult classic film noir starring Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, and George Macready. Directed by Charles Vidor and co-written by Jo Eisinger and Marion Parsonnet (with an uncredited contribution from Ben Hecht), the story is adapted from the work of E.A. Ellington, and it centers around gambling con man Johnny Farrell (Ford), whose amoral casino boss Ballin (Macready) surprises him with the revelation of his new, striking wife Gilda (Hayworth). We discuss the film’s resonant themes all these years later, its impact on the noir genre, and how the film relates to other iconic dramas from the era.
Extra Milestone – Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Gold Rush (1925)
Emily Kubincanek returns to Extra Milestone at last, and in no small fashion! We’re diving headfirst into the most Classic of Cinema with two brilliant films that connect to the Silent Era! First up is Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, a dramatic comedy featuring Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ that cemented many dramatic traditions while simultaneously telling a heartfelt and humorous story! From there, we jump forward to Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, which examines the world of showbusiness, the remnants of the Silent Era, and the widespread sacrifices found in Hollywood living through a melancholy lens steeped in Film Noir tradition.
Extra Milestone – The Night of the Hunter (1955), Airplane! (1980)
Sam Noland is back on Extra Milestone after a week’s respite to take on, along with friend and coworker Robert Wilkinson, two radically different classics. First up is Charles Laughton’s gothic thriller The Night of the Hunter, which stars Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic priest hunting down two children during the Great Depression. Next up on our itinerary is the landmark spoof comedy Airplane!, the laugh-a-minute lampooning of pop cinema celebrating 40 years of making the world howl with laughter.
Cinemaholics Podcast #117 – John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum
We’re ready to get in on the action of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, the third installment of the ongoing Keanu Reeves hitman franchise from director Chad Stahelski and screenwriter Derek Kolstad. We kick off the show with Off-Topics and briefly catch up on some of the new films we saw this week and last week but don’t have time to fully review.
Cinemaholics Podcast – Under the Silver Lake
Special guest Cory Woodroof joins Will for a long conversation about Under the Silver Lake, the latest film from director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), which stars Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough. Despite a lot of buzz surrounding this neo-noir thriller after premiering last year at Cannes Film Festival, A24 has only recently unleashed the mystery upon us hopeful cinemaholics. Is that for good reason? Dive in and find out!
Movie of the Week – Detour (1945)
Originating from the German Expressionist movement of the early 20th century, film noir is a corner of cinema often reduced to a shallow microcosm of its time period. It’s a genre that has been worked in ever since the 1930s, but the most common association with noir is made to the stylish, studio-mandated crime dramas of the 1940s. Production-code-overseen stories of bitter detectives, steely romantic interests, and Tommy Gun-toting gangsters punctuating every sentence with “See?” are typically conjured up when thinking of the prototypical noir story, but there’s a distinct tonal influence hovering over these films, setting them apart from other thrillers. This is the compelling narrative underpinning the Criterion Channel’s choice for our 8th Movie of the Week.