No 274 - Sin CityDirector - Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino.This film is so
quotey that it was very hard to pick the line that would be used as my title. Other contenders would have been:
- The Valkyrie at my side is shouting and laughing with the pure, hateful, bloodthirsty joy of the slaughter... and so am I.
- These are the old days, the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. They're back! There's no choice left. And I'm ready for war.
- Recognize my voice, Hartigan? Recognize my voice, you piece-of-shit cop? I look different, but I bet you can recognize my voice!
etc etc.... This is an introduction to my first point for this film, because it is stylised, beautifully beautifully stylised. This is the the antithesis of comic book films such as the new Batman series, a comic book film that revels in the medium it originated from. Shots are recreated
exactly as they appear in the comics and offer the the now iconic visual style, which echoes the monochromatic pen and ink style of the comics.
The visual style also helps to make the extreme and frequently horrific violence much more tolerable - either because it is essentially obscured by the black and white framing or because all the blood is bright white or yellow, or very rarely.... actually red. It is Frank Miller's style and whilst it is certainly effective in the comics (the
occasional splash of vibrant primary colours which burst through the blocks of black and white) it comes into its own within the subtleties that can be
provided on film.
Torches and streetlights illuminate people in full colour, the red and blue lights of police cars gently rippling over the grey
pallete of the rest of the film or
spurts of crimson blood smear across the character's faces. It is the interaction of coloured light sources which I find truly impressive, rather than the blocks of colour which appear throughout the film (most frequently with
That Old Yellow Bastard). Robert Rodriguez spent ages persuading the producers that they should follow the visual style culminating with him creating a test reel of himself and his sister in the same visual style. And luckily his
perseverance paid off as without the visual style, the majority of the film would fall flat. The action, the speech, the characters are all so over the top and so ridiculously extreme that they would never work in the real world. By distancing Sin City from actual reality it becomes far easier to suspend disbelief. You accept the comic book
universe and the universe's rules. People can leap off buildings or jump 10 foot into the air without repercussions, people can be shot 20 times and continue fighting, the police are generally blind, deaf and wearing armour made of tissue. If this film was set in New York and filmed in a realistic palette, the violence and action would only be made to look even more extreme and ridiculous, to an extent where the audience may struggle accepting it.
Luckily - this film is so stylised that it is completely alien to the real world, and you enter the film forced to accept it on its terms.
The second point is about what the film offers, and about entertainment. This is something that I have
argued over and over again with my friend Becky. Is it
OK for a film to be utterly vacuous and only entertain on a purely aesthetic level? Becky argued that the lack of character development and the same plot being repeated 3 times (underdog is led to a situation by a girl, underdog avenges girl, underdog has to go and fight the authority - be it police or senators) stops the film from being any good, that a truly good film must offer something more that pretty visuals. I counter argued with my view. And I proudly introduce Captain James
Amazing's theory of Cinema:
A film's role is to offer escapism to the viewer. Whilst there are films that show the mundane aspects of everyday life, they are still offering us the mundane aspects of
someone else's life, it is still a form of escapism. Sin City is the ultimate example of escapism. It shows an entirely new world with a new code - both in how the physics of reality work as well as the moral codes of the characters. The fact that it offers the same story 3 times, is irrelevant. This film is a complete aesthetic onslaught of beautiful ladies in skimpy clothing and hardened brutes causing explosions. It is mindless violence and gravity defying leaps. It is total nonsense. It is total escapism. And for that reason, I think that Sin City succeeds in being a really great film. It is shallow as hell but that doesn't dent its greatness.
And this leads me nicely to the topic of beautiful ladies
in skimpy clothing. Frank Miller loves his beautiful ladies (
just look at the casting for his new film, The Spirit) and this is made very very evident in this film.
Let us begin with Jessica Alba (for we should always begin with Jessica Alba, and it makes sense... alphabetically). Nancy Callahan is a feisty table dancer who is in love with Bruce
Willis's grizzled former cop. Due to Nancy's job in the film we get marvellous close up shots of
Alba in her lovely outfit, I realise that I sound like an utter
perve in this paragraph but I kind of think that that is the point of the scenes. Jessica Alba will generally reduce most men into dribbling idiots, and that is fully exploited within the film. Interesting fact.... The script originally stated that Nancy was topless (as she is in the comics) but Jessica Alba's no nudity clause won out on that little matter.
There are many other very attractive female characters in this film -
Brittany Murphy,
Rosario Dawson,
Jaime King. However I wish to give special attention to
Alexis Bledel who plays Becky 'Blue Eyes'. Rather a small role but she is very very pretty. And she appears in one of the films
more iconic shots (there are a lot of iconic shots).
The prettiness of the girls are made even more
noticeable by the grizzled men, usually under
quite a lot of prosthetics. Bruce Willis,
Benedicio Del
Toro and Mickey Rourke are all amazing as their respective scarred and battered characters. Rourke especially shines as the unstoppable tank that is Marv.
Again, this is further evidence of Rodriguez's genius as he convinced Miller that Rourke was Marv. Miller was
apparently unsure until the second he met Rourke when he instantly jotted "Mickey Rourke is Marv" on his napkin.
And it is
testament to Robert Rodriguez that he has managed such superb casting and such a high calibre of cast to appear in his aesthetic and essentially shallow comic book pulp movie. The acting cast is top notch and the film has two very talented and credible directors assistant a true comic book legend.
All in all this is a film which balances very experienced and 'cool' film makers with a
phenomenal cast and an explosive sense of ridiculous over the top escapism. A true cinematic pleasure. But very possibly a 'boy film'.
The leaves are falling too fast for me to keep up with them!
They have taken over the front yard!!
And yet, the branches of the trees above me are still mostly green and still holding LOTS of leaves!!
Looks like I have a date with the rake! Hope you all have a great weekend!
Yes, that's me (or a pretty good likeness, anyway). 
Trim the stem end of the sprouts and pull of a few of the little leaves from the bottom. Put them in a colander and give them a bath.
Cut them in half.
In the meantime, season some flour for the pork chops. Use whatever you like... I used parsley, black pepper, Tony Chachere's Seasoning, and some granulated garlic.
Back to the sprouts... when they're tender, drain them. Put a little olive oil in the same pan and put the sprouts back in. Add some seasoning. I added red pepper flakes and granulated garlic. Now toss those around until they are browned.
Couldn't be easier! My gardener gave this dinner rave reviews!
since it is now Halloween time, but I digress.)
He will especially want to drive this car and not a moped around town, when he is old enough, so that he can impress his friends and take his girlfriend out on dates.
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