It has come to my attention that almost no one is voting on my film noir poll. Normally I’d consider this a personal affront and ample cause for a profanity-laced rant on how nobody cares anymore, nobody. But my wife Tess has pointed out it’s probably because I didn’t include her personal favorite neo-noir: The Grifters, from 1990.
OK, it was a glaring omission. Any film that has somebody beating up on Angelica Huston with a sack of oranges — that’s some serious noir. And if it’s based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake, it definitely has the street cred. In hindsight, maybe I should have killed Memento and added The Grifters.
Too late now, though. All I can do at this point is drink cheap whiskey and, later this evening, probably decide to quit blogging forever. Hope you’re happy.
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Well, your poll plays into a number of vexed or at least wide-open questions. What’s noir? What’s neo-noir, and can a color film even be noir? (All three have come up on the Web in recent months.) Perhaps this is one poll you should have conducted exclusively as a write-in.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Well, I tried to vote – for LA Confidential – but I got a message up saying “Cannot process vote”.
Maybe the same thing happened to millions of other visitors?
Heh. Millions, yes. But you might be onto something here.