Chinatown

Chinatown was my favorite of the film noir type movies. Chinatown had many similarities to classic noir films and many differences from a typical film noir. Jake Gittes was like the traditional hard-boiled detective because he was determined to find out who set him up, just because he wanted to know. Also Gittes is similar to the character in Kiss Me Deadly, because they both have the same profession. Gittes doesn't smoke as much as the Jeff Bailey in Out of the Past, but smoking is still used to give that film noir feel in Chinatown. The main difference that sets Chinatown apart from the classic film noir movies is that Chinatown is in color, so Chinatown had brighter scenes to darken with low-key lighting.

At first the character of Evelyn Cross Mulwray seems like she is being set up as the classic femme fatale. Evelyn Mulwray is dangerous, seductive, and mysterious, which is what you would expect to see in a film noir. As the film goes on though Evelyn seems nothing like the classic femme fatale as she begins to lose it, and eventually is shot and killed. The way that girl was Evelyn's daughter and sister was pretty weird. Even though it was a pretty depressing ending with Evelyn Mulwray getting shot I liked the way it all ended.

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly was one odd movie. I preferred the second ending we saw where it doesn't show the characters escaping the house. I liked the second shorter ending better because when it didn't show them make it out it seemed like that was what it was building up to, plus the characters got pretty annoying so I was glad they died. I didn't like the longer ending where they make it out of the house, because then it doesn't seem like it is ready to end yet. And in the longer ending Mike Hammer was shot but then he gets out of the house alive, but will probably just die anyway. The end of the movie was really weird no matter which ending you watch. The glowing box of doom was ridiculous, also how Mike got information out of people was pretty funny. He would either slap them across the face a few times or break their records, both funny. I don't understand how this is considered by some to be the ultimate film noir. I thought that it started out pretty boring and then just got crazy as it went on. At the start of the movie it seemed to be more normal and realistic but that was all lost as it went on. The plot didn't explain many things like how the girl from the beginning of the movie tied into the other characters besides she had a key.

Out of the Past

Before watching Out of the Past, I had never heard of film noir, and had no idea what it was. Know I know film noir is basically smoking in trench coats in low-key lighting. I liked Out of the Past, even though some parts of the plot got confusing, it wasn't really important if you didn't know what exactly was going on. Out of the past used a lot of low key lighting, which is typical to film noir. Low-key lighting was used in a lot of different scenes, like while they were driving through the night or in Whit's house. Low key lighting wasn't used during the scenes of Jeff Bailey's present life, but was used during the scenes of his past life. This gave the effect that his present life is more boring and safe and that he used to be involved in dangerous and mysterious things. Just about every single scene in the movie had someone smoking in it which is another typical element of film noir. There were a lot of mysterious aspects to the movie too, which I liked. The character of Kathie is mysterious because you never know whether she is lying or not, also the ending scene with the message the kid gives Ann leaves you thinking about it.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, usually I don't like any movie that doesn't show scenes in chronological order, but I liked the way it worked in this movie. I also usually don't like sci-fi movies or movies with an unrealistic aspect to the plot, but it was alright in this movie. This movie being a romantic comedy was much darker than His Girl Friday which was a screwball comedy. This Film has a darker and more serious aspect which makes it a romantic comedy. In this movie it seemed darker than a screwball comedy because bad stuff could actually happen to the characters in this movie. In His Girl Friday it didn't seem like any one could get hurt, like when the lady jumped out the window and survived it wasn't a big deal, just kind of funny. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind you would think that if someone jumped out the window they would die, or it wouldn't be so funny. Also this movie is more serious because Joel starts to regret erasing Clementine and tries to stop his memories of her from being erased. In a screwball comedy like His Girl Friday there would never be a character with a serious problem or serious conflict.

I liked in the movie how Howard who was the doctor who erased peoples memories chose not to erase his own memories of Mary, but he chose to just deal with it like normal. I thought that his relationship with Mary was pretty weird though. In both relationships whoever had there memories erased fell back in love with the person they had erased, but in the Mary Howard relationship Howard didn't have his memories erased and didn't fall back in love with Mary.