Category: Cinema

i am a chick­en with my head cut off. this will con­tin­ue till mid decem­ber. grad schools, resumés, job inter­views, work, web design, prac­tice, home­work, papers, tests, quizzes. it makes one fair­ly pant just read­ing it. i need to prac­tice bilo­cat­ing or go clone myself over at the bio build­ing. with that done i could then spare enough ener­gy to direct my army of mutant squir­rels in their quest to con­trol the world nut mar­ket. i also need to begin writ­ing our sec­tion ‘news’let­ter as i did two years ago. noth­ing i quite like so much as mak­ing fun of every­thing and every­one in my hall­way using hor­ri­ble vul­gar­i­ty and insult and get­ting away with it as a semi-legit­i­mate form of media.

here is an old one from two years ago. rather hor­ri­bly vul­gar.

Film Noir Screen­ing: The Killers by Robert Siod­mak (1946). The first two scenes are based on a short sto­ry by Ernest Hem­ing­way, but the con­vo­lut­ed tale that fol­lows is a rather good exam­ple of ear­ly noir. Burt Lan­cast­er is an insur­ance claim inves­ti­ga­tor whose can­ni­ness is uncan­ny. His inves­ti­ga­tion unfolds the sto­ry through a series of flash­backs rem­i­nis­cent of Cit­i­zen Kane. The femme fatale is played by Ava Gard­ner, and when she is around there are bod­ies every­where. of course, she pays the price in the end. Some of the plot mech­a­nisms were con­trived, and the script­ing could have been done much bet­ter, but over­all it was a decent noir flik.