#Neo-Noir Action Thriller

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"WE PUSHED IT EVEN FURTHER. WE WENT BOLDER, WITH DEEPER BLACK AND REALLY STRONG COLOR SEPARATION."

FILM: "John Wick: Chapter 4"

DIRECTOR: Chad Stahelski

SCREENPLAY: Shay Batten & Michael Finch

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Dan Laustsen

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Kevin Kavanaugh

SENIOR COLORIST: Jill Bogdanowicz

"Company 3 Senior Colorist Jill Bogdanowicz recently completed work grading "John Wick: Chapter 4." She has handled grading duties on the "John Wick" series since "Chapter 2," which also happened to be when Dan Laustsen joined as cinematographer. The two have collaborated with director Chad Stahelski on the stylized Keanu Reeves-starring series since. All "John Wick" films have impressed audiences with their strong, expressive looks, but Bogdanowicz says of "Chapter 4":

“We pushed it even further. We went bolder, with deeper blacks and really strong color separation.""

-- COMPANY 3, "The Color of Revenge: "John Wick Chapter 4,"" published April 24, 2023

Source: www.company3.com/the-color-of-revenge-john-wick-chapter-4, X, MUBI, various, etc...

[anim-ttrpgs]

Exerpt from Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. The Woo Roll is one of my favorite mechanics in a game full of my favorite mechanics.

[nine-frames]

Dirty Harry, 1971.

Dir. Don Siegel | Writ. Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink & Dean Riesner | DOP Bruce Surtees

[schlock-luster-video]

On October 10, 2006, Point Break was riffed on Rifftrax.

Here's some new creepy Ronald Reagan mask art to celebrate!

[hotsodax]

I don’t know that much about film noir and don’t have any strong feelings about any of the movies that I have to choose between for my film class, so why not just let some strangers on tumblr choose for me?

[knightgazes]

"There's no rhyme or reason to this life."

JOHN WICK (2014) dir. Chad Stahelski

[abs0luteb4stard]

W a t c h i n g

[moviesiveseenandwanttoremember]

David Fincher's "The Killer" November 10, 2023.

[agentnico]

Sympathy for the Devil (2023) Review

It's Collateral in the desert, with the Cruise out and in with the Cage.

Plot: After being forced to drive a mysterious passenger at gunpoint, a man finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems.

I do hold a special place in my heart for the acting enigma that is Nicolas Cage. He's truly like no one else, with his over-acting techniques and outrageous performances consistently being enjoyable and interesting to watch, even if he is stuck in a dumpster fire of a movie, and boy there are many turkeys on his filmography! Lately, however, Nicolas Cage has been actually allowed to appear in some solid films, with the wonderfully weird psychological hallucinogenic trip in 2018's Mandy where Cage loses more shit than he usually does; to the hilarious 2022 flick The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent where Cage played himself and gave us the best friend duo we never thought we needed in himself and Pedro Pascal; and this year appearing as Dracula in Renfield. Yep, there was also that Western dud earlier this year called The Old Way which was the most boring interpretation of the Wild West possible where even Cage was on low form, but the less we mention that the better. Be sure to look out for my Top 10 Worst Movies of 2023 list end of the year - The Old Way will surely be making an appearance. Anyway, enough with the shameless self-marketing of my own blog - let's discuss the new Nicolas Cage movie that's gracing our screens!

Sympathy for the Devil is a very by-the-numbers kidnapping movie, that is definitely inspired by the Michael Mann 2004 thriller Collateral, which involves cab driver Jamie Foxx driving around Tom Cruise's assassin as he completes his dirty work. Thrilling movie by the way - can recommend it! As for Sympathy for the Devil, there is nothing new here or original. There's some fun camerawork taking advantage of the neo-noir lighting of Las Vegas at night, and most of the events that transpire are in this one car with these two characters was simplistic yet director Yuval Adler managed to keep this limited setting engaging. Reminded me a bit of that Tom Hardy 2013 drama Locke where he spends the entire movie driving his car and talking to folks on the phone. The script however is very weak, and the twist at the end of the film is extremely predictable, so the movie sorely relies upon its two central performances.

Luckily the two lead actors do solid work. Nicolas Cage is given yet another shot to give an unhinged crazy performance as the maniacal stranger, and he's given a physical makeover too with red dyed hair and a flashy red suit jacket. A lot of the film is spent on him giving out goofy line readings and monologues while rolling his googly eyes and being general Rage Cage. Joel Kinnaman brings vulnerability and humanity as the innocent driver who simply wants to get to the hospital to his wife who is giving birth to his third child. Kinnaman especially can be a very intimidating and strong presence as he's done before in The Suicide Squad as soldier Rick Flag, so seeing him here stripped down was definitely an interesting casting choice.

Overall Sympathy for the Devil is not particularly memorable, with there being no devil in the details of the script. However if you want another excuse to watch Nicolas Cage do his maddenic lunatic thing, then it will be an enjoyable 90 minutes to pass the time. Can't say I'm not a little disappointed - the trailer made the movie seem like much more of a deranged experience than what the final product turned out to be. Ah well, no sympathies for the devil this time around.

Overall score: 5/10

[cemyafilmarsiv]

Oldboy directed by Park Chan-Wook

[tinyreviews]

Given the reviews and accolades, I went into this with high expectations and was disappointed.

The Childe (Korean: 귀공자; Hanja: 貴公子; MR: Gwigongja; lit. Nobleman) is a 2023 South Korean neo-noir action thriller film directed by Park Hoon-jung, starring Kim Seon-ho and Kang Tae-joo in his film debut and also Kim Kang-woo, and Go Ara.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"ESSENTIALLY, WE'RE NOT JUST AUGMENTING THE COLOR; WE'RE USING COLOR TO ACCENTUATE THE CHOREOGRAPHY."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the cinematography and color grading of "John Wick: Chapter 4," (a.k.a "John Wick 4"), the 2023 American neo-noir action thriller film directed and co-produced by Chad Stahelski.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Dan Laustsen

SENIOR COLORIST: Jan Bogdanowicz

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Kevin Kavanaugh

"The essential color themes, the colorist recalls, were inspired by the film’s key locations. Paris, she notes, "is filled with a lot of red, gold, green, and some blues. Then, the portions in Japan automatically come up with more pinks, blues, and reds."

Bogdanowicz stresses that the imagery Lausten and the design team (led by production designer Kevin Kavanaugh) brought enormous richness to the “neg” (shot digitally with ARRI Alexa cameras) before she collaborated with the filmmakers using the toolset within DaVinci Resolve to refine and enhance that lush photography.

She offers an example of a night scene in Japan set within a forest filled with cherry blossoms. Stahelski and Lausten, she adds, "really wanted to see and feel the reds and pinks in the cherry blossoms while also keeping the surrounding blues and greens strong. So, I used a lot of keys and power windows to help enhance the blossom colors even further."

When coloring scenes filled with fast cuts and rapid-fire action, Bogdanowicz elaborates, she will generally push color a bit further and use more secondaries to isolate specific elements in the frame than she would otherwise. “You want to make sure that the audience really feels the movement and catches the details when everything is going by so quickly."

“We’d accentuate and shape details,” she adds, “so we could help direct the viewer’s eye, so they don’t miss a sword, gun, or some specific movement in a complex fight scene. Essentially, we’re not just augmenting the color; we’re using color to accentuate the choreography.”

-- COMPANY 3, "The Color of Revenge: John Wick Chapter 4," published April 23, 2023

Sources: www.company3.com/the-color-of-revenge-john-wick-chapter-4, Empire, Deadline, IndieWire, The Art of VFX, various, etc...

[emotinalsupportturtle]

Love how the in the Killer (2023) follows the story of this unnamed brutally efficient, stoic, disciplined, apparently emotionless hitman with a 100% success rate (mostly) on the whole "deadly asassin, on the verge of loosing his grip, going on a revenge killing spree" thing (which we have seen so many times before but not like this) but..

..he is also basically an emo teenager who listens exclusively to the smiths and thinks nihilism is cool but at the same time an unexplained penchant for hawaian shirts although otherwise he always dresses in monochrome clothes with funky hats, does yoga, stops to chat with his penultimate target to only say 5 words and has driest, most inappropriately timed humour

[trulyinspiringmovies]

John Wick: Chapter 2

“John Wick: Chapter 2″ enhances the action and fleshes out the world more, but suffers from a more interesting promise of the next movie instead of just making an engaging film.

John Wick knew that going back to retirement wasn’t going to be as easy as the first time around and the first time was near impossible. When Santino D’Antonio returns to John’s life, he asks to cash in a marker, which is a blood oath that must be kept. The job is to kill D’Antonio’s sister in order for Santino to take her place at the High Table. If John doesn’t do this, he will be killed. If John goes through with it, then Santino will rule over New York with an iron fist.

This is probably the first instance of a sequel doing exactly what I look for in a good sequel, yet still managing to be just as subpar as the first. The action is a whole lot better this time around. You can tell that this movie had a bigger budget because they put it to good use. The kills are more creative. The settings are grander. The lighting is more experimental. I think that was one crucial thing that the first movie was lacking: variety. The action in the first movie got monotonous fast because it was mainly just headshots. This movie changes things up from scene to scene. A lot of it still felt heavily choreographed to me, but it was less egregious than the first. Still, there was one moment when John and another hitman discretely shoot at each other in a train station without anyone noticing. I thought that scene was completely dumb and it would’ve been rectified if there was one line of dialogue that explained that these guns were virtually mute when fired. I mean, they have bulletproof fabric, so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. The scope of the film was much larger this time around. I always say that good sequels should do meaningful world-building and “John Wick: Chapter 2″ had the perfect opportunity to. We learn more about the mysterious underground world in this universe and it’s just so intriguing to me. This time around, he’s fully back in the game, so we see how he got ready when he was in his prime. We got to see the cream of the crop when it came to his outfits, weapons, and intel. The story this time around felt more ambitious, but still missed the mark. The first movie had an extremely simple premise. That works because then there’s a minimal margin for error. This movie removes all agency from John Wick, which makes the story feel like it’s only going in one direction. Keanu Reeves made more noticeably bad acting choices in this movie. There were many times when the context made me know what he was going for, but he gave off an entirely different signal. Finally, my biggest gripe about this film is how the ending happens abruptly and basically seems more interested in selling the third installment. The reason why the cliffhanger in “Spider-Man: Far From Home” works is that the narrative was complete. Then it hits you with a taste of unforeseen aftermath. In this movie, the narrative wasn’t complete and it feels like the movie just got bored and wanted to move on to the next one. It feels like an episode of a show rather than a full movie on its own.

★★★

Watched on April 11th, 2023

[schlock-luster-video]

On July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight debuted in Canada and the United States.

[twenty-words-or-less]

John Wick: Chapter 4

Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves) prepares to exact revenge against the High Table. That's pretty much it. I don't know how else I can elaborate on it.

3hr runtime barely felt, gorgeous cinematography, Skarsgard best character, Sawayama has lots to do, ending genuinely heartfelt. Fucking marathon-level breathless.

Rating: 4.75/5

Photo credit: Rolling Stone