Top Ten Film Noir

My favorite genre of film is film noir, and I've recently been going through another film noir phase again, so I thought it would be fun to create a list of my ten favorite film noir movies of all time.  This isn't counting neo-noir (Chinatown, L.A. Confidential, Se7en, etc.) or one of my favorite movies The Night of the Hunter, because I don't really consider that a "true" film noir.

10. The Killing

This is Kubrick's first great film and by far his best film noir.  For the film Kubrick recruited a cast of actors who had all been in their fair share of film noirs and they all do a fine job, and the dialogue and (of course) directing are terrific.  What is so great about this movie isn't the plot, but rather how the plot is told; which is non-linear and many scenes are done several times but from a different character's perspective each time.  The film is only 84 minutes long not a single shot is wasted.


9. The Maltese Falcon

One of the most famous of film noirs to non cinephiles and is often extremely overrated or very underrated, this movie is one of the two movies that made Humphrey Bogart a star (the other being High Sierra) and is considered by many to be the first film noir (it isn't).  Nevertheless it's a truly iconic film featuring the most iconic of all film noir actors in Humphrey Bogart, a femme fatale played by Mary Astor, the killer combo of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, film noir mainstay Elisha Cook Jr. who makes every movie he's in better, and Ward Bond even drops by for a few minutes.  An amazing directorial debut by John Huston that's one of the best mystery stories of all time.


8. In a Lonely Place

For my money the best movie about Hollywood ever made, even better than Sunset Boulevard which was actually released the same year.  In a Lonely Place is about a screenwriter (played by Humphrey Bogart) who delivers one of the greatest performances of his career (it's right up there with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) as the movie follows how his character's life falls apart.  A very depressing, but fascinating movie,  that's masterfully handled by Nicholas Ray and is one of the most angry, bitter looks at Hollywood ever put to film.

7. Double Indemnity

The film that established Billy Wilder as one of the great directors of his time, andshows how daring a director Billy Wilder was. It features the woman whom I consider to be the greatest (or is it worst?) femme fatale of all time in Phyllis Dietrichson (played terrifically by Barbara Stanwyck) and features solid performances by Fred MacMurray as the man who succumbs to her "charms" and Edward G. Robinson as MacMurray's boss and best friend.  The movie starts out pretty messed up with Stanwyck and MacMurray plotting to kill to Stanwyck's husband in order to inherit all of the money his life insurance policy would leave her, and gets progressively more and more fucked up after they murder Stanwyck's husband as Edward G. Robinson who is an insurance inspector  realizes that something may be up, and the audience learns more and more about Phyllis Dietrichson and just how reprehensible a character she really is as everything falls apart and is wrapped up in typical noir fashion (people die).


6. The Big Combo

One of the most visually stunning film noirs of all time and one that really just embodies all that is film noir to me.  This is one of those movies where the style is the substance, one that takes place in (as Dave Kehr said in his review of the film) an almost dreamlike world.  Whenever I hear the words "film" and "noir" in succession this is the movie that I think of.


5. Laura

One of those movies that's kind of hard for me to put into words why I like it so much, but I'll give it a try anyways.  All of the performances in this movie are great (most notably Clifton Webb and a very young Vincent Prince), the black and white cinematography is some of the best you'll ever see, and Dana Andrews falls in love with a dead chick.


4. Touch of Evil

One of Orson Welles' best films (I have it in the top four) and my fourth favorite film noir of all time as well.  This movie opens with arguably the most famous shot of all time and just keeps going from there as it really is a masterpiece in direction (as are all Welles films) and contains great performances from the entire cast. Even the Charlton Heston's oft-maligned performance as a Mexican is great because even though he's totally unconvincing as a Mexican, his nationality/race is ultimately of no consequence as far as his character goes as Heston plays his typical proud, straight-arrow, and heroic role perfectly.  Heston's character is perfect contrast with the corrupt, almost monstrous Hank Quinlan, played by Orson Welles.  Charlton Heston may be the star and main character of the movie, but the film is about Hank Quinlan and his loss of innocence and how a great detective became a terrible cop.  Also Marlene Dietrich stops by for about 4 minutes and delivers a knockout performance.

3. Out of the Past

Although The Big Combo may be the first movie I think of when it comes to film noir, no movie really embodies film noir as fully as Out of the Past.  Out of the Past has a private eye, a femme fatale, a mob boss, flashbacks, chiaroscuro lighting,  a nihilistic attitude, and probably the "noiriest" dialogue of any film. “My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven’t been able to find them.” That's just one fine example in a film full of them.  Probably the best gateway movie for film noir of any in the genre, if you don't like this you probably just don't like film noir.


2. The Third Man

The best film-noir to ever come out of Europe (Britain), a movie that features great on-location shooting (postwar Vienna), gorgeous black and white cinematography, an unforgettable score, and Orson Welles' most memorable role and one of his best performances, certainly his best in a movie that he didn't direct.  Welles plays one of my two favorite movie villains of all time in Harry Lime (the other is Reverend Harry Powell from The Night of the Hunter) and gives such a memorable performance despite the fact that he's only on screen for less than ten minutes, he's the character that everyone remembers.  However, Orson Welles is far from being the only reason to watch this movie, because as mentioned earlier this movie has some of the most beautiful cinematography you'll ever see in any movie, and the score is one of the best ever.  The leads Joseph Cotten and Allida Valli are overshadowed by Orson Welles, but that's mainly because their roles are not as interesting, yet their performances are just as good.  This is one of the best movies of all time.


1. The Big Sleep

Objectively, probably a worse film than The Third Man, but Humphrey Bogart is my favorite actor of all time and Howard Hawks is one of my favorite directors so those two combined with my favorite film genre is basically an unbeatable combination in my eyes.  Howard Hawks said he learned during the filming of this movie, that a movie isn't so much about having a great story, so much as it is about having a succession of great scenes.  This certainly is true for this movie as the plot is almost impossible to follow  but it doesn't really matter at all because every scene is memorable, Humphrey Bogart is a badass, and Lauren Bacall and him share some of the best dialogue ever put to film.  Some people think that this movie isn't really a film noir, and is moreso just a detective story because the main characters are both good guys and at the end of the day there is basically a happy ending because Bogart survives gets the girl.  However, just like Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, although there may appear to be a happy ending on the surface, it is more about how that "happy" ending is obtained that makes it a film noir.  In The Big Heat Glenn Ford's quest for justice and later revenge puts several innocent women in danger and leads to three of them being killed, and in The Big Sleep it is Bogart's unwarranted, cruel, and vindictive killing of Eddie Mars that makes this a film noir.  

Top Ten Superman: TAS Episodes

Continuing my theme of top ten episodes of DCAU shows, I've decided to make a list for Superman: The Animated Series, seeing that I just re-watched the entire series over the past two weeks, so now all the episodes are pretty fresh in my mind.

10. Identity Crisis

This is a pretty great episode that doesn't really have any flaws that I can think of, however what it does do is not exactly challenging stuff. It's really just good old-fashioned fun with the first appearance of Bizarro.  Some things that really stick out about this episode is Tim Daly's performance as Bizarro and how they connected Luthor to the creation of Bizarro.

9. Stolen Memories

This is another episode where almost everything clicked, as it did a great job of introducing Braniac and giving him and Superman a personal connection that didn't really exist in the comics, making is so that Braniac played a large part  in the destruction of Krypton was brilliant and made him that much more of an arch-nemesis (athough Luthor and Darkseid are probably higher up on the totem poll).  Having Braniac easily shut down Lexcorp's systems showed him to be more dangerous than any other villain Superman had encountered so far. The cherry on top was because Braniac was a robot they were  able to show him being destroyed in an awesome way (a punch through the chest).

8. Apokolips. . .Now!

This was a great episode not just because of the great performances, great fight scenes, but because it really established Darkseid as the ultimate enemy of Superman (sorry Lex).  Darkseid speaking with Superman on the mountain  obviously symbolized the devil speaking to Jesus on the mountain and really drove home the point of Darkseid being the ultimate evil in the DCAU.  As if the entire episode leading up the big finish wasn't enough, Darkseid killing Dan Turpin was one of the most shocking moments of any of the DCAU episodes, and truly cemented Darkseid as Superman's greatest villain.

7. Ghost in the Machine

This episode has it all; great storytelling, great action sequences, great character insight, great pacing, Braniac, and quite probably the best animation of any episode in the entire series.  The scene where Luthor leaves Mercy to die, and you see the heartbreak on her face, is one of the most painful moments to watch (in a good way) in the entire series.

6. New Kids in Town

An episode that is simply a lot of fun, chock full of 80's references and the first episode where we get a good idea of what Smallville is like and what Clark's life was like as a teen, and a better understanding of his relationship with Lana.  Not to mention it has Braniac and the first ever appearance of The Legion of Superheroes in any television show.  I just really love the pacing of this episode and the way that Smallville looks and feels, it has a real Back to the Future vibe (which I'm sure was intended).

5. World's Finest

This episode was awesome not only because of the appearance of Batman in Metropolis, and his subsequent seduction of Lois Lane in a matter of minutes, but also because of how Batman and The Joker contrasted with Lex Luthor and Superman.  At the beginning of the first episode until almost the end, every resident of Metropolis (most notably Superman and Luthor) constantly underestimate The Joker and Batman, thinking of them as just a couple of loons who can't hold their own in the city of Metropolis.  Instead Batman and The Joker constantly outclass Luthor and Superman as Joker ends up as the main threat and Luthor as the victim, and Superman realizing he needs Batman as much as Batman needs him in order to save the day.

4. Mxyzpixilated 

The funniest episode of STAS by far, and one of the funniest in the entire storied history of the DCAU.  Mr. Mxyzptlk was handled perfectly and everything was handled expertly in this episode.  Gilbert Gottfried isn't the first person that would come to my mind if you asked me who should be the voice of Mxy,  but he did an amazing job.

3. Brave New Metropolis 

I've always loved stories where one character gets thrown into an alternate reality, and this episode was handled exceptionally.  It had great pacing, it showed how much Lois meant to Superman, and also gave some solid insight into just how evil Lex Luthor really is, as every main character has been changed in some way by the death of Lois except him.  In fact the first thing Luthor does when he realizes Lois is alive is ordering Mercy to kill her.  I came away from this episode feeling like I had just watched an entire movie, and this was not because it dragged, but rather I lost all sense of time while watching because I was totally sucked in. That's basically the highest praise I can give a 22 minute episode of television.

2. Legacy
 
The action-packed two-parter that concludes STAS is terrific because almost the whole series had been building to these two episodes.  Everything happened in this episode, the seeming betrayal of humanity by Superman, Hamilton and Superman's friendship being forever ruined, Luthor and General Hardcastle teeming up in an attempt to kill Superman, Lois and Superman finally kissing, and most importantly the fight between Superman and Darkseid (boarded by Bruce Timm), which is the best fight sequence in the entire show.  If there's a perfect way for a show to go out, this is it. The fact that it ended on a depressing note was something you just could not have seen coming from a show like STAS, which was pretty optimistic the whole way through.

1. The Late Mr. Kent

From Tim Daly's great narration, the excellent score, showing that Clark did indeed have some investigative abilities and he could do more than just follow Lois Lane around, this episode has a lot of things going for it. Another thing I really liked about this episode was it sort of drove home the point that in STAS it's Superman that is the mask and Clark Kent is the real identity and how he thinks of himself.  However, what really made this my favorite episode is I'm a huge fan of film-noir and this episode was by far the most noir-like of any of the STAS episodes.

Top Ten Batman Beyond Episodes

Well I noticed recently that while there are tons of top ten Batman: TAS lists all over the internet I could not find a single Batman Beyond top ten. So seeing that I've seen every episode at least once and I've seen certain ones (like the ones on this list) several times, I might as well make a top ten to christen my blog with its first post.  So without further ado, here's my ten favorite episodes of Batman Beyond:

10. Rebirth

 What better way to start out a top ten list than with the debut episode?  Although Rebirth is comprised of two different parts, I figured it would be way too annoying to try and rate two-parters on the list as separate episodes.  Timm, Dini, Burnett, and crew created an entirely new Gotham and it looks great, although a it is a bit weird that Terry was already an amazing martial artist pre-Wayne training, this episode is a terrific intro and really sets up the series and lays everything out fairly nicely.

9. Countdown
 

Now we're jumping from the first episode ever produced to the last (Unmasked was aired later but was produced/created earlier) this episode has an entirely different tone from Rebirth, as it is anything but serious as it is an entirely comedic episode.  It's damn funny and makes perfect use of both Mad Stan and Zeta's personalities, not a moment is wasted.

8. Black Out
 

One of the many great episodes of BB season one, this episode introduces one of Batman II greatest adversaries: Inque.  As shown in the picture above, Inque is not to be taken lightly and although some people compare her to Clayface, she's more than strong enough a character to stand on her own.  The whole episode was very tense, and the animation for Inque (and everything else) was terrific and really drove home how dangerous Inque was.  Not to mention there was a Grey Ghost reference in this episode as well, I mean what more could you want?

7. Spellbound
 

Well you could want this I suppose, but there really is very little (if anything at all) separating "Spellbound" from "Black Out" in terms of quality.  Both episodes are a lot of fun to watch with both having interesting villains. Of the two I prefer "Spellbound"  because Spellbinder's costume is awesome, but moreso because I love how seamlessly and convincingly reality and dreams are mixed.


6. Heroes
 

An episode that, strangely enough, is considered by many people to be one of the worst (if not the worst) of Batman Beyond, even though it's amazing. This link will tell you why it's one of the best BB episodes ever: http://www.toonzone.net/anbat/bb/heroes.html If you're too lazy to click on the link and read the review, the main point to come away with is even though people prefer "The Dark Knight" version of him, Batman still is a very romantic character, and this episode shows that by contrasting him with "heroes" who are trapped in genuine darkness.

5. The Call
 

So what it's not exactly "deep?" In fact, it's basically the epitome of lightweight entertainment, but hey it's got Superman and has the first appearance of The Justice League in the DCAU so who cares? The story of "The Call" makes no sense, there's action upon action upon action just for the sake of action, there are too many plot twists to count, people are killed and return to life, and key motivations seem to change every few minutes; but who cares? Justice League!

4. The Eggbaby
 

It's incredibly hard for me to put into words why I love this episode so much, it's very funny and just really enjoyable.  This is my top ten after all.

3. King's Ransom
 

All of the episodes with The Royal Flush Gang are good, and this episode is much, much, better if you've seen the two previous episodes with them in it.  In fact, this episode is so damn good that it makes the other two that much better because you realize how they helped set up this episode, which illustrates the fall of The Royal Flush Gang perfectly. There really is no distinction made at all between hero and villain in this episode, as Batman's cold-hearted rejection of Melanie is one of the saddest moments of the series, and when it all comes to an end with King telling Batman "You don't know what it's like to live in someone else's shadow" you find yourself questioning just how different Batman is from his villains.  To me this episode is the "Heart of Ice" of Batman Beyond, in that it shows a hero (Batman) and a villain (King) who are essentially two sides of the same coin, and you can't help but feel for both.

2. Meltdown
 

The saga of Mr. Freeze comes full circle as he reclaims his humanity and the viewer's sympathy.  This episode just had everything, it has great pacing, voice acting, character development, pretty good animation, and to top it all off had the first real appearance of Derek Powers as Blight, aka Batman II's ultimate nemesis. Add all that to how cool Mr. Freeze's new costume is and his straight up murdering of Dr. Lake (prefaced by one of the most badass lines in DCAU history) and you've got the second best episode of Batman Beyond.


1. Out of the Past
 

This episode is my favorite of Batman Beyond for a multitude of reasons,  not least of which was how happy I was to see Bruce return to fighting form again.  There are so many great things about this episode; besides the aforementioned return to ass-kicking mode by Bruce, there was the thrill of seeing the two Batmen fighting side by side, the addressing of what happened to the one other immortal in Batman's rogue gallery (Ra's al Ghul), and The Batman Musical (in all its hilarity).  This episode begins with one of the funniest sequences in any DCAU Batman show, being the first to openly mock Batman, and follows that up by promptly diving into the darkest episode to ever appear in the DCAU.  This episode is the second greatest character study in the history of the DCAU (the greatest being "Perchance to Dream"), as it shows that Bruce may have spent his entire life unwittingly turning himself into one of his greatest foes, and that the resemblance is now so strong that Ra's can make Bruce into a new comfortable home.  It isn't so much that Ra's is stealing Bruce's identity as it is a merging of both of theirs.  The fact that Bruce decides to fight back, destroy the Lazarus pit, and grow old shows that he isn't Ra's, and is one of the most important moments of character development in all of the DCAU (of which Bruce appears in over 100 episodes more than any other character).  All that in only 22 minutes!

(I don't know how to site things on this blog but a lot of the points I made in my reviews for Meltdown, Out of the Past, and quite possibly others, were either taken directly or indirectly (I've read all the reviews from that site so I'm sure something probably slipped in somewhere in paraphrased form) from this website: http://www.toonzone.net/anbat/index.html)

What to expect

Basically I created this blog so I could indulge all my nerdier interests and write things about/pertaining to them, you are not going to find anything here beyond maybe random top ten lists or movie reviews.