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SIN CITY review
SIN CITY is a cinematic blowtorch to the senses, burning, exposing and finally annihilating each new noir drenched nerve-ending into another thrilling, ecstatic sensation. From the second Marley Shelton starts to quiver in Josh Hartnett’s arms till the closing of the elevator doors – this movie is a vice holding your head in place – daring you to watch it through the gaps of your fingers – leaving you laughing the naughty laugh at each new delicious sin, like a box of chocolate strawberries shared between lovers – you in your seat and Robert, Frank and the actors and artists on the screen – each celebrating the unmitigated joy of getting away with it, honoring it and bringing it to life. SIN CITY throbs to life with the roar of engines, gunfire, rage, women and men. It’s primal – it’s murderous and it’s vital.
This is completely unlike anything you’ve seen in theaters. It’s the greatest ShockSuspense Story ever told… Each panel stripped down and saturated. This isn’t reality, this isn’t down the corner. The dialogue isn’t realistic, it’s just the way it oughta be. SIN CITY is populated with the subconscious “id”-heroes of Pulp. This is the umpteenth vision of a Meyer-esque dystopian paradise of decaying grandeur and decadence. The characters spout - no erupt with the sort of high living and dying dialogue that gods speak before killing and fucking. You know – the gods that played on silver screens before we started aching to see our own pathetic excuses for lives up there instead. No self-referential post-modern flair… this… this is filled with dialogue for Cagney, Bogie and Edward G. And Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen relish every line.
Yes, it is Frank Miller’s SIN CITY. Yes, it is essentially every panel brought to life, but in that. In that bringing it to life, it metamorphosizes into something even greater than the comic. Miller’s greatest heroes are thanked in the end credits of the films… folks like Wally Wood and Will Eisner. Johnny Craig and William Gaines. But there’s a fusion here. When this stuff comes to life, it begins to bring on elements from cinematic memory, like that of Shigehiro Ozawa’s GEKITOTSU! SATSUJIN KEN mixed with Robert Aldrich’s KISS ME DEADLY and Edgar Ulmer’s DETOUR, the glorious surreality of Edward Dmytryk’s MURDER, MY SWEET and diced with the utter cinematic gleeful insanity of Kinji Fukasaku’s YAKUZA PAPERS series and BATTLE ROYALE – with the stylish verve of Miike’s ICHII THE KILLER and the raw sensuality and base depravity of DePalma’s BODY DOUBLE & FEMME FATALE & DRESSED TO KILL & SCARFACE. Sure there’s the crazed pulp roots steeped in the pages of Mickey Spillane, Robert E Howard, Jim Thompson, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. But then there’s Marv… and for me… Marv comes from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ THE MUCKER – all the way back in 1914. SIN CITY is the results of all of this and more. It’s everything that made Robert and Frank’s dicks hard since they discovered it tented in their laps. Every woman that made them lust, every sin they ever thought. This is the culmination of dreaming the big dirty dreams about dicks and dames with all the dead dorks they leave pushing posies in their destructive wake.
Do I love the film?
I revel in it. I came back to my pad – opened up a bottle of tequila and called up friends to throw the wickedness of this thing about us. This is a film to watch and get drunk and get stupid happy fucked by. It’s 145mph with no hands on the wheel and a head lapping your lap sorta twitter. It feels criminal, like you should be locked up for having indulged in it. Nearly 8 years ago I had my first conversation in person with Robert Rodriguez. He drove me out to his house. We went up the spiral staircase to paint models – and at one point he asked me if I had read SIN CITY – we then began to geek about Miller – and how nobody could really do those books justice. There was a threshold of cool that cinema could touch, and Miller’s SIN CITY was out of reach. Animated wouldn’t have the vitality and carnal eroticism and fury needed – and live action? It simply wouldn’t look right. In my mind, I left the question there. Robert has apparently been spending time considering it. THANK GOD!
I’ve been quasi terrified about this movie for 2 years now. I wasn’t happy with ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO. The film had moments that were fantastic, but just wasn’t the film I dreamt of with Robert. In fact, I felt it so missed the mark I was hoping for, that I honestly felt there was a good chance he wasn’t ready for this film. I prayed I was wrong, but honestly – I heard him saying the right things, casting the right people and when I was working with him on PRINCESS OF MARS – I saw things that made me hope he was getting it right… but I just didn’t know for certain.
Now I do. This is the best film that all parties involved have ever made. Robert, Quentin or Frank Miller. I know that's a bold statement... but for me - this film combines the cinema of cool with a look and characters that at least after this first viewing drove me out of mind crazy in love. I know that in all 3 of their careers to date, I've never loved a single character as much as Marv or Dwight. That this film is drunk in love with the possiblities of Digital Cinema to transform film into any vision a filmmaker can dream of. It is an earthquake of cool! The film forces you to consider all the looks of paintings and graphical exploration that have never been captured on screen. How movies don't need to look like the world outside, nor do they have to look like anything we've seen on screen before. Literally - they can be anything you dream of... or even Frank Miller can dream of. This is the boldest, coolest and in my book the most exciting thing I've seen in the longest goddamn time.
Mickey Rourke and Greg Nicotero’s MARV is something out of the inky black type of a pulp page. The sort of low vulgar brute of a man. The sort that’d populate the nightmares of Mike Mazurki, Harold Sakata and William Smith. He’s the Id Monster’s worst nightmare. A beast of a man carved out of concrete and steel dreaming of silky flesh and honey dipped hair. When he roars out dialogue, be it verbally or mentally – he’s a Harley revving up for a rumble. I can’t even begin to do it justice. As perfect as Rathbone’s Holmes, as Olivier’s Hamlet, as Connery’s Bond. It’s a part so iconic that his image is sledge hammered into importance. You can shoot him, run over him, stick him, electrocute him and he’ll just keep coming. He’s the Mutherfucker of Mutherfuckers, the baddest of the bad and the coolest of the cool. He lumbers like Baryshnikov danced. He’s as subtle as a tsunami. He’s a character we must see more of. I could watch 20 films of that guy. He’s amazing to watch. Just amazing. How great is he? Carla Gugino is breathtakingly bare ass naked with the finest cinematic rack of joy in quite some time… and you’ll be watching Marv. Why? Cuz every second on screen, you’re convinced that at any moment, he’ll reach off that screen, grab you by the scruff of the neck and Notre Dame ya like a farm-bred chicken plump and ready to serve.
Bruce Willis? His Hartigan never quite seems as old as they say, but so what. He’s cool enough to be Hartigan. That scar rules, and he really does go for it. You know the book – you know what all he goes through. It’s there in them sad pissed off eyes. He’s not fighting some elegant monologue drunk Euro-trash. Here, he’s up against the king of pissers. A character so disgusting that you just can’t wait to see him buy it. But no death would do him justice. Nothing could, but Bruce does. Like some crazed primal fusing of Sonny Chiba’s STREETFIGHTER and Vincent Cassel’s Marcus from IRREVERSIBLE and the never-say die of his own John McClane… Bruce nails it.
Then there’s Clive Owen – who isn’t quite like anything I can put a finger on. There’s a swashbuckler’s flair to the man and the red Cadillac he drives belonged to VIVA LAS VEGAS long ago… but he owns it now. Dwight never came to life for me in the books as well as he does here. The reason, Clive Owen. He’s amazing to watch. The bathroom scene between him and Benicio – CLASSIC. I’ve never seen an actor take a scene away from Benicio till today. Holy shit he rules. He’s like an eloquent pissed off John Wayne version of Chow Yun Fat. He reeks of cool, even in tar, a sewer and everywhere in-between.
Next – let’s talk Elijah “mean nasty fucker” Wood. I know that doesn’t make a lick of sense right now, but Elijah is like a shrunk down deadly Stan Laurel playing a Tony Jaa inspired version of Hannibal Lecter. He’s a pulp version of the killer rabbit from MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. Something so cute and cuddily and then… so kick ass that my single thought was, “RUNAWAY!!!” He’s cooler than Gollum in this flick.
The Women of SIN CITY
Each of them is there for a single purpose… to sate each and every perverted drooling doodle of a thought you’ve had. Now it seems that most are throttled by Jessica Alba and Rosario Dawson. And yeah – the impression I get is Jessica is too sorority stripper for me, and Rosario would break my dick off. Jaime King is the Mattel of Sin City fucks, but with this vulnerable pissyness that wasn’t quite me. Brittany Murphy is that slutty yummy – oh my god she died on my dick scary freaky chick. Devon Aoki – I’m convinced would have a ginsu cooch of death. Marley Shelton had the whole classy Oscar Night reward dame vibe going. But the two I loved were Carla Gugino and Alexis Bledel.
Carla is a DePalma gal – and oh my. It isn’t just that she’s the most naked lady in the film… it’s how she wears it. It isn’t posed feeling or unnatural or self-conscious. There’s an ease to her nudity – like she doesn’t mind. Not in a slutty way, but in a “What the hell, why not” kinda way. She lets Marv look and Marv notices, but doesn’t gawk, he’s too cool for that. She doesn’t rush to get dressed either. Sure – she’s playing a lesbian in the film – but she’s my kinda lesbian.
Then Alexis Bledel – I seem to remember that she was a part of some TV show that Herc rubbed his stub to, and wow she’s amazing on screen. She’s probably the least uncovered gal in the film, but wow she’s great. Not the big juicy role, but there’s such a sweetness – and in many ways – she’s the classic femme fatale of the film… Not the more aggressive types. She’s the one with angles, the one that plays innocent. She’s the gal that most manipulates in this film. And for that – she’s my femme fatale fave of the flick.
I could write little 75 to 150 words about every actor, character and scene of the film. From the brilliant look of the film and Frank Miller’s use of negative space. That the music has a jazzy Carpenter throb beneath a sort of Johnny Staccato-esque swing… with electric guitar riffs for the thrill of it. I love Nick Stahl’s YELLOW BASTARD – it’s like his soul was made of piss and it colored him through and through. Rutger Hauer is the Cardinal I always knew he could be. And Powers Booth hasn’t been this cool since talking about a handful of Denver scarecrows and six hundred million screamin’ Chinamen. Creepy as hell contacts – but he is really cool here.
This film will haunt BATMAN BEGINS this summer. It’s hard to want to see BATMAN done any other way than the Miller way. This film… folks. We have a new cool standard, we’ll all be visiting SIN CITY for our kicks, and this film has stiletto Rockettes to kick your ass. Take everyone you know.
God I want to see it again. It’s so cool.
Lou below in TalkBack mentions that I said I wouldn't review another Robert Rodriguez flick. Now strictly speaking - this is FRANK MILLER'S sin city. Ok, gotcha iffy technicality. But - you try coming home after watching this thing - and not picking up the phone, keyboard and not talking or writing about the movie. This is a film drunk on the marrow of movies and comics. I couldn't stop myself. After the film, Father Geek wanted to take me to my fave restaurant to eat my fave spicy food in Austin. Instead - I told him I had to get home. I HAD to write about this. Hell, Robert didn't even know I saw the flick today. He wanted me to see it at the Austin premiere - but I couldn't stop myself. For one - because I'm stuck in the chair till the leg heals better, I'd have a crap seat at the premiere, and I wanted to have a perfectly centered close seat. I wanted shrapnel. And I got it. Robert may be a friend, but if you know me, I'm harshest on my friends. Ask Quint and Moriarty. I'm brutal.
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I'm dying to see it but last I heard it wasn't yet rated and I was hoping they wouldn't puss out and make it PG-13. From the sounds of it, it sounds like it rated R.
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i didn't even fucking read the thing. lemme guess though: harry loved it, gushes over it, thinks it's the greatest thing ever. this movie will suck.
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What a bombastic fucklicious donkey punch of a movie I am hoping this will be. With the combination of Harry, Mori, and the almighty Cumpston tossing this thing's salad, my hopes are quite high. I haven't gotten wood to a song since Darling Nikki, but every time I hear that funky as guitar in the preview accompanied by those visuals, I create my own shade. Please be good you fuck....
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Right before going into the theatre.... And then we'll see if it truly stands up. Harry, your unbridled love of comics and genre films makes you the perfect early reviewer: it sounds awesome! BTW: I just spoke with Ms. Alba on the phone, she's driving over the 405 stuck in traffic, but I read this review out loud to her. She's thrilled the good buzz is so strong. Her lawyers are simply thrilled she got top billing on the one-sheet. Bregalad out.
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Holy shit, I can't wait to see this fucking movie. I am wearing a gun sticking thru my forehead to the opening night. Go Sinizens!
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It's just too bad about the death of film though Harry.
www.theletterd.blogspot.com -
Mar 21, 2005 10:13:41 PM CST
Not to be redundant from other comments about Harry's reviews, b
by terry_1978
That's a very tall order, saying it is now the standard for comic book films, or films in general...we shall see come april fool's day.
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Wut u say??
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C'mon, not meant as a knock but who didnt think Harry would gush over this film? Or if it was bad, just withhold a review out of respect for a friend.
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but I doubt its the greatest thing since sliced bread. I second the comment about seeing how things will turn out on April fools day.
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Mar 21, 2005 10:37:17 PM CST
I thought Harry once said he wouldn't review Robert Rodriguez fi
by logo lou
Didn't he say he was too close and that he couldn't be objective (like Harry has worried about that before)? Now it seems he didn't review RR's last few films because he realized what we all did: that they really sucked?
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Mar 21, 2005 10:45:58 PM CST
"The film had moments that were fantastic, but just wasn
by traumnovelle
hahahah GAY!
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Seriously Harry, this movie had better be as good as you say it is. When you only kinda like a movie, then I agree with you. When you start comparing it to an orgasm, I wonder what kind of sex you've been having, cause i'm probably going to be let down. Saying this movie is better than Quentin ever touched? Those are some big words. I'm praying this flick will live up to em.
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First of all, this review is unreadable. Not nearly as bad as the Blade II review but come on man, the hyperbole isn't needed. And does anyone really think he can be objective when he is buddies with the director. I really couldn't finish the review, but I see in the talkbacks that he says "better than Quentin ever touched?" Are you fucking kidding me? I want to see this but how can you possible go into a movie expecting it to be better than Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill and not leave dissappointed.
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I cannot wait to see this movie. I know I'll dig it, and i'm sure the comic lovin', AICN readin' geeks will all like it. I'm just hoping it's accepted by the average movie going masses (or at least the 17-28 crowd that spends money on movies most), cuz' I really want this thing to be a huge success. I've seen TV spots today saying "this film is not yet rated" and "Rated R", so i'm not sure which is true. One thing for certain though, is PG-13 is not even a remote possibility.
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Did Harry just starting writing a review, right from the beginning. Without 8 graphs on how he got in, what he wore and how many dumps he took that day? All kidding aside, this looks kick-ass.
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That was me letting out a noise like a giddy schoolgirl.
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Mar 22, 2005 12:00:43 AM CST
Holy crap! No one today has said this flick will "Own your ass",
by grabthars_hammer
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You made me laugh so hard with that one! I am so damn sick of the "owning". HEY HARRY! You started that damn 3D discussion. Why haven't you gone back and replied to everyone??
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on DVD Someday. Maybe.
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Mar 22, 2005 1:26:46 AM CST
Grabthars_Hammer has totally owned, or even pwn3d, the asses of
by duck of death
A gushing review of Sin City from Harry. Wow. I'm shocked. If I weren't so damned sarcastic I might even use something other than periods to end these sentences. There will be honest reviews of this film eventually, but not at AICN.
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Everytime I read one of these reviews...my need to see this movie becomes more intense. April 1st can't come fast enough.
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Carla Gugino is fucking hot: http://www.wchstv.com/abc/karensisco/carlagugino.jpg
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Mar 22, 2005 1:59:38 AM CST
While we wait for Ep III, Im glad a movie like Sin City has come
by ashesofdonnie
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but more informative. Gives a lot of confidence in this movie. Don't know if it will be released theatrically here in the Netherlands, but I will definately catch it as soon as humanly possible.
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Mar 22, 2005 2:04:19 AM CST
man, for any one of the ladies in sin city's sake, i pray they n
by bearison ford
harry knowles, meet tact. tact.. . wait, hey tact come back... why are you running away? come back, please.
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thank god you managed to find a way to fuck up the nice new layout with your elephantitus of the fonts.
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when he refers to a "meyer-esque dystopian paradise", who is meyer?
russ? -
So AICN likes Sin City. I didn't see this coming.
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Mar 22, 2005 3:03:55 AM CST
I'm going to bitch about Harry liking a movie and try to pretend
by bob of the shire
Because, you know, it's the cool thing to do.
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You sick twisted fuck.
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Each of them is there for a single purpose
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But each review I read seems to confirm that it's going to be another Kill Bill disaster - All blow and no go.
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Anybody have any idea what the running time on this movie is?
With the number of characters involved it sounds like it goes on for a week and a half ! -
SOUTHERN COMFORT, NIXON, etc - he'd damn good and exudes both darkness and good - a rarity in leading men. the guy has charisma
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I doubt that...you are saying it is better than Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs! Very unlikely, but I expect to enjoy this film greatly. The first Sin City graphic novel is up there with Watchmen and Dark Knight as the best comic stories ever told. I really hope this does well at the box office too. I think it will.
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I congratulate you on making your fortune with this site but harry, you are a poor journalist.
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if you think a films good do you have to always mention 'Hard dicks' all the time ? when i'm reading a review the last thing i want to think about is large sweaty men with erections ...
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''This is a film to watch and get drunk and get stupid happy fucked by. It
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I have been geeking out over Frank Miller's noir comic pages it seems for my whole life. I love those books more than I love most of my family. I am so scared to see this movie. I am....so....very...scared.
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Just to clue those of us in who haven't read the original graphic novel. Is it some kind of organized crime war? And would you guys recommend reading the graphic novel before seeing the film? Thanks!
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owie.
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That was for you hammer.
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... you one-legged fat fuck. (Hope the dodgy leg is mending well, old chap). Delighted to know you and your 'cool news' colleagues enjoyed it so much. I am sure our lives will be enriched by the sinful experience too. (For goodness sakes Master Knowles, what an over bloated review. I'm sure it's gonna be good but phu-lease! You have some pretty strong claims there my fat friend) Hail Harr... No, on second thoughts! Hail Arrius!
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Big fat "Yes!", read the graphic novels. It's dirty noir. It's about semi-criminals getting in over their head. It's about nice cops getting framed by crookend ones. Strippers and whores who can take care of themselves. Double-crosses. Lawlessness. Dirty, mean, fun. That's all I can say without ruining the story.
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That was a stopper. Jesus Horatio Christ on a Kawasaki, man! The sooner you are up and ambulatory, the sooner you can stop dreaming up this stuff. Oh, and the film had better be good.
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Mar 22, 2005 4:00:59 PM CST
Paul W.S. Anderson is going to write and direct a remake of "Dea
by mr. waturi
Paramount has got to be the worst studio out there. They're bringing us "The Longest Yard," "The Bad News Bears," "The Honeymooners" with Cedric the Entertainer, and now this.
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From day one, you were totally nuts over this film. Before anything was even shot! Face it, your a cheerleader for your butt buddy Bobby.
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... is not the same thing as blogging. Ewww, bloggorrhea.
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Mar 22, 2005 4:54:48 PM CST
Not everyone will like "Sin City," but no one who sees it will e
by carson dyle
Once in a great while a film comes along that changes your notions of what a film can be.
"Sin City" is one of those films. There has never been anything else like it. -
... but for obvious reasons I don't
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Mar 22, 2005 4:59:37 PM CST
Warner Bros... so, how about letting them take a shot at "BATMA
by jdanielp
If I heard such news was true, I do believe I would shit my pants.
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Mar 22, 2005 5:16:07 PM CST
Not everyone will like "Sin City," but no one who sees it will e
by carson dyle
Once in a great while a film comes along that changes your notions of what a film can be.
"Sin City" is one of those films. There has never been anything else like it. -
Mar 22, 2005 5:50:45 PM CST
Ok, I'm officially jazzed about seeing this film, but why does H
by lezbo milk
Heh! What was that one review he did that was pretty much Penthouse Forum material? I forget, but it was funny as hell. Harry you should see if any local Austin porno theaters will run this thing so you can whip it out and do what you know you want to do durring this flick. Or I guess you could just poke a hole in the bottom of the popcorn bucket and go for the extra butter topping. Be careful of the old maids, I hear those are a bitch!
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Mar 22, 2005 5:53:40 PM CST
'Do I love this film?' ..that line almost killed me. seriously.
by windowlicker74
hey moviemaniac 7, what do you mean with: dont know if it will get a theatrical release here in the netherlands?? of course it will. what shithole are you from?
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Mar 22, 2005 5:57:48 PM CST
JESUS HARRY!! Do you HAVE to get all artsy fartsy on us in your
by j-dizzle
I did not understand one word of that review. In fact I gave up on it around the second paragraph. OK! I get the message! You like the movie! But, do you have to be cryptic about it? And can you please stop referring to movies that no one has heard of let alone seen? I don't care if Sin City has elements from Kimmy Song's "Wazikashi Monkey Bashi". Please keep it simple! Seriously, who are you trying to impress?
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I'll be there. Dark Knight next, Frank?
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There's the potential for their relationship coloring the way he grades his movies, but honestly, it's one review in a sea of hundreds. It's not Harry's going to bamboozle you into seeing a movie that you'll regret seeing. There are some movies -- like this one, 'Hellboy,' and 'King Kong,' that I'd rather read up on Harry's opinion of than not due to the potential (key word) for bias. So whatever. It's really not something to get righteous over.
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Harry, buddy, I finally saw Freddy V Jason, and in the extras saw you for the first time. As a physician, I cannot imagine that my colleages in Austin haven't warned you about your weight. The human heart is not designed to carry such a load. Furthermore, many of your leg and knee problems can almost certainly be attributed to said weight issue. PLEASE lose weight-you'll heal faster, and feel better. It would be a shame to cut your life short and miss out on all the great films sure to come in the next decades. Weight loss does not get any easier later in life- so start now! Get healthy, exercise, even just walking, and cut out the sugar snacks and drinks.
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I think that's the best idea I've heard all day.
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This looks like it will really work well. I think Thornton and Linklater will hit this out of the park.
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Since We all heard it here first from the words of Harry. If this movie doesn't make me or any of us feel what Harry claims in the first couple or paragraphs of this review, them than that means that Harry doesn't know shit about movies. Peace Out
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You know, I know it, we all know it!
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Mar 22, 2005 10:43:38 PM CST
I could not get thru one paragraph of that review...I tried...da
by doctorwho?
We get it. You loved it. And you love to cram as many adjectives,similies and analogies into one sentence as possible. If I would have read further I would have eventually bumped into an actuall analysis...but life is too short to risk another Harry comparison to a film equivalent of one of his glorious bowel movements. Oh, I'm sure it's a great film, and I will see it! I'm just officially thru reading any Harry reviews.
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Harry's reviews are almost like intricate riddles. It's fun to try to puzzle out any sort of meaning from his meandering patchwork of verbal collage.
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Mar 23, 2005 1:11:55 AM CST
click here to see carla gugino nude in scene from 'sin city'
by snake pliskin
http://www.celebritymoviearchive.com/tour/movie.php/10662
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Nah, from what I saw at Wizard Con, this weekend... the batman guys got it right. Besides, after Spawn/Batman and Dark Knight Strikes back, and his aborted Year One Film (If the script I heard of was true, it would have sucked) Miller should stay at least 500 yards away from Batman
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Mar 23, 2005 5:08:15 AM CST
Harry, why aren't you covering "Project Greenlight" on Bravo? (
by jdanielp
I apologize for going off topic, Harry. It's just that I don't quite feel right posting anywhere else but here at "aintitcool" and you REALLY SHOULD be covering "Project Greenlight". This won't mean anything to those of you who don't watch this Bravo t.v. show ... but for those of you who dream of working for a studio as a writer or a director and also watch the show, maybe you'll appreciate reading. I've just GOT to get this off my chest. It's obvious that John Gulager (who won a shot to direct a movie) is a bit eccentric and appears to be a talented individual, which isn't terribly surprising since these two character traits often go hand in hand. Anyway, ... I just want to be part of it so bad (in a reality kind of way, not a t.v. show kind of way). I want to speak with this guy, John Gulager, as one artist to another. Watching the show, I so want to be the middle man between him and the studio, as a co-director or even just as an assistant director. I want to talk to John and help him find his way. And I want to help the studio find their way with this project while making a commitment to John's talent. -- You see, John wants his family and friends to be casted in FIVE main roles and it appears he won't be happy otherwise. And he's such an eccentric that he doesn't seem to understand that the studio won't allow it. From what I saw and as the casting agent suggested, John's brother and John's girlfriend both showed real talent. And if they are really as good as they appear to have been on that momentary glimpse on t.v., then fine. We cast them. And that's an ultimatum we give the studio "...if it means that much to you, John." And in accepting those terms, John gets two actors he so desires to see in his film. And he likely boosts their careers which is a great and wonderful thing, especially with how he feels so close to them ... and he so obviously believes in their talent. And if neither John nor the studio accepts those terms, everybody loses. Everybody. So let's cast these other roles, together. Let's find people we like through directing them in these auditions. -- I really feel for this John Gulager. He's not a whole lot older than me ... and I really shared in his feeling of how such opportunities in life always pass us by. Us geeks, that is. I felt for him during his horrible interview, as a top-three contestant. And I felt for him when he phoned everyone to tell them that he had lost, ... just knowing it was another opportunity which passed him by, even before the winner was announced. And when they announced his name as the winner ... and as he phoned everybody yet again, this time to give the good news, ... I couldn't help but share in those tears of joy. -- I'm completely addicted to this show. How I so wanted to be there at those meetings and say, "We have to nail this script according to our limited budget before we move much further on creature conception and costume design." And to answer the studio questions as to the direction of the creature design itself, I wanted to be there to gesture-draw/doodle the direction John wants to go and the possibilities we considered. That is, if we didn't already have finished examples set for the studio meeting. -- I just love the show and just had to share. Thanks for listenin'. (If this doesn't make much sense, forgive me. I'm so tired and sleepy.)
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Mar 23, 2005 6:00:29 AM CST
Harry said a lot of strange things, but I agreed with the Alexis
by judge doom
Man, she
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Now that's some writing!
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The people who have been visiting this site for years have been giving you some good advice: get someone to go over your posts and correct the grammar before you slap it into HTML.
You write like a foul-mouthed 12 year old, but a little polish would at least render it capable of being understood. -
...cuz I haven't been to the movies this year...so I hope I can see some cool shit out of Sin City. I'll see it.
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Mar 23, 2005 1:00:49 PM CST
It may be a good movie, but please Harry, lay off the hyperbole.
by johnnytremaine
It's 'the greatest shock suspense movie EVER'??? Really? Even better, than, oh say, PSYCHO? Or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS? Or SEVEN?
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Mar 23, 2005 1:17:46 PM CST
That review was razorblade switchback noir mind's eyefuck drizzl
by worstpoochieever
movie should be good, though.
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Just don't say you like Episode 3... please.
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You know, the objectification of women on display here was absolutely astounding. I thought I'd become so desperately postmodern and relativist (despite my best efforts) that I was incapable of feeling insulted on behalf of my whole sex, but I stand corrected. You've shown me the light, and I thank you. Now, I never thought the Blade 2 review was sexist, per se, just kind of revolting in a sort of softly sobbing "Dirty, dirty..." in the shower whilst scrubbing at my flesh until the skin came off and blood ran pinkly along with the water down the drain kind of a way, but describing all the actresses in a movie entirely in terms of whether you'd fuck them or not is, I dunno, telling me more about you than "Sin City", and it's too much information altogether. That said, if one of the characters actually has a "ginsu cooch of death" I will cheerfully cede that that would definitely be worth price of admission. As for the movie itself, I expect I'll enjoy it in a forgettable bubblegum kind of way, the way I enjoy all Robert Rodriguez movies as a rule.
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What the hell are you talking about? There's no way this would be PG13, there was enough stuff to make in an R just in the *trailer*.
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This automaticaly makes your opinion null and void.
You either:
A: Have never seen El Mariachi.
B: Have seen it and didn't like it
or
C: Have no taste in movies
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If harry loved this. then it may not be that good.
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Mar 24, 2005 8:59:17 PM CST
The first draft of this review was entire entirely with Harry's
by voice o. reason
His cock throbs to life with the roar of engines, gunfire, rage, women and men. It
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Mar 24, 2005 9:02:33 PM CST
The first draft of this review was written entirely with Harry's
by voice o. reason
My inability to proofread throbs to life with the roar of engines, gunfire, rage, women and men.
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Why do you guys come to this site to just bash teh work of others? Harry sucks? if he likes it it can't be good? OK, So stop coming to read his reviews. I think many of you just need something to do with your keyboard when you have both hands free.
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Mar 25, 2005 1:03:41 PM CST
I guess this has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes because they're all per
by winterchili
Or maybe its just a good movie, I don't know.
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As a dissolutioned die hard Rodriguez fan, I am looking at this with much trepidation. The visuals are cool, the cast is half great, half hack. So that could go either way. He'll get my rental dollars, but it's all I can trust him with at present.
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Cheers to that Harry. Oh, and this movie looks great and I'll be swimming on that holy water also when I see it...CHEERS Amigos!
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...I saw the film this morning. I really enjoyed it. Unlike when you normally hear "it's the comic book come to life", this time it's the truth. I love the look of the film. It's more gory than I expected, but then it's been a few years since I read the graphic novels. It's not ultrareal gore and it's not comic gore, it's somewhere inbetween. The performances are very good. I have to admit that I was mesmerized by Jessica Alba and only wanted to see much more of her than I did. Harry's right about Carla Gugino. Her nudity is so completely natural. She seems so at ease with herself. Also, admittedly, she's very attractive. The breakout though? The John Travolta/Pulp Fiction moment? Mickey Roarke. Who knew? The dialogue in the film has some problems. It makes sense within the logic of the film and if you suspect disbelief and immerse yourself in the movie, then it'll be fine, though. All that being said, yeah, I'll see it again at least once. It's not a mainsteam movie, though, which shouldn't come as a shock. It'll make money, but it's not going to be a blockbuster and frankly, I'm okay with that. Let's hope everyone else is. There's more stories to tell in Sin City.
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Hell yeah Harry, kick ass review. Everyone who doubts this movie: I guess you haven't read the comics. If you had, and you knew how close this film is sticking to it, THE LIGHT WOULD SHIN UPON YOU. A good kill takes a long time.
Watch STEAMBOY, it is amazing. -
I view this site using Firefox 1.0.2 on Linux. Thanks, but the flash animations work just fine. Why any self-respecting geek would use IE is beyond me.
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Mar 26, 2005 6:13:09 PM CST
Some reviews are starting to come in from some major critics. S
by bob parr
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Mar 26, 2005 7:22:21 PM CST
I happen to enjoy Harry's tastes in films...other than Alexander
by jiggamanspence
I happened to enjoy the living hell out of Blade 2, i find it the best in the series. I also found hellboy to be an enjoyable film, and the Sin City comics are amazing on the page (well, I'm not a big fan of The Big Fat Kill, but the original story and That Yellow Bastard are great noir entertainment) and I think the blend of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez could make this something really unique and special. I'll be there opening day, money in hand.
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The only good movie coming out this April! FUCK YEAH!
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And you can download it from:
http://www.mozilla.org.
I'd love to know what kind of software Rodriguez used to create 'Sin City'. I'll guess we'll find out on the CD. -
You can't trust his judgement all the time, but I think most fanboys and geeks will agree that this film will be good. It is so over-hyped already that I'm sure people will be saying it isn't as good as they thought it would be. Fuck that..it is either a good movie or bad movie in and of itself, and I think it will be good.
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Although Harry does get carried away sometimes, I have to add that at least he is passionate and writes from the heart, in many cases. If he is spooging all over himself while watching a movie, he won't hesistate to declare it, even if it makes him look "uncool" in some way. I do admire and respect that and it overcomes some of the weaknesses in his writing like talking about Austin too much and going on about his nephew etc...but at least he's keeping it real.
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That was a very sexual and over-the-top review Harry, but I appreciate your fire. I hope this movie kicks my ass.
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frankly the thought of you sharing chocolate covered strawberries with your sister is quite fucking repulsive.
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here's another fairly positive review - http://bloody-disgusting.com/review.php?id=723
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Go to http://www.apolloguide.com/mov_revtemp.asp?CID=5347
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I don't understand this. He's made one arguably good movie in Desperado (which I don't like) but besides that I can't think of any other film he's done that might be confused with being good. I've always respected his all-in-one down-n-dirty filmmaking style, but to me that's all he's known for.
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"Holy shit, it's been a long-ass time since I've had sex!"
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I don't know which is the greater warning sign of the end of our modern civilization: the fact that the mediocre film 'Revenge of the Sith'will make more money than this innovative film by true artists like Rodriguez and Miller, or that the polls show a majority to be in favor of pulling Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, in effect, executing her.
One of the major lessons in Lord of the Rings is the sanctity of all life, an example being the mercy placed on Gollum, who might have even deserved death. Yet when one humbles oneself to the Creator of life, it is revealed that each life has a role in the greater good, a higher purpose that we cannot see but must have faith in.There is no possible justice in killing Terri. The husband claims it was her wish, but whether or not that is true, Tolkien would not even have advocated such 'assisted suicide', for it is not her wishes that one should heed, but the wishes of the First Cause, the Creator who commanded us not to destroy the life he created in his image.
The argument that keeping her alive takes resources away that could be better spent is the worst kind of modern materialism that Tolkien despised. An arrogant view that completely dismisses the spiritual and therefore, the moral, and God's word that man cannot live by bread alone. Many, especially Michael Schiavo, have disconnected their own spiritual feeding tubes to put themselves in the state of mind that thinks it is compassionate to pull out Terri's physically nourishing feeding tube. Sadly, as reflected in the polls, many have done the same by either advocating this murder, or remaining silent about it. It seems that turning our back on God coincides with turning our back on the lessons of history. The downfall of all the major civilizations throughout history has been the decline of morality. -
Mar 30, 2005 12:29:14 PM CST
I wanted to like this, I saw it last night and the hard truth is
by charliechaplin
A lot of people are going to be jumping on the bandwagon about this movie for a lot of reason. This film has a lot of elements that will scratch a certain film geek itch, classic comic book subject matter, nudity, sex, ultra-violence, cool stars and visual hyper-actvity. But the hard and honest truth is that it just doesn't work.
The thing is that I have actually read the Sin City comic books and enjoyed them, and that in terms of what I recall the movie was very faithful in literally interpretting the comic. However, the end result makes me question whether or not the comics would have ever made a good movie. What passes as a storyline and as dialogue in a comic is different from what passes in live action on screen. I love comics and I love Frank Miller as a writer in particular, but comics are a different genre where moitvations are simpler, objectives more straight forward and obvious, and characters, no matter how charming are, pretty thin at their core. Comic books just don't have the page space to create a character who can jump straight onto the screen. A story or sequence of events which fills a whole issue of a comic book can be portrayed on screen in about 3 to 5 minutes of actual action. There is something slow and deliberative about actual sitting down and spending a half and hour here and a half an hour here reading a comic, really spending time to let these archetypes grow and flesh out in your imagination that make the comics enjoyable. When that experience is boiled down to its essence and splattered on the screen with blaring volume, it comes off as hollow, ridiculous and inhuman.
I am just a bit baffled and speculating when I say these things because I will never really know whether or not these comics could have been done well because Rodriguez is not a very good director. Think about it, every movie he has ever done has been cheesy. Even when the movies were cool and had whiz bang action like Desperado or Dusk Till Dawn, they had a significant cheese factor that one had to laugh off. I am not even going to mention his movie s that sucked. Look at his filmography online, were any of those movie not cheesy? Has Rodriguez ever created real human characters that you cared about? or was it always loud action that laughed off how silly it all was? This tone clashes with the rather disturbing subject material that longs for touches of tragedy and perhaps even a bit of ragged elegance.
Perhaps most jarring, there is a lot of bad acting in this. Everyone exept Rourke, Owen, Willis, Del Toro, Stahl and Alba are unbearable. It may be the curse of the green screen and genre dialogue like Phantom Menace and Sky Captain, but perhaps excepting Jessica Alba, every woman in this movie was terrible, absolutely atrocious in their delivery of their lines. I hate to be even more contrary, but especially Carla Cugino and Alexis Bledel. It really pulled me out of the movie and made the whole affair seem ridiculous.
It will be interested to see where the geek community consensus falls on this film because it does deliver on certain cheap thrill like playing the video game Vice City, but anyone who defends it as a work of art is truly fooling himself. -
I just saw a sneak peak of Sin City. I went in with so so hopes. I enjoyed Robert R's original El Mariachi, and loved both sequils. Although much of his other work leaves me shaking my head. I also read the graphic novels of Sin City, and found them to be great. I would actually agree with most of what Charliechaplin has to say in his review of why it didn't make for good movie making, except I really also enjoyed seeing how far Devon Aoki has come in acting. She is still not all that great, but what a huge leap from 2F&2F and DEBS. She may actually have a little talent after all. My other disagrement is that I actually like RR as a director. To add to what has already been written, there are some obvious moments where it is Green Screen in action, and that really distracts. Then there are the still drawings. You will be amazed at how fucking old it gets and how quickly it happens. It is like they just couldn't figure out if it was meant to be a comic book or a movie, so they said fuck it, we will do both at the same time. The opening features Josh Harnett, who for the record, still sucks. He had more range in Hollywood Homicide and was less embarrasing in Pearl Harbor. He makes Al Gore look like Kid and Play in House Party 2! But back to the point, just as you find yourself getting into the scene, there is an awkward flash to a comic book still image. The opening lasts maybe three minutes, and by the opening credits, I was sick of the use of that trick. You can quickly separate the real actors from the bad ones. Del Toro steals every scene his in, unless Clive Owen is with him. Clive Owen sucks in every scene he is in, unless it is with Del Toro. It is odd, and will leave you wondering. Rosario Dawson is basically there to show her ass. She shows the same range she had when she was in the movie KIDS. And that ain't much. But she looks good doing it. The easiest thing is watching the obvious green screen errors, and how certain actors couldn't react to them. You can almost make a drinking game out of them. Combine it with the obvious bad dialouge (which works better in a comic book than it does here), and the moments where people do nothing but pose, and well, you will be drunk by the end of act 1. So, what does work? Well, as stated in the other review, Willis, Alba, Stahl, Del Toro, and Rourke. And I am again really proud of how far Devon Aoki has come. The Bruce Willis Jesica Alba story is the one that kicks the most ass, although Rourke was born to play that character. Expect to see him with an OSCAR nod, and a lot more work. He actually shows some range, and that he can play a little different characters than what he usually does. Next, the violence. It works. This seems like a really bad place, with really bad dailouge... er people. Next, the music. Strangely, it fits. Realizing the time period and noir qualities, electric guitar doesn't seem like it would fit. But hell, it is pretty cool. Finally, and the one thing I notice no one else has touched on. Carla Gugino, until this movie, I never realized just how incredible her breasts really were. Wow. I am a fan now. Now, if they can fix the other problems (Those fucking still shots, the bad dialouge, the odd color work, and the fact that when you stick someone's head in a toilet they forgot to flush, and it isn't the toilet from trainspotting) this movie will be great again. Get to work Robert, you have 48 hours.
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Whatever happened to the talk-backs that used to be? Once upon a time there was wit, there was charm, thoughfulness, intelligence. Now there's nothing but adolecent shit-flinging by a bunch of self-apponted-cinema-expert monkeys. FUCK YOU ALL. And for the dipshit who called HArry "a poor journalist"?! What the fuck? Did you just crawl out from under a rock in a sewage creek somewhere? Harry's not a journalist, never purported to be, He's a film lover, unlike you shallow little fucks apparently. *** Got to go stick needles in my eyes now, slow horribles deaths to all.
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Apr 01, 2005 2:57:41 PM CST
Harry - if you wanna check out Powers Boothe rockin' the (whore)
by trader groucho 2
Amazing work from everyone on that show.
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Apr 01, 2005 10:37:30 PM CST
Another Typical Rodriguez Production - some really strong elemen
by genro
Harry, your review is pure unobjective hype.
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I saw it today at 3:40 and I had the perfect dead center seat in the house. There were only 7 (at most) other people in there. I'm not sure how thing is gonna do money wise. Hopefully it does well so studios will continue to take some risks. It was pretty damn good, it can't have been easy to pull this movie off. The Bruce Willis parts were the best. He was made to play Hartigan. Bruce handled the dialogue the best. The thing that I thought was best about his segment was it seemed the most real. Suprisingly him and Jessica Alba had great chemistry. Rosario Dawson also worked as a dark pulp chick suprisingly well. The music and use of color were great, although I'll admit there were times where I'd have liked to see a little more color. I read some review a while ago on msn (or was it fox?) where the guy criticized the "mysogynistic violence against women." What a fucking idiot. A posse of chicks shoot the shit out of a whole mob of guys, Hartigan gets his life destroyed protecting a women, and Marv goes on revenge spree for a chick he barely knew! I don't think critics should review movies they plainly don't understand, or just couldn't appreciate. I'm not saying that because he had a different opinion, but if someone isn't into a particular type of film and they know they won't like, what's the point?
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I'm walked into the theaters a big fan of the comic books and knew them pretty much by heart. It was a blast seeing them created so faithfully on the silver screen. There were a few odd changes and a few of my favorite lines were left out, but overall, it was incredibly true to the comics. I don't know what I would have thought of this having never read the comics, but I sat there with a smile on my face through the entire film...great job, Rodriguez (and Miller of course).
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Great movie. Period. Thank you all who had a hand in bringing this thing to life. We are not worthy. I love it. Can't wait to see it again. It's one of those movies you just have to tell everyone you run into about. I love it!
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Apr 02, 2005 1:31:37 PM CST
I really think this review could've used MORE references to Harr
by mike frenzy
We heard about Robert, Frank's and Herc's (*shuttter*) errections. I just think this review couldve been improved with more insight Harry Knowles' penis.
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Completely insane, incredibly violent, beautiful and completely empty. I loved it but you are left with nothing to chew on when it is over. And that's ok sometimes so I ain't complaining. But what the hell was with Michael Madsen in this movie? His line delivery was horrible. Britany Murphy wasn't too hot either. Luckily Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen made up for them. And it was nice to see Rutger Hauer outside of the Straight-to-video world.
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Apr 02, 2005 5:18:55 PM CST
I don't know how well it did outside my town, but every single s
by george newman
That film was amazing. I'm glad I didn't go back and read the graphic novels. I didnt want to go in anticipating anything.
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Apr 02, 2005 5:23:17 PM CST
I haven't been that shocked/moved/disturbed by violence like tha
by george newman
Nothing immediately comes to mind that was That gut-wrenching. And I loved it.
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The theme that has been used in all the ads wasn't in the movie. Does anyone have any idea what that music was from?
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The original song is a actually pretty good, but the sweet riff you hear in the trailer is in the chorus na ends up drowned by pretty much everything else.. .vocals are also somewhat lame.
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Step 1:
Waste 500-1000 words on trivialities such as what you did during the day before you left to see the film, compare the film to a bunch thoroughly crappy unseen arthouse flicks to appear credible and superior, and complain about how weight-related malady of the week has impaired you from getting to the theater/private screening/chicken wing buffett on time.
Step 2:
Interject as many subjective statements and personal reaction as possible into review to show that you liked the film. Do not use phrase "I appreciated this film because . . .." Instead, all positive statements must begin with a mixed and infantile sexual metaphor. Continue with method of comparing film to other unseen shit films.
Step 3:
Iterate how sexy the girls in the movie are. Even if they aren't. Hell, even if they aren't girls. And describe why and how you would have sex with them, if they could stand getting withing ten yard of your smelly, corpulent, crippled mass of pasty flesh.
Step 4:
If use of phrases "Cool," "Kicked ass," and "awesome," is found to be in total less than 28 instances, revise and edit.
Step 5:
Write single sentence that reiterates the complete irrelevance of your review. For good measure, state again the film's ability to "kick your ass."
Step 6:
Appear pissed and dejected when people rightly make fun of your embarrassing ass and the illiterate reviews you crank out. Martyrdom and selfishness is an accepted attitude.
Step 7:
Continue spreading your pestilence. Begin review of next movie. -
Apr 03, 2005 3:40:23 AM CDT
What can I write that can describe the visual feast that is Sin
by l.h.puttgrass
I missed the earlier showings because of school. I tried to make the 10:20pm showing, but it was sold out. As were the ones before it. So I had to squeeze into the 11:00pm show. I managed to get a good seat and it was great! I've never read the Sin City GNs, but I've got very old and cherished copies of The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. This movie GLE-E-E-FUL-LY plays in it's bloody sandbox of sex and violence. By the end of the movie there is sand (and bodies) everywhere. There are no apologies made in this film. They're havin' FUN!! Thats F-U-N and they don't care a lick about nothing else. I've heard this movie compared to Pulp Fiction and RoboCop. I most definitely concur. Like those movies, they dole out the ultra-violence with the utmost glee. The movie revels in it. If you're easily grossed-out or offended, don't see this movie. Go see "Because of Winn-Dixie" instead. 'Cause I don't wanna hear yer whinin'! Remember in RoboCop when Emil gets soaked to the bone in chemicals? He's still walking around even though his flesh is melting off. Then "That 70's Dad" comes around the corner and splats Emil on his windshield. All runny liquid and chunks. That's the mindset of this movie. And it looks great doing it. It's full of great lines too. At one point Dwight says,"She didn't cut his head off. She made a Pez dispenser out of him!" That leads to a hell of a funny car ride on a swervey road. And when that bald guy (Stukka?) gets hit with the arrow, priceless. Just priceless. If you haven't seen this show yet, get off the friggin' internet and GO!! Getchyer shoes on!! Wallet!! Car keys!! GO!!! ...it's just my opinion, of course. Wow is it 1:40am? Later!
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Apr 03, 2005 3:50:59 AM CDT
Oh! By the way, most of the showings down here in New Orleans h
by l.h.puttgrass
So I guess I got lucky Friday night. Shit, I need to get to bed.
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To those who say that this is the "Best Comic Book Adaptation Ever" (Comic Book Store Guy voice), what of Ghost World? Ichi The Killer? Akira? Akira's ending was altered because the story wasn't finished yet. Ichi still kicks SC's ass, ties it up in the corner and goes out for some hot sake and nasty sex, to let SC think over what it did to deserve such treatment before being put out of its misery.
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Apr 03, 2005 1:11:26 PM CDT
A wholly ridiculous affair... but comics always were about grand
by red_pills_4_u
"Dear Hartigan: Hi, it's me again, your best friend Naa... i mean Cordelia. I'm all grown up now into the perfect picture of curvaceous young womanhood... but I haven't been deflowered yet. I've been saving myself for you. Mmm... I get all hot and bothered just thinking about munching on your crusty 60-year-old nutsack. It doesn't look a day over 49." ...haha........... What a ridiculous movie. Ridiculously faithful to the comic imagery. Ridiculously violent and adolescently sexualized. But especially ridiculous in its dialogue, larded with campy pulp machismo. As Bruce Willis is told early on (in remarkably bland delivery): "You're pushing 60 and you got a bum ticker." ...That period slang may fly in print where we cast our memory to echoes of 1940s crime thrillers, but here, recited contemporarily, such artifice grinds astonishingly stiff. "That ain't no way for movie dialogue to be -- no good way at all." ...And why didn't they change Hartigan's age more reasonably to 50 to better suit the actor in question? ........ Bitches of Sin City, put on some clothes before you catch your death a cold! I had never really noticed from the comics exactly how pronouncedly polarized Miller's women are, alternately pegged as hardass sirens or damsels in distress. This is either some underlying ironic statement by Miller or it will bring media screams of underlying misogyny. (I think i would have been embarassed if my girlfriend had tagged along.) .......... A few items that were missed: The scene where Marv visits his mother's apartment to retrieve his gun. The problem with this omission is that in a later scene he refers to it by nickname ("Gladys"), but because that information had not been previously established, the reference is a little disorienting. Also absent was one of my favorite sequences in the comic: Marv's relentless door-ramming escape at the farm, which would have provided a needed breather in the pacing. The whole film felt rushed; where in the comic we are treated to the implied linger of wide-panel establishing shots, here it's all spit out hurriedly in uniform tempo to a jazz beat. Another missing bit from the comic was where Marv gets up in the middle of the sweaty night to try to paw Wendy, imagining she's Goldie, only to receive a corrective slap. This scene helped the comic by giving Marv's character more pathos of mental imbalance and reminding us of his sexless solitude so that we feel sorry for him in spite of his violence. Come to think of it, the earlier mentioned visit to his mother's place would also have helped to humanize his character, seeing the toy airplane still hanging from his boyhood bedroom ceiling, hinting at a snapshot of his youth along with the sheepish deference to his mother. Instead, the movie version portrays Marv as a one-note rough-houser on a hellbent rampage, redeemed only by Mickey Rourke's spot-on performance, which is the best thing in the film even while his face is made to look like ground hamburger. ...Nice bit of casting-against-type with Elijah Wood playing the vile little kung-fu Hobbit. :P ... Fans of Clive Owen's work should be sure to check out the uber-cool BMW shorts at bmwfilms.com, if you haven't already seen them. .......... I've had my own version of Miller's comic playing privately in my head for 13 years, so I left the theatre feeling the enterprise was mostly unnecessary in its purist literalism, too constrained in the way that certain shots were absolutely rigid in their staging, and the aforementioned dialogue hurdles rendered awkwardly in live-action. To those who don't have a history with the comics, the film might come across as an ultraviolent incarnation of Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy" [especially now that i've parsed it in those unflattering terms ;-)], with scripting just as stilted in its pulp-crime cliches. The look is certainly an ambitious cinematic experiment and I appreciate the stylized exaggeration of hangtime infused in the action sequences, but there's nothing emotional here to carry home with you from the mean bloody streets of Sin City. ......................... Unrelated side-note regarding the preview trailers I caught: Paris Hilton in a movie about wax people? Typecasting. haha
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Loved Sin City. Agreed with most of your points. Eager to see it again. But your ranting, raving, outrageous hype does an enormous disservice to this film (like dozen of films you have over-rated in the past.) Whenever you get this excitable, you sound silly and awkward, and your reviews lose any credibility whatsoever. Maybe you should have had that meal, taken a deep breath, and then talked about this film intelligently.
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Harry's over the top description of the female characters will be used by the loony extremist (left and right) reviewers who hate this movie because of the way it portrays women. Can anyone read Harry's post and say that he could ever have a meaningful relationship with a woman? Of course as Dreth said, unless Harry totally reconstructs his lifestyle, we don't have to worry about that. With that borderline psychotic blathering Harry helps the whack jobs out there who don't want us to have any fun. Back to the movie - great film noir, presented in a groundbreaking style - as The Incredibles raised the bar for animation, Sin City similarly becomes a new benchmark against which other noir will be compared. Very minor issues: could have been a little tighter - some of the dialogue goes on way too long. I hope they can get everyone together and make another 2 or 3 installments. Kudos to FM and RR.
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Apr 04, 2005 3:10:07 AM CDT
Harry Knowles: I sublimate my sexual repression into comic book
by buck_turgidson
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Apr 04, 2005 4:47:15 AM CDT
I feel like standing on top of the Hollywood sign, holding up a
by jdanielp
TAKE THAT, HOLLYWOOD!!!! Like it, love it, learn it. LEARN ONE OF THE BIGGEST AND BEST LESSONS YOU WILL EVER LEARN!!!! I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED "SIN CITY"!!!! Incredible. Absolutely incredible. It knocked me out of the park on ALL counts, even though I was so hyped, so looking forward to it. A beautiful thing, for a movie to blow me away on so many levels. It feels like it's the beginning of a "creative armageddon" in Hollywood. This is a benchmark. "SIN CITY" will be long remembered in movie history for the creative explosion it will and MUST ignite in Hollywood. And you, Mr. Frank Miller, are going to be one hell of a busy man. You thought you were in demand before?! Hollywood will desire to keep you around for quite a while, this time, ...since you've given birth to this beautiful baby. (Miller's phone must be ringing non-stop.) I just saw the late showing of "SIN CITY" (on Sunday), as I made arrangements to see it with a couple of friends. I hated having to wait, but wow. Was it ever worth ANY wait. And I'm going to see it again, next time with my wife. Excellent flick. A film of GREATNESS. One of the most well-made films I have EVER seen. Yes, ever. Beautiful. Incredible to look at, to watch, to witness. The graphic novels come to beautiful life and IT IS ABOUT DAMN TIME SOMEBODY DID IT!!!! And I'm not just talking about "SIN CITY", folks. I'm saying that the land of comic books are so rich with good and sometimes GREAT material and that "comic book movies" are here to stay. "SIN CITY" broke the mold and created a new one. Nearly a new genre, which has been staring us (and Hollywood) in the face for decades, on the comic book page (and I've known it since childhood). I LOVED the internal monologue RIGHT FROM THE COMIC BOOKS ...and it's about damn time. It's ABOUT DAMN TIME for a lot of things that this movie does right. I think of first moments like reading Frank Miller's "BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS" ... of the internal monologue when Bruce Wayne resists being Batman, channel-surfing on the t.v. through the various newscasts of violence and fighting Batman's return from an internal perspective, ...until Bruce can no longer resist. I think of how BEAUTIFUL that played out in my mind's eye (as it did for millions of other readers and fans) ... of how it was Frank Miller's use of more panels per page and the intercutting of television news, etc..., the editing of it all ... as if it was REALLY A MOVIE playing in the mind's eye (of us readers). It's about damn time that someone gave us a direct link to the beauty of that, a direct link to the mind's eye of a visionary like Frank Miller. It does NOT matter how stilted the dialogue OR monologue may be, as long as their words are true to themselves as characters (which they are), within the context of the fantasy world they inhabit. Even as unbelievable and unrealistic as it was for certain characters in "SIN CITY" to continue functioning despite the punishment their bodies endured (like Marv getting hit with the car, for example), it fit the style of the film and likewise, true to the comic book (and the fantasy of it). Stylized films are here to stay. Comic book films are here to stay. Computer animation is here to stay. And I certainly hope that Hollywood can say, "Frank Miller is here to stay." But then, I know of other places he would indeed be missed. -- Hollywood has finally woke up. Let's hope they don't hit the snooze button. Again.
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Holy hell!!! That full nude scene was worth the price of admission alone.
BOING!!! -
Awesome. Perfect. And tho I hate to use the word sequel with this film I would so like to see more of this if they would bring more stories from Sin City to the big screen. Next stop that insanely great underground dark horror comics of the 1940's-50's...
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Boy's film. Definitely. Will skip this one.
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Apr 04, 2005 12:40:21 PM CDT
This is the Joel Schumacher version of noir. This film is not go
by mentok
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If you play a stripper: You STRIP because that what your character does. Otherwise your character is not a stripper, your character is at best a cage-dancer. I've been to strip clubs and I can honestly say that I've yet to see a stripper who leaves their bikini top and chaps on. If you don't want to strip ... then don't take the part.
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... it's not because I wanted to see Alba strip ... it could have been any actress ... but if you play a stripper you at least do what Natalie Portman did in Closer. To play a stripper who doesn't strip is idiotic.
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And to be as damn incredible with her clothes ON is the real testament to Jessica Alba. Too many of you have such limited imaginations today, you don't even appreciate what a woman can arouse with suggestion as opposed to in-your-face full frontals. What a shame for you, I guess. Keep most of your clothes on, Jessica, and ignore the 'caveman' suggestions. You're on the right track and SIN CITY kicked ass.
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Even after all the hype and inflated hopes, it was incredible!!! Except for Alba. I don't mind (much) that she didn't strip. THe girl just can't act.
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She was playing a "Stripper" and didn't strip. All the other women who's part required some nudity did in this movie. But Alba plays a stripper in a strip club, but doesn't. That's weird and they can make all the excuses they want. They should have given the part to someone else or at least hid her assets like they did with Natalie Portman in Closer, which would have been more than fine. The only time I've seen a stripper who didn't strip at all in a movie was Salma Hayek in Dogma. Didn't make sense there, either. Has nothing to do with being a caveman at all. They should have recast the part.
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"Too many of you have such limited imaginations today, you don't even appreciate what a woman can arouse with suggestion as opposed to in-your-face full frontals." HEY ... Natalie Portman in Closer was ALL suggestion. I notice she didn't keep her bikini top and chaps on and the audience still didn't see anything. That's my point. Alba wouldn't even do that ... even though she's playing a stripper. It's weird and makes her stand out like a sore thumb.
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I don't view that as a disgraceful profession. They should have cast someone who would be at least topless for Nancy but they went for box office appeal. Lame, but still a great film overall.
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Apr 05, 2005 1:57:49 AM CDT
This movie is wonderful and horrible, inovative and regressive,
by lezbo milk
It's been days since I've seen the film, and I still can't figure out wether I revile it or have a grudging respect and fondness for it. It really is a total contradiction for me, a first actually when it come to movies and my personal experience. Let me start off by saying what I like about the film. I loved the noir look of it. It was superb. The depth of field, the lighting, the whole thing was just very well done. I loved the terse comic book style dialog. It fit the film perfectly. I loved Mickey as Marv. Great job, what else can you say? Carla Gugino is a total goddess, how did I let her slip under the radar to this point? She is amazingly hot. The pace of the movie was great. The music added to the experience. Now for what didn't work for me. The violence. It was just way over the top. Murder, the impending rape and killing of a child, shooting off of hands, testicals, womens heads on wall mounts, canibalism, torture, hangings, electrocution, animals eating people alive, beheadings, throat cuttings, dismemberment, smashing a head into a pile of chunks, ripping off of a penis and testicles by bare hands, executions, suicide by head shot, mass killings, swords through heads, eyes, mouths, a gun barrel jamed into someone brain pan - twice. I sure I missed some stuff. What can I say? I'm not anti-violence in movies, but this one just left me numb. It took me out of the story, I lost my suspension of disbeleif and became just a grossed out spectator instead of an involved, engrossed member of the audience. I found a few of the performances lacking. Madsen and Murphy in particular. Was Michael Madsen reading his lines off a que card? All in all, the whole movie just left me feeling bleek and empty. All of the positives were negated by the violence and a general lack of depth of plot and a story that made me give a shit. I think it must be the source material. I mean it is a comic book frame for frame. I get pissed when I see geeks holding up comic books as some elite form of art. It's a fucking comic book for christ sake! One of the most shallow forms of literature out there. I see geeks who make more of comic books than they actually are, like I see pretensious beer drinkers, who drink all these fancy beers and swirl them around, smell them, swish them around like a fine wine.....it's a fucking beer! Not a Pino Nior or Chardanay or some fucking thing. It's the same with comic books....it's not nothing more than shallow fluff. Visual candy, with no nourishment. Empty calories. So that's my take, I'm forcing myself to stop typing, because I could go on and on, but I won't. So someone please tell me...did I like this movie, because I don't know.
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12 People walked out of my screening, one lady mumbled "this is disgusting!" on her way out, before she took ONE LAST PEEK... To me, this is the HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION! My only, only gripe with this movie is that the Marv segment went first. It's just so friggin' awesome, you can't top it with either story that follows (and they were pretty damn good too). Oh yeah, and Josh Hartnett was cooler in 4 minutes of this movie than all his screen time until now! Alexis, please carry my seed! Pretty please?
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Nancy is an exquisite example of womankind, a radiant beacon of light in the dark world of Sin City. She does not so much as perform, but captivate and enchant her audience into a quiet awe. When she is on stage it ceases to be a landing for lust and primal urges; but an altar where loyal subjects come to worship the female form in all it's glory.*****
If you were chosen to represent this marvelous creature.*****
The least you can do is brandish those tatas. -
I don't think I've ever been more offended in my life.
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They omitted a lot of male nudity from the movie and for that, I am grateful.
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...Worst casting of the movie. The entire time she was on, she had that awful Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3 thing going on: "Tee, hee, hee. Ooh, I'm in a big movie with big stars. Ooh, lucky me, I can't stop smiling." The little girl who played Nancy at 11 actually outperformed her, fer crying out loud. Stop analyzing her lame performance with one hand and your pants down, fanboys...
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I love this movie. One of the best times I had at the moves! Not one fuckstick talking and narrating the movie. Oh and Carla Gugino...mmmmmmm smoldering!
GFY -
Malexandria, Lisa S., and few others slam the movie. But Ebert thinks it's the best thing he's seen in a long time, and Roeper agrees. Most Frank Miller fans love the film. The few bad reviews are from people who can't get past the violence (boohoo. Stick to PG movies, you pussy) or can't stand sitting down and watching a movie that is longer than 90 minutes (boohoo. Stick to White Chicks, you heathen.)--- I loved it.
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Apr 08, 2005 7:46:01 AM CDT
Harry is floating dead and bloated in a sea of sexual retardedne
by soul suckin jerk
Seriously Harry, you need a counselor to help you sort through this stuff.
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I mean, it was _that_ over the top. I think something's wrong if you can't tell if it's supposed to be satire or not. And some of the cgi car chase sequences might've came straight outta Gerry Anderson's THUNDERBIRDS, with little dolls in the seats. Exploding heads, severed limbs and dangling boobs do not make a movie "adult." This was one of the most leering, juvenile, simplistic movies I've seen since, well, the last Rodriguez or Tarantino splatterfest. I guess if you wanted a "comic book movie," you sure got one. Great production design and cinematography though, apart from the cheezy cgi.
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I'm so sick of the politically correct PG-13 garbage Hollywood spews out these days. Finally, a hard R movie with lots of tits, ass and mucus-looking blood. Finally, somebody that's not afraid of offending the mall crowd. Finally, RR got someone else's story instead of his usual self penned mess.(He really didn't know what to do with Johnny Depp, did he?)
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Apr 10, 2005 3:04:03 PM CDT
Surprisingly naive and traditional movie for all the tits, ass,
by truthseekr1488
The heroes are practically saintlike and the villains are downright demonic. Willis' character won't even have sex with a nineteen year old stripper who's crazy about him 'cause he's (quote) "old enough to be your grandfather." That's all he's worried about? Gimme a break. You get the impression (from all three heroes) that they'd rather fight than screw any day. Somethin' wrong with that in my book. Subtextual homoeroticism?
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....Garbage.
Never read the comic of Sin City....after watching this Im glad I didnt.
Lousy acting....was there actually a point to this film other than Juvinille wank? -
With the X-Men movie, you don't really have an author or artist's vision of the team on the screen. They're the 'movie version'. Sin City gets the thumbs up for the simple fact that Frank Miller's vision and tone and style (for better or worse) is PRECISELY what you're seeing. Not to mention the fact that there weren't many 'tells' as to who was directing what in the movie...it ALL felt like Miller. Not realistic, but neither are the pulps (or comic) these are based on. This movie is all about big balls-brutal action. The story is well architectured, with a clear opening and ending, and the stuff in between is kick ass. This is one movie that I came out of and went 'Holy shit, that kicked some ass.' Dude, John McClane beating the ever loving yellow shit out of John Connor/Ben Hawkins was fucking amazing. Dwight is the best character in the film, though Marv's story reminded me a lot of Dark Knight Returns, and Bruce Willis needs to be Bruce Wayne in the DKR movie...I see now that it CAN in fact be done. While I have a lot of hope for Batman Begins, it's going to have that same 'Movie Version' feel that X-Men suffers (albeit not much) from. I liked this movie, warts and all. Especially the Marv jumping down the center of the staircase sequence...the positioning was EXACTLY a Frank Miller panel. He should have directed Daredevil, dammit.
GFL -
Yes, this movie really is like nothing else you've seen before. Yes, it's so violent that the audience doesn't know whether to gasp or giggle, and if it hadn't largely in black and white, it would probably be incredibly hard to watch. It has a momentum that never lets up, and doesn't waste a second of your time. Now stop wasting ours with this "Oh, Harry liked it, it must be crap" and then waxing like a thirteen year old boy who just discovered sarcasm. Go _see_ it.
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Dick Tracy with Natural Born Killers. Actually, Dick Tracy had creepier & more over the top bad guys. Pacino scared the shit out of me.
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hey guys, sin city is great and is obviously the best comic book translation ever commited to celluloid! On a sidenote you guys need to get out of you're parents basement and get laid!!! Hahahahaah
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Sin City would be my favorite movie ever.
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The KnockerNutter has spoken!
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Home to Houston.
For the moment at least. -
Having collected comics for nearly 2 and 1/2 decades, I appreciate the visual beauty of this film. However, I found the story to be sophomoric, and that very imbalance makes this a mediocre movie, at best. One of the challenges of having several separate stories in one movie, in my opinion, is justifying why you have several instead of 1. I didn't "get" that, nor an explanation for how so many superpowered characters existed (unnoticed) in an otherwise normal world. When Rourke's character was hit by a car (then proceeded to shout and get up as if he was merely pushed), I just couldn't help but to laugh. That was simply bad storytelling (especially with kung fu Frodo knocking him out just a little bit later). As has already been said; this film had an interesting concept, and is truly a bold visual feat. The over-the-top violence wasn't impressive, and the lack of a story with a point, however, makes this just an "okay" movie to watch. It nearly fits into my "pretty... pretty stupid" category, but I haven't yet decided on that.
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Cuz, you know, I actually wanted to enoy Hellboy. Which I did!
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I was very excited about this movie. I had never read the comic book, but I do enjoy comic book movies. I often enjoy the things that Harry enjoys, and I was willing to take his over the top enthusiasm as the mark of a movie that I would really like. So, my wife (who also loves scifi/comic book movies) and I eagerly paid our money and sat down. Visually, I was stunned from the opening moments. More type by people more eloquent than I has been printed about how lovingly the film was crafted. Every scene was a beautiful nod to the source matierial (which I have now seen). I was completely astonished at the level of sophistication with which they transferred a comic-book world to the screen, while not dumbing down the story telling medium one iota. The acting was often superb: the men were debonair and gritty, full of conviction. Carla Gugino was marvelous, Alexis Bledel was heart-breaking, and Jessica Alba was truly mindbendingly lovely.
That is the last positive thing that I can say about this film. I go to films to be transported, to be entertained, to be wrapped up in a new world. Hopefully, to discover something wonderful to love and appreciate. I felt as if I were repeatedly slapped in the face with a warm piece of liver. The story was difficult to follow, at best. I didn't understand going into it that there were really 3 unrelated (or minimally related) stories being told. This made for some serious head scratching during the movie...if the source material isn't deep enough to encompass one story as a movie, why are three of the same any better? Some will disagree, and that is fine, but I was waiting for the Magnolia moment when everything tied together and the stories intersected a little more closely. This is, all in all, a minor complaint.
My major complaint is the heart rending level of disgustence that is piled upon the viewer in huge steaming shovelsfull. Note that I don't use the word "violence", as that is too mild a word. Disgustence, if you will pardon the coining of a term, is the only thing that I can think of to convey my level of horror at the slime that kept flying our way on screen. Levels of pain that have no business being filmed or having effect money spent on them were everywhere. For every cool special effect (of which there were many), I cannot erase the horrible scenes of personal deeply disgusting violence from my mind.
Have you seen scarface? Not even close. Pulp fiction? nothing. Kill bill? Now that was over the top comic book violence, but it was done with humor, and all though I didn't love it, it was okay. This was evil. This was vicious. This was repulsive. My wife and I left the theater saddened and having had our evening ruined. It was hard for us to talk for a while. For days afterwards, I felt sick about what I had watched.
Harry, you betrayed something here. There is more to a story than visual style...first, actually having a story. Second, actually having style. I will take your reviews with a much larger grain of salt from now on.
For those folks who are not fazed at all by violence, well, then this movie may have something to offer. If you enjoy hack and slash, good for you. But for folks who are willing to take some violence to get a good story, stay away, because this will rob you of far too much in service of a visual storytelling style that is too disgusting to be imagined.
Thanks for nothing, Harry.
Flatiron. -
Jun 02, 2005 10:48:19 AM CDT
Funny and completely bitchy times review. He even mentions and q
by shoulderdevil
The Times just wrote the funniest piece of crap i've ever read. I'm pretty sure the guy thought he was reviewing Pleasantville 2, i mean prostitutes and lowlives in Sin City! NEVER! Gonna go watch it tonight, is gonna be so cool!
http://usera.imagecave.com/ShoulderDevil/ -
I thought it was alright, it wasn't worth all the hype, there's no real plot, or any real character depth, it was basically a cheap Phillip Marlow imitation, with fancy effects.
If it wasn't filmed in black and white, with hints of colour, and it didn't have stylish camera work or special effects, it wouldn -
Looked absolutely ridiculous. His nudity is such a disturbing image in the comic, why did they leave him semi clothed in the movie?
At least put Y Frints on him and make him look disturbing. But big boxer black boxers from GAP? Stupid! -
ROCKS
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I wasn
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