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All Movie Talk, Episode 21

Show contents, with start times:

Film Style Spotlight: Neo-Noir (1:38)
Trivia Question: Footloose or Flashdance (13:44)
Oscar Watch 2006: Final Speculation (15:53)
Top 6: Movies We'll Never Be Able To See (24:05)
Fact or Fiction: The Oscars (48:43)
Closing: Trivia Answer, Preview of Next Week (53:54)

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Show Notes:

Film Style Spotlight: Neo-Noir

Neo-Noir is a fancy way of saying "new noir." If noir is a broad term for a style or movement of the '40s and '50s, neo-noir is an even broader term for movies since that period that deliberately evoke the mood of classic noir films. Some key neo-noir films:

Chinatown (1974), by director Roman Polanski, is one of the most celebrated neo-noir films. About a private detective in pre-war Los Angeles, the film is a direct callback to the great noir films. It even has director John Huston in a supporting role: Huston directed the classic proto-noir film The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Joel and Ethan Coen are perhaps at the forefront of the neo-noir movement. Their first film, Blood Simple (1984), is a noir-inspired thriller. Fargo (1996) is another film in this vein, and its stark imagery of red blood on vast white snowscapes is reminiscent of the black and white photography that so marks classic noir. The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) is a noir done entirely in black and white.

Brian DePalma is another director closely associated with noir in the modern age. His latest film is The Black Dahlia (2006), a crime story set in 1940s Los Angeles. Noir themes run through much of DePalma's work, from his early Hitchcockian thrillers to his gangster-derived thrillers such as The Untouchables (1987).

Curtis Hanson also followed a similar career arc, starting with Hitchcockian thrillers and ultimately directing one of the best of the modern noir films, L.A. Confidential (1997).

Even a director like Quentin Tarantino, who has a style all of his own, has dabbled heavily in noir. Both Pulp Fiction (1994) and Reservoir Dogs (1992) have large doses of noir styles and values in them.

Trivia Question: Footloose or Flashdance

Footloose and Flashdance are pretty tough to keep apart. Which of these two flicks do the following songs come from?

Oscar Watch 2006: Final Speculation

Have you entered the Academy Awards Prediction Game yet? The Oscars are this Sunday (Feb. 25), so you'll want to be sure you've listened to Episode 18 and have your entry code so you can be eligible to win a number of great DVDs.

Also stop by RinkChat during the actual ceremony, where you can track your game scores, comment on the show, make fun of people's costumes, etc, as the show progresses.

Top 6: Movies We'll Never Be Able To See

See our separate Top 6 entry for more information about our picks.

Fact or Fiction: The Oscars

Did a streaker interrupt David Niven's introduction of Elizabeth Taylor by streaking across the stage at the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony?

Wikipedia tells the story.
Did Marisa Tomei win her Best Supporting Actress Oscar when presenter Jack Palance read the wrong name?

Snopes to the rescue.
Did a write-in vote win cinematographer Hal Mohr an Oscar in 1936 without being nominated for it?

Doesn't seem possible, does it? Wikipedia and the IMDb get down to the truth of things.
Did an engraving error label one of Spencer Tracy's Oscars as belonging to "Dick Tracy"?

Stephen's guess was that he sure hopes so. The IMDb makes good on his hopes or dash them to pieces. One of the two.
Did an impostor falsely accept Alice Brady's Best Supporting Actress Oscar on her behalf, then abscond with the thing, never to be seen or heard from again?

It certainly sounds like an urban legend. Here's the IMDb's report of this oft-repeated anecdote.