Double Indemnity

In this film a insurance worker lets himself be talked into a murder insurance fraud scheme. Double indemnity was able to take sex and make it a suggestion instead of actually showing it, using innuendoes, and implying acts rather than telling them. Philis Detricson in this film was a perfect definition of a femme fatale. Out of all the film noirs watched this year, I think double indemnity was the greatest movie of the film noir genre. This film depicts everything a film noir is, you have the perfect femme fatale, story telling shadow play, and amazing camera angles. This film has detectives, crime, grittiness, love, and hate.

Blade Runner

This film begins when the main protagonist Rick is getting Chinese food and Gaff an officer asks him to go with him. Rick begins to speak to his former boss and even though he has no interest in working for him, he has to help capture 4 replicants (human like droids) whom had escape and whom are running around the city killing and creating chaos. These replicants are a model Nexus- 6 generation, and only have about a 4 year life span. As Rick agrees to take the job he goes out to meet Tyrell the master creator of these replicants. There he meets Rachel, a beautiful woman who he suspects to be a replicant even though she passes the replicant test. Rick ends up killing the replicants one by one, until he is left to face Roy Baddy the leader of the group of replicants. Roy finds Pris body on the floor and react emotionally just like any human being would, which raises question on how human like can replicants be. Roy, losing his partner and his friends is fill with anger and seeks to take revenge on Rick. At the end even though Roy has many chances of killing Rick, he only wanted Rick to know what it feels like to live in fear. Roy dies as his time is up, and Rick hurries to find Rachel, as he finds her he sees one of Gaff’s paper origami and the movie ends.

Brazil

Brazil is a film from 1985, is about a totalitarian government a government that controls many aspects of an individual’s life and uses technology as a way of controlling them. Sam Lowry is a low raking citezen who finds an escape from his dull boring life by having daydreams with a woman who he has yet to meet named Jill. Unlike his reality when Sam has his dreams he experiences a nature-like, colorful, and romantic life next to his beloved Jill.His quest to find Jill and finding her gives him the courage to go against his totalitarian government and break the rules. At the end Sam is captured by Harry Tuttle and is tortured, unlike Winston from 1984 Sam is able to use his daydreams to block all his sufferings and have his very own “happy ending” even as he is being tortured to death.

1984

1984 is a book based on a totalitarian government, a government who controls every aspects of an individual’s life and who constantly spies on its citizen in order to keep them under absolute control.

Winston, a thin 39 year old works for the department of records editing records. One day Winston goes to the slums of Oceania and purchases a paperweight, feather pen, and a journal. He also ees a lady with black hair who he believes to be a spy. Later on he meets this “spy” named Julia and they begin carrying conversations. Winston hates Julia because even though he likes her he can’t have her. As Winston gains courage after receiving a noted from Julia reading “I love you” they begin to have conversations and soon after end up falling in love. Winston and Julia talk about breaking the law and about the shared hate for Big brother (the controlling party). Because Winston foolish trust towards a man named O’Brian who is actually working for the Thought police, Winston and Julia get captured and tortured. While Winston is being tortured he is treated to face his worst fear, which are rats. As he sees his life treated, the Thought police has finally been able to get into Winston’s head. Winston would rather Julia get hurt than him, and this is when Big brother wins. After all the tortured he went through he is realize and must return to work like usual. He later sees Julia but realizes that he no longer loves her but now loves Big Brother.

Murder my Sweet

The movie begins with a man named Maloy being release from prison. Maloy begins his quest to find Philip the main character, in order to ask him to find his “lost” girlfriend named Velma. As Philip sees no other option he accepts the job. As Philip begins to investigate he realizes that he is constantly being lied about this lady named Velma whom he is searching for. He is later hired by Marriot to act as a bodyguard on a sale of stolen jewelry. Philip decides to go along with it, Marriot is killed and Philip gets knocked out. At the end of the movie Mr. Grayle kills femme fatale Helen.

Out of the Past

The movie begins when a man named Joe is looking for Jeff, the movie’s main protagonist. Jeff doesn’t not want to be found by Joe but when meeting is inevitable, Joe tells Jeff that his old boss Whit Sterling needs to see him. Jeff, who starts to remember his past which he has been running away from tell his girlfriend Ann about his past and about how femme fatale Kathie shot and stole money from White Sterling and also the way she killed his former partner Jack leaving Jeff alone to cover up the crime.

When Jeff finally meets with Whit he tries to avoid having such job but Whit is determined to make Jeff work for him. They attempt to frame Jeff for the murders but he covers it up. The beautiful deceiving Kathie knowing that Jeff was once in love with her, asks him to run away with her or to take the blame for all the murders and Jeff agrees to go away with her, even though this time around he is not being deceive by her so easily. Jeff later calls the police secretly, femme fatale Kathie figures out that Jeff has “betrayed” her and shoots him to his doom. The police opens fire on the car and the car goes off the road, both Jeff and Kathie die.

I think that this was a great movie specially towards the end when Jeff knowing how dangerous Kathie is intends to stop her at any cost even if it means dying.

Chinatown

This film came out in 1974, this is a crime, thriller, murder mystery, drama type of movie. In this film the protagonist is hired by a woman to investigate her husbands affair, but he later finds out that the woman who hired him is not in-fact the husbands wife. Gitties gets involved with the real wife now and the father comes into the story. The film gets very complex dealing with water, dames, and death. The protagonist is brilliant in this film, and throughout the film there is something in his eyes that throws the viewer off constantly. THe wife is not a classic femme fatale, she is more of a distressed, damaged woman. You can sense something is off with her character but you don’t know what, she is very mysterious and you constantly want to know more about her which keeps you very interested. The father in this film plays a straight up menace, he’s character is not someone you would want to play with being that he is a rich billionaire and own all this water, all though he is pure evil he is constantly calm yet still intimates you. This film has this subtle noir vibe, every angle of this film is so well framed. The film also allows you to think for yourself but it also helps you. The film doesn’t tell you everything, yet shows you everything.

Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?

This book takes place in 2021, and there has been a big war going on thats completely devastated  the planet, so most of the surviving population has immigrated to mars. The protagonist, Rick, is a bounty hunter and apparently the androids come to earth illegally sort of seeking salvation. So Rick has to “retire” them, which basically means kill them. Throughout the book Rick has to find 6 androids that have left mars illegally and retire them. There is also a man named J.R in this book who works for an “animal hospital” but he really repairs mechanical animals and calls himself a vet.   The mechanical animals are looked at as a commodity but they are looked down upon, sort of like an, “Im better than you because I have a real horse but you have a mechanical one.” so it  causes this weird hierarchy, almost like a popularity contest. So he really envies his neighbor who has a real horse because he has this electric sheep because his real sheep died. This as a fantastic science fiction book in the sense that it creates this fake world and throws you into the center of it.