film noir aka ladies who screw men over

Chinatown is easily one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. It has well developed characters as well as plot. The word to describe it is crazy. Even when things get too crazy to believe the viewer is still transfixed. It's not stupid crazy like in Out of the Past. A daughter made by a father and daughter is crazy believable, unlike a box that blows up the world. I bet I can come up with at least ten reasons why Chinatown is so ballin in less than a minute.

1. Gittes slaps around the femme fatale
2. Gittes doesn't get screwed (figuratively) by the femme fatale
3. It shows the corruption in government
4. A nose gets cut
5. An eye gets shot out
6. Jack Nicholson almost is attractive
7. The color film doesn't detract from the movie
8. There are some sweet-ass car chases
9. The whole smashing out a tail light and following
10. "Forget about it Jake, its Chinatown"

God damn the movie is fantastic. Up until the last twenty minutes you think its following the classic film noir path until the femme fatale gets shot and Gittes gets to simply walk away. The only thing that really sucked about the movie was the fact that the rapist corrupted murduring SOB father got off scratch free, but that's life. Dickheads with money run the government. Gittes is a clever guy and I wish I was as cool as him. He is always on his toes and knows exactally which cards to play when, even when it appears all is lost he manages to fool everyone once more and turn the table. The last scene was the absolute greatest when the last shot is fired and the car stops with the horn blaring. In that instant the audience immidately knows she was killed and its a great way of inferencing to what happened rather then showing a close up of the blood and nastyness right away.

romantic comedies vs. screwball

Telling the difference from romantic and screwball comedies isn´t all that challenging. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind we saw ¨relations¨ that would have never occured in a screwball. The quick witted responses in His Girl Friday were in place of ¨relations¨ that couldn´t be shown on screen (or anywhere for that matter) durrin the time period. Screwball comedies are all about leading you on to believe rather than assuring the facts visually as in a romantic comedy. As for the debate over if screwballs were a genre only existant durring the time period of the 40s and early 50s I´m really not all that sure, and honestly don´t care. The classification of a movie doesn´t determine its greatness. When it comes down to which I prefer its screwball hands down. With romantic comedies they´re either totally predictable or when they throw you for a loop and don´t have everything be happily ever after you´re left disappointed. Screwball comedies on the other hand are less predictable and no matter what happens whether you´re left disappointed or not it at least gave you the chance to think. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was really great in an odd way but I wouldn´t classify it as romantic comedy because it was far to dark and complex. Romantic comedies are all about knowing the ending from the very begining, which didn´t happen. Only a dickheaded concided genius like Stephen Hawkins could claim to know what was going on, but nobody cares about him because hes a total dickhead.