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    • mystery
    • neo noir
    • thriller
    | Feb. 23, 2019, 9:47 p.m.
    On this dark and stormy night a group of strangers spend the night in a Hotel haunted by the past. Bad Times at the El Royal is fun cinema if more of a confection than an engaging film. If it has substance at all its in its exhumation of the late 60s
    • drama
    • mystery
    | Aug. 15, 2016, 10:17 p.m.
    The language of cinema hasn’t changed dramatically since the advent of sound. The general narrative structure was well worn at the end of the silent era. The films that challenge the basic tenets of the medium survive so well because mainstream cinema can never fully absorb their advances. L’Avventura remains a revolutionary film, it creates a whole new language for narrative structure the way Citizen Kane invented a new means of the technical aspects of production. Antonini’s characters are generally competent and intelligent, successful if unfulfilled in life. They are presented with a challenge that immediately consumes
    • film noir
    • mystery
    | March 24, 2018, 3:51 p.m.
    Seldom did classic noir join Los Angeles seediness with Hollywood glamor in such great proportions. Blue Dahlia marks the sixth collaboration between Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Their rapport is so breezy and charmed that it almost makes you forget about the psychotic veterans, murders, shady dealings, and multiple identities lurking in plain view. This is a world where renting a hotel room is an invitation to robbery at gunpoint. Blue Dahlia achieves this by adding common noir touchstones to a murder mystery plot. Johnny (Ladd) returns home from the Pacific Theater along with two fellow soldiers.
    • crime
    • mystery
    | Oct. 20, 2016, 10:48 p.m.
    There’s something about the allure of a great talent, a legitimately great talent. The people drawn to them either to worship or gawk at the novelty. Darryl Zero is such a man. The self proclaimed greatest private investigator in the world (as if there were a credible, objective, ranking) has sealed himself off from society, locked behind steel doors and computer terminals. The whole act is a dramatic act of validation. The only people who wind up in his orbit are clients must fight for his attentions with large sums of money, or Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller) who handles