365 Films in 2017 #2: Thief (United Artists, 1981)

Michael Mann's Thief is a rare neo noir that captures the style of early noir without sacrificing any of the substance and power of the genre. Based on the 1975 novel, The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar, written by a real-life jewel thief, it captures the drama of hard-lived characters making the wrong decisions based on personal codes of honor. The characters are realistic and well cast and the acting is top notch. The relationship between Frank (James Caan) and Jessie (Tuesday Weld) works because Frank emotionally bares his soul to her. He needs an anchor to leave his criminal life behind and pins his hopes on her. His one last heist leaves him alone again after he is double crossed. The final long take of Frank walking down the sidewalk after dispatching his enemies is poignant and memorable. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys...
Read more

Do you remember huH Magazine?

Image
The other day when I was writing the "Track This" for Jawbox's "Cooling Card," something jogged my memory about music magazines I had read in my formative years, particularly those published while I was still in High School. Many, if not most, of them are gone now. They gave way to blogs and online publications. These include zines like Flipside , which covered mainstream and underground bands -- they also had some of my favorite columnists of all time, Punk Planet , which ventured further into Indie rock as it progressed, and MRR , which is still going strong. The magazines that I read often included Alternative Press and Magnet , as well as Ray Gun Publishing's huH which turned me on to a ton of great music because it included a cd with each issue that served as a sampler for what had been released that month, divided by genre. While other magazines did this, huH undoubtedly was more inclusive in the types of bands these cds covered. In fact, these col...
Read more

Cal Smith: "So Long, Country Bumpkin"

Image
Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...
Read more