The Official Sin City Thread

[Youth N Asia 0]

Opened today, who saw it?

[SuperJerk 0]

Ebert's review

 

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...EVIEWS/50322001

If film noir was not a genre, but a hard man on mean streets with a lost lovely in his heart and a gat in his gut, his nightmares would look like "Sin City." The new movie by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller plays like a convention at the movie museum in Quentin Tarantino's subconscious. A-list action stars rub shoulders with snaky villains and sexy wenches, in a city where the streets are always wet, the cars are ragtops and everybody smokes. It's a black-and-white world, except for blood, which is red, eyes which are green, hair which is blond, and the Yellow Bastard.

 

This isn't an adaptation of a comic book, it's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids. It contains characters who occupy stories, but to describe the characters and summarize the stories would be like replacing the weather with a weather map.

 

The movie is not about narrative but about style. It internalizes the harsh world of the Frank Miller "Sin City" comic books and processes it through computer effects, grotesque makeup, lurid costumes and dialogue that chops at the language of noir. The actors are mined for the archetypes they contain; Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen and the others are rotated into a hyperdimension. We get not so much their presence as their essence; the movie is not about what the characters say or what they do, but about who they are in our wildest dreams.

 

On the movie's Web site, there's a slide show juxtaposing the original drawings of Frank Miller with the actors playing the characters, and then with the actors transported by effects into the visual world of graphic novels. Some of the stills from the film look so much like frames of the comic book as to make no difference. And there's a narration that plays like the captions at the top of the frame, setting the stage and expressing a stark existential world view.

 

Rodriguez has been aiming toward "Sin City" for years. I remember him leaping out of his chair and bouncing around a hotel room, pantomiming himself filming "Spy Kids 2" with a digital camera and editing it on a computer. The future! he told me. This is the future! You don't wait six hours for a scene to be lighted. You want a light over here, you grab a light and put it over here. You want a nuclear submarine, you make one out of thin air and put your characters into it.

 

I held back, wondering if perhaps the Spy Kids would have been better served if the films had not been such a manic demonstration of his method. But never mind; the first two "Spy Kids" were exuberant fun ("Spy Kids 3-D" sucked, in great part because of the 3-D). Then came his "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" (2003), and I wrote it was "more interested in the moment, in great shots, in surprises and ironic reversals and closeups of sweaty faces, than in a coherent story." Yes, but it worked.

 

And now Rodriguez has found narrative discipline in the last place you might expect, by choosing to follow the Miller comic books almost literally. A graphic artist has no time or room for drifting. Every frame contributes, and the story marches from page to page in vivid action snapshots. "Sin City" could easily have looked as good as it does and still been a mess, if it were not for the energy of Miller's storytelling, which is not the standard chronological account of events, but more like a tabloid murder illuminated by flashbulbs.

 

The movie is based on three of the "Sin City" stories, each more or less self-contained. That's wise, because at this velocity, a two-hour, one-story narrative would begin to pant before it got to the finish line. One story involves Bruce Willis as a battered old cop at war with a pedophile (Nick Stahl). One has Mickey Rourke waking up next to a dead hooker (Jaime King). One has a good guy (Clive Owen) and a wacko cop (Benicio Del Toro) disturbing the delicate balance of power negotiated between the police and the leader of the city's hookers (Rosario Dawson), who, despite her profession, moonlights as Owen's lover. Underneath everything is a deeper layer of corruption, involving a senator (Powers Boothe) whose son is not only the pedophile but also the Yellow Bastard.

 

We know the Bastard is yellow because the movie paints him yellow, just as the comic book did; it was a masterstroke for Miller to find a compromise between the cost of full-color reproduction and the economy of two-color pages; red, green and blue also make their way into the frames. Actually, I can't even assume Miller went the two-color route for purposes of economy, because it's an effective artistic decision.

 

There are other vivid characters in the movie, which does not have leads so much as actors who dominate the foreground and then move on. In a movie that uses nudity as if the 1970s had survived, Rosario Dawson's stripper is a fierce dominatrix, Carla Gugino shows more skin than she could in Maxim, and Devon Aoki employs a flying guillotine that was borrowed no doubt from a circa-1970 Hong Kong exploiter.

 

Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino are credited as co-directors, Miller because his comic books essentially act as storyboards which Rodriguez follows with ferocity, and because he was on the set every day, interacting with the actors; Tarantino because he directed one brief scene on a day when Rodriquez was determined to wean him away from celluloid and lure him over the dark side of digital. (It's the scene in the car with Owen and Del Toro, who has a pistol stuck in his head.) Tarantino also contributed something to the culture of the film, which follows his influential "Pulp Fiction" in its recycling of pop archetypes and its circular story structure. The language of the film, both dialogue and narration, owes much to the hard-boiled pulp novelists of the 1950s.

 

Which brings us, finally, to the question of the movie's period. Skylines suggest the movie is set today. The cars range from the late 1930s to the 1950s. The costumes are from the trench coat and G-string era. I don't think "Sin City" really has a period, because it doesn't really tell a story set in time and space. It's a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant.

 

So either the fat man hasn't lost his mind after all, or the movie totally sucks.

Edited April 1, 2005 by RobotJerk

[Youth N Asia 0]

I'm going to say 9 out of 10.

 

Everyone was great in the movie, espeically Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke. Frodo was badass as well. It runs just over 2 hours and I was pissed when it ended.

 

Since QT had a hand in the movie it's not shown in exact order, but that doesn't matter at all.

 

I might go see it again on the big screen. And a defiate DVD buy.

[Boon 0]

Since QT had a hand in the movie it's not shown in exact order, but that doesn't matter at all.

I think all Tarantino was direct one scene. Somehow I don't think he had enough stroke to make it out of order.

[bob_barron 0]

Does anyone know the scene QT did?

 

Amazing movie- just one big adrenaline rush

[AmericanDragon 0]

He directed the scene where Dwight is having a conversation with Rafferty in a car.

[spiny norman 0]

The scene that the article in the first post said he did.

[Vyce 0]

He directed the scene where Dwight is having a conversation with Rafferty in a car.

Which is, IMO, the weakest scene in the entire film.

 

The movie is goddamn fantastic, though. I give it my highest recommendation. And quite frankly, my word is better than that of Roger Ebert's, because if any of you have paid attention to his reviews lately, he's become a more respectable version of Harry Knowles: he gives EVERYTHING a good rating.

 

But in this case, it's deserved.

 

Great noir, lots of good action, gore and violence. Terrific, fun performances all around, especially from Rourke and Owens.

 

Oh, and a pretty good bit of T n' A as well. I think you all will particularly enjoy, as I did, the wonderful sight of Carla Gugino's bare tits.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I though the black and white with a few select colors would bother me, but you get so wrapped up in the movie you don't even notice it.

[Ravenbomb 0]

seeing it Sunday

[bob_barron 0]

He directed the scene where Dwight is having a conversation with Rafferty in a car.

Which is, IMO, the weakest scene in the entire film.

 

The movie is goddamn fantastic, though. I give it my highest recommendation. And quite frankly, my word is better than that of Roger Ebert's, because if any of you have paid attention to his reviews lately, he's become a more respectable version of Harry Knowles: he gives EVERYTHING a good rating.

 

But in this case, it's deserved.

 

Great noir, lots of good action, gore and violence. Terrific, fun performances all around, especially from Rourke and Owens.

 

Oh, and a pretty good bit of T n' A as well. I think you all will particularly enjoy, as I did, the wonderful sight of Carla Gugino's bare tits.

Ebert's given **** more recently (to some films that didnt deserve it like Millions) but for the most part he can still dish out a bad review. He hated Be Cool and Miss Congenality for instance.

[Ravenbomb 0]

and Constantine

[Downhome 0]

Not that anyone cares about my opinion here anymore, but I give it a 9.5/10.

 

It is truly one fucked up movie, great, flick.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

good, but i'm a little let-down. There are many spots where slavish devotion to having every single caption narration and line from the comic hurt the movie. Lacked any real emotion for the first half.

Very cool stylistic stuff.

Dwight storyline with the city of Hookers, while funny, sticks out and is unrelated ot the others. I'd have lifted that out and given more time to the Marv storyline and forming better connections between his and bruce willis' story.

 

Marv = awesome.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

Fucking loved it. Clive Owen is just about my favorite badass ever.

[MARTYEWR 0]

9/10 and Movie Of The Year Candidate.

 

Everyone was superb.

 

Mmmmm....Rosario Dawson....

[Gary Floyd 0]

Just saw it.

 

Definately 10/10, and a total movie of the year candidate. Haven't had that much fun in ages. Oh, and Rosario Daweson:

[Secret Agent 0]

I saw it and I thought it was fantastic. However, I didn't really like the Dwight storyline. After the badass Marv story that felt rather weak,

[Anakin Flair 0]

Frodo was badass as well.

When I saw him on screan, my first thought was "He's trying to get as far away from Frodo Baggins as he can. But the sasd thing is, I can't even remember his name at the moment (too tired).

EDIT: Elijah Wood.

 

I loved Josh Hartnet as the Hitman for some reason, probably because he had a nothing scene in the beginning, then came back and tied up everything at the end.

 

At the moment, I'm not to sure if I loved this movie or hated it. I'll probably have to wait for the DVD to know for sure.

 

One thing, though- what was it with guys getting their nuts blown/cut/ripped off?

[Special K 0]

Great flick. I'd read some Sin City before, but had only read That Yellow Bastard In order to preserve some of the surprise of the movie. Marv is such a fucking badass. I can't wait until they do A Dame to Kill For

 

Boy is The Big Fat Kill weak though. And Brittany Murphy was pathetic.

 

I can't believe they made Junior's castration even more brutal than the comic's though. Fuckin disgusting.

 

The one thing they should have added, was Marv's drunken, whimisical "That Nancy sure is somethin.' I always loved Marv for that. Lends an air of timelessness to whatever that bar's name is.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

That movie was fucking badass. It better do well at the Box Office, or I hate everyone. Wonderfully violent, sadistically amusing. And how could you not get a kick out of "You should have flushed"? Benicio Del Toro was brilliant.

[Special K 0]

Oh, and Madsen was awful. he was so stilted.

[A Happy Medium 0]

I saw it tonight with like 14 other people. It was ridiculous.

 

The movie itself was brilliant. Bruce Willis was great. Played a great tragic hero.

 

Meanwhile..."Ow! Hey guys, do you think I need a doctor or something?"

 

I'm now reading the first issue, a friend let me borrow it. I'm amazed to see how close they stayed to the book.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

Oh, it did have some fairly cheesy lines. Like what the blonde says to Clive Owen after he leaves, that elicited a groan from my theater. But hey, kudos to them for not changing the dialogue.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I thought Madsen was alright, it was only a bit part that really didn't need any real excitment.

 

How many more Sin City stories are there to tell? And is Kevin in any more of them?

 

I enjoyed the Dwight story, Clive was great, but Marv's story was so badass I think almost anything would've been a letdown.

 

I liked Hartnet's role as the assassin. Didn't really tie into the three stories shown, just showing you a little more of Sin City.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Sin City rocked. Saw it @ 615 Fri night with 2 friends in a half-full theatre. Place applauded after it was over, popped for several big spots. Amazing visuals, I loved it.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

Probably my favorite scene was Marv in the electric chair.

 

"Is that all you got?!"

[Youth N Asia 0]

Heads on the wall

 

Was Britney Murphy's one of the heads or was I seeing things?

[Secret Agent 0]

And Brittany Murphy was pathetic.

How so? She had such a small part and she sure didn't give a dry ass Keanu preformance or anything. Plus, I liked what she was wearing.

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

Sin City was the first movie where everybody who went to see it in my group of friends, actually loved it. Great stuff.