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Chinatown (1974)
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All reviews for Chinatown
Rom-Coms Are Just Into American ...
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"The American Medical Association Alliance is unhappy with the appearance of a specific cigarette brand (American Spirit Lights) in He’s Just Not That Into You and is filing an official complaint to Warner Bros. and Time Warner over the issue. Brooks Barnes reports in today’s New York Times that the advocacy group doesn’t care that smoking is shown in a bad light in the romantic comedy (a character gets dumped for lying about quitting smoking, an offense seen as even worse than cheating); they think any acknowledgment of the act of smoking cigarettes — even if nobody is actually seen smoking onscreen, a la HJNTIY — could influence young people to start smoking. The smoking in movies issue has brought about much debate regarding censorship in the last few years, but I say bring on the smoking ban. And then Hollywood can get creative with hints at smoking the way it used to use innuendo and other fun tricks to imply sex. The irony would be that in the past, cigaret "
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10 Best Dysfunctional Families ...
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"The holidays are coming, and that either means spending time with your dysfunctional family or escaping them for the movies … where you’re likely to be met by other, fictional dysfunctional families. Already this season, Rachel Getting Married introduced us to the f’ed up faux masala of the Buchman clan, and later this month we get to follow Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as they’re pulled into their separate quadrants of kin in Four Christmases. Also, for those who think dysfunction is an American tradition, this weekend sees the release of the French film A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), which unites the two major premises of dysfunctional family movies by being set during the holidays and involving an ill family member. With two more weeks left until Thanksgiving, after which we might not want to think about another family, real or cinematic, for "
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Viewing Chinatown for the AFI P ...
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pippin06
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Reel Thoughts
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"What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pip pin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.a spx Chinatown is on the following AFI lists: The Original Top 100 (#19)100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#16)100 Years...100 Heroes and Villans (Noah Cross is the #16 villain)100 Movie Quotes (#74 - Lawrence Walsh: "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.")25 Film Scores (#9)The Revised Top 100 (#21)10 Top 10's (#2 Mystery) I borrowed Chinatown, again from my parents, who have an impressive movie collection. My mother, in particular, has a great love for 70's film, and why shouldn't she? It was something of a Renaissance in film history, and Chinatown is an exemplar of that Renaissance. I had never seen this film before, aside from clips, usually played during award show flashbacks ("she's my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter" or "I think you're hiding something" or the bit about his nose). I was excited to g ... "
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The Rarely Recognized Art of th ...
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Smooth_J Blog
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"The idea for this analysis came to mind when I recently saw Bergman's The Seventh Seal. While I was not quite as blown away by the film as most accolades of the film would suggest, I still found it to be an excellent movie, and could see very clearly the influence it has had on so many films that have come after it. The one scene that I especially noticed a direct legacy in later films was a short, almost gimmicky little snippet during the medieval religious cult scene in the town--where the drums are beating loudly, people are screaming in agony as whips crack, and monks and other repenters are carrying enormous crosses on their backs. There is a short string of profile shots: Antonius, Jons, and "The Girl" (the only specific name I could find for her anywhere on the internet). The cuts between the faces are done with the beats of the drums; they are perfectly centered, with mist or smoke rising in the backgrounds, adding to each image's raw, black-and-white imagery; and each f ... "
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AFI's 10 Top 10: Mystery
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ShaunHuston filmblog
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"The mystery list is another one that seems poorly conceived. Unlike animation, “mystery” may be a genre, but the way it is defined and applied in the AFI list leads to a muddled selection of films.The AFI defines mystery as “a genre that revolves around the solution of a crime”. I'm not convinced that that adequately describes the films on the list, or, even if it does, it is absurdly reductive. Most ironically, the definition seems least appropriate when applied to the list's top selection, Vertigo (1958), which does not actually revolve around the solution of a crime at all, but a domestic mystery, and is really about Scottie's (Jimmy Stewart) inner-demons and obsessions in any event. Similar questions can be raised about other movies on this Top 10. For example, the second film on the list, Chinatown (1974), certainly starts with a mysterious murder, but part of the point of the film is that some “crimes” aren't illegal at all, and may even be facilitated by laws. The plot of T ... "
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Part III
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Smooth_J Blog
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"My list, in continuation… 6. Fargo See my blog entry on it…it’s a while back, but I feel it’s pretty comprehensive as to how fricken incredible this movie is. 7. Chinatown An absolute classic. Jack Nicholson’s greatest role, and an amazing turn by Faye Dunaway. See my review of it…it’s a little while back as well. 8. Mulholland Drive This David Lynch masterpiece of the absurd is just plain awesome. Everything in his power is brought full-on into creating one of the most hypnotizingly gorgeous films ever put onto the screen. T "
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Jack and Hill
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The Movie Blog
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"A new pro-Hillary Clinton YouTube video surfaced today, cleverly titled "Jack and Hill." The video is a montage of various movie scenes featuring Jack Nicholson, who has endorsed the New York Senator, with slide transitions about Sen. Clinton's policy positions. The spot consists of a statement from Nicholson along with him in character as The Joker (Batman), Col. Jessup (A Few Good Men), and Jake Gittes (Chinatown).Watch the video here.(Cross-posted to Cerebral Politics) "
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"You're dumber than you think I ...
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"What an amazing movie. I'm not really one to rave about the noir genre, but WOW. Jack Nicholson is amazing as Jake Gittes, a Los Angeles private eye, who is just a little bit too nosy for his own good. As usual, not only does Jack act outstandingly, his eyebrows should also have been nominated for best actor, and that's an extremely outstanding feat. Faye Dunaway is perfect in the role of Evelyn Mulwray, playing it with a tortured grace that is a spectacle to watch. The rest of the cast is superb as well.The mood set by Roman Polanski in Chinatown is unmatchable. The entire movie feels cool, calm, and collected, even as the plot twists and treachery run rampant. Jake Gittes remains a nosy smart-ass all the way throughout, but shows a depth of character that is extremely rare in a noir film. The music is outstanding, as well as the story of greed and deception in Los Angeles. The motif of water is used to great effect, especially close to the end.The ending is one o ... "
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Jack Nicholson on the Chinatown ...
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"MTV has posted a fantastic interview with Jack Nicholson, in which he talks in depth about Chinatown, its sequel, The Two Jakes, and a planned third film that was to complete the trilogy, but, because of the poor reception to Jakes, never got made. An excerpt: We always planned on making three films. We wanted it all to be tied into elemental things. Chinatown is obviously water. The Two Jakes is fire and energy. And the third film was meant to be about Gittes’ divorce and relate to air. MTV: Was the third film in the Chinatown trilogy ever scripted? Nicholson: No. I would imagine Robert [Towne] has some kind of outline. I can tell you it was meant to be set in 1968 when no-fault divorce went into effect in California. The title was to be Gittes vs. Gittes. It was to be about Gittes’ divorce. The secrecy of Meg Tilly’s character was somehow to involve the most private person in California, Howard Hughes. That is where the air element would have come into the picture. Nicholson goe ... "
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another fine film from polanski
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andthenpatterns
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andthenpatterns Blog
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"Cinematic cretin that I am, I rented Chinatown and got as far as putting it in the player whilst still thinking it was the 70s movie in which Gene Hackman plays a tough-guy by the name of Popeye Doyle. 90 seconds of internet research has revealed that to be The French Connection, so there's one to add to the list.Chinatown, it turns out, is the 70s movie in which Jack Nicholson plays a tough-guy by the name of J.J. Gittes. Having only seen Rosemary's Baby within the last year, and The Pianist not much before that, I'm not in a position to say where it fits in Polanski's canon. I can say that it's Nicholson at his best, sitting right in the middle of that period (Easy Rider, ...Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining) when he was utterly invincible. I'm pretty sure you could have hit Jack in the face with a sledgehammer anytime between the late 60s and early 80s and he would have laughed it off - in that period he's as cool as any human being ever has any right to be, and a little more so.As
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