Masterpiece of Brutality
Last night at West End Cultural Centre, Greg MacPherson's CD release show. I coaxed Brett and Vanessa to join me but the show was sold out once we got there. I sold my ticket to some guy who needed one for his friend or something and we went to go see Sin City instead.
This movie is a bold masterpiece from film vet Robert Rodriguez, a guy who directs, shoots, edits, produces, rigs lighting, writes score music and apparently cooks meals for the cast. The film was shot on a slick budget of $40 million, a miniscule sum for the amount of special effects, computer work and star power that Sin City brings with it. Many modern action movies run on a budget twice as high, Famous Magazine reports, such as the latest Keanu Reeves demon-fest, Constantine which ran up a $100 million bill. "You're gonna come up with problems every day on your set," Rodriguez explains, "You can get rid of the problem one of two ways - you can do it creatively or you can wash it away with the money hose." Rodriguez is very creative.
And he won't take shit from anybody, either. He's directed everything from From Dusk Till Dawn to Desperado (of which he gave seven grand out of his own pocket to get rolling) to the Spy Kids movies. When he set out to create Sin City as a film he wanted to make them as close to Frank Miller's graphic comic novels as possible. I haven't read the books yet but apparently he pulled it off and he wanted to give Miller directing credits, something the Director's Guild of America wouldn't let him do. They only allow credit for one director (what about the Wachowski brothers or the Coen brothers?) so Rodriguez quit the Guild. The movie even features a powerfully morbid scene with Benicio Del Toro and Clive Owen directed by Quinten Tarantino.
My favourite section of the movie was the part with Mickey Rourke as Marv, a giant, ugly man who goes on a rampage to hunt down the killers of his new found lover. He wages war against the powers that be and uses every form of torture and killing at his disposal as he works his way to the top.
Sin City is a place run by crooked cops, mobsters and prostitutes, where vice triumphs over virtue and everybody has a rough history. The characters are otherworldy; giant heroes, assassins and mercenaries, sexual predators, cannibalistic serial killers, whores that could just as soon slice you open as give you a good time and creatures deformed by medical procedures and hardened by years of pills and addiction and killing. The world is brutally violent and the film is not for the queasy. Sin City is very much a concept project, something that's never been done before. Much of the acting was done in front of a green screen and you leave the theatre wondering if what you just watched was live action or animation. In any case, it is a magical visual experience, a brutal film noir brilliantly directed and featuring an extremely wide and powerful cast.
Oh yes. And Brittany Murphy's voice . . . .
This movie is a bold masterpiece from film vet Robert Rodriguez, a guy who directs, shoots, edits, produces, rigs lighting, writes score music and apparently cooks meals for the cast. The film was shot on a slick budget of $40 million, a miniscule sum for the amount of special effects, computer work and star power that Sin City brings with it. Many modern action movies run on a budget twice as high, Famous Magazine reports, such as the latest Keanu Reeves demon-fest, Constantine which ran up a $100 million bill. "You're gonna come up with problems every day on your set," Rodriguez explains, "You can get rid of the problem one of two ways - you can do it creatively or you can wash it away with the money hose." Rodriguez is very creative.
And he won't take shit from anybody, either. He's directed everything from From Dusk Till Dawn to Desperado (of which he gave seven grand out of his own pocket to get rolling) to the Spy Kids movies. When he set out to create Sin City as a film he wanted to make them as close to Frank Miller's graphic comic novels as possible. I haven't read the books yet but apparently he pulled it off and he wanted to give Miller directing credits, something the Director's Guild of America wouldn't let him do. They only allow credit for one director (what about the Wachowski brothers or the Coen brothers?) so Rodriguez quit the Guild. The movie even features a powerfully morbid scene with Benicio Del Toro and Clive Owen directed by Quinten Tarantino.
My favourite section of the movie was the part with Mickey Rourke as Marv, a giant, ugly man who goes on a rampage to hunt down the killers of his new found lover. He wages war against the powers that be and uses every form of torture and killing at his disposal as he works his way to the top.
Sin City is a place run by crooked cops, mobsters and prostitutes, where vice triumphs over virtue and everybody has a rough history. The characters are otherworldy; giant heroes, assassins and mercenaries, sexual predators, cannibalistic serial killers, whores that could just as soon slice you open as give you a good time and creatures deformed by medical procedures and hardened by years of pills and addiction and killing. The world is brutally violent and the film is not for the queasy. Sin City is very much a concept project, something that's never been done before. Much of the acting was done in front of a green screen and you leave the theatre wondering if what you just watched was live action or animation. In any case, it is a magical visual experience, a brutal film noir brilliantly directed and featuring an extremely wide and powerful cast.
Oh yes. And Brittany Murphy's voice . . . .
posted by James at 3:06 PM
0 Books were burned:
Throw one on the pile
<< Home