Film Noirs

Film Noirs have always been near and dear to me- I grew up watching old Bogart films on tv (thanks mom!). Dark and Brooding, black and white.... the world of Noir draws me into its melancholy web. And once you're hooked, you can't escape. Suddenly your world is colored in shades of gray, you feel like smoking, and you start calling everyone a dame or a lug.

http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html

What is a film noir, you ask? In the Encyclopedia Britannica, its defined as a "style of filmmaking characterized by elements such as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and an underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era".

Here's a sampling of some of the best Noirs (or Noir offshoots) I've seen over the years:

Gilda
Border Incident
The Hitch-Hiker
Raw Deal
The Big Clock
Petrified Forest
Rebecca
Sorry Wrong Number
In a Lonely Place
The Postman Always Rings Twice (the original, natch)
Kiss Me Deadly
Double Indemnity
DOA (the original, natch)
Murder My Sweet
Too Late for Tears
The Maltese Falcon
Cape Fear (the original, natch)
Chinatown
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Memento
LA Confidential
The Usual Suspects

And for you video game buffs out there, the best noir experience you can get is the Max Payne series!

A Couple of Favorite Noir Quotes:

"So what can I call you besides stupid?" "Stupid will do if you don't bruise easily"- Too Late for Tears

"She liked me. I could feel that. The way you feel when the cards are falling right for you, with a nice little pile of blue and yellow chips in the middle of the table. Only what I didn’t know then was that I wasn’t playing her. She was playing me, with a deck of marked cards and the stakes weren’t any blue and yellow chips. They were dynamite." - Double Indemnity

If you want a bit of history about the Noir genre- I recommend the following informative sites:

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/Film%20Noir.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/noir.jsp

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/infocus/filmnoir.htm