Dark, gripping films light up box office

There have been many decent and successful films made from comic books and their big brother format, the “graphic novel.” None come to mind that manage to capture the look and feel of their original source as perfectly as Robert Rodriguez’s “Sin City.” Rodriguez, who had a dispute with the Director’s Guild and eventually got Frank Miller credited as a co-director, used Miller’s novels as a storyboard for the film. The result is a modern film noir classic that stretches the boundaries of the genre.
The film is shot in black and white (as are all great noirs) but there are brilliant flashes of color throughout: the golden hair of a prostitute; the blue of a girl’s eyes.
Red is everywhere. From the flashy convertibles, a man’s tennis shoes, a woman’s lipstick and -– of course – many of the characters’ blood, red seeps onto the screen. While in many scenes blood is depicted as a day-glo fluorescent white, most of the time it’s vivid red.
There’s a lot of blood in “Sin City,” and a lot of sex and violence as well.
Set in Basin City, a place that exists in a limbo of time where it’s always night and it’s always raining, the film comprises three separate stories.
One of the three splits up to bookend the film, and in that story, Bruce Willis is a cop on the verge of retirement. He desperately wants to wrap up one last case and save the life of an 11-year-old girl who has been kidnapped by a serial murderer. When the story picks up again at the end of the film, Willis, and the audience, feel a great sense of closure and redemption.
The second tale involves a tough (and rather ugly) character named Marv, played by Mickey Rourke in a comeback role. Marv is looking for the people who killed a hooker who was the only woman who was ever nice to him.
The third story features Clive Owen as a regular guy who is trying to save the part of Basin City known as “Old Town” – it’s run by an army of hookers – from an all-out war. Unfortunate circumstances have set the stage for the pimps and cops to move back in. It’s in this segment that Rodriguez utilizes Quentin Tarantino as “special guest director.” The film’s narrative style also owes a lot to Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”
“Sin City” is visually stunning, the stories are engaging and, if one can tolerate the violence – which, to be fair, is made somewhat more palatable by the “comic book” style – it’s a film that deserves repeated viewings.

‘The Upside of Anger’
In films such as “The Lost Weekend,” “The Days of Wine and Roses” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” alcoholics – and alcoholism – have made for some interesting movie characters. At first look, Mike Binder’s film “The Upside of Anger,” may seem to be another offering in this genre. While the two main characters are alcoholics, this fact shapes their personalities rather than totally defines them. The troubles that come along are not directly alcohol related but booze plays a big role in how the characters deal with them.
The characters in question are Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen) and Denny Davies (Kevin Costner), two ordinary upscale suburbanites making their way through day-to-day life.
Terry is the mother of four girls. “One of them hates me and the other three are working on it,” she says. Her husband has just walked out on her. Denny is a former major league pitcher who now makes a living as a radio talk show host and supplements his income by selling autographs and appearing at mall
openings and other schmoozfests.
When Terry is on the rebound, the two become friends, lovers, then ex-lovers and nearly ex-friends. As Terry struggles to do right by her teenaged daughters, Denny struggles to convince himself his life hasn’t been a total waste.
The film starts with a funeral and flashes back three years, gradually leading us back to the funeral and the knowledge of who has died.
Allen’s a great actress and I can’t see anyone else in the role of Terry Wolfmeyer. Costner is better than he’s been in a long time and Denny could very well be the retired “Crash” Davis, the character Costner played in “Bull Durham” in 1988.
“The Upside of Anger” is a well executed adult-themed drama.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.