Thursday, November 08, 2007

Chinatown

The Austin Chronicle: Screens: Review - Chinatown: "For many, Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski from Robert Towne's Oscar-winning screenplay, epitomizes the peak of Seventies Hollywood filmmaking and perhaps the finest neo-noir ever made. Yet according to the four documentary featurettes on this new special edition, the movie almost didn't get made."

Check out the whole review at the link.

5 comments:

Brent McKee said...

For all of the faults that the review points out, its still Chinatown Jake. Too bad I've sworn off buying new DVDs with still living writers until the Writers' Guild strike is settled.

Cap'n Bob said...

If I live to be 100 I'll never understand the meaning of the final line, and how it ties in with the rest of the movie. Otherwise, I like it fine.

Anonymous said...

You mean, of the film, that it is indeed Chinatown? That things just have to be accepted, that sometimes no matter how much one tries, the bastards sometimes, too often, win. That you can't always understand just how, too. At least, that's what I took away...but somehow I doubt that's what you refer to.

Cap'n Bob said...

That's what I've been told, Todd, but I still don't see how it ties in with anything. "Forget it, Jake, it's Hollywood/kismet/the way it goes" would have seemed liklier to me.

Anonymous said...

Ah. Well, particularly (as I remember it after some years) as the murder of Dunaway's character (I've just finally noticed what a perfect noir name she had) had just occurred in Chinatown, and Chinatowns were always if not altogether fairly seen as even more...inscrutable...than other nabes...Chinese Box resonances...like that. Also, hadn't Jake and his partner had Chinatown as their beat as cops? Obviously, I need to see this film again.