*** Official SIN CITY Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[brentl]

Really liked this flick overall BUT;

Didn't like the Final scene with Bruces character, I HATE suicide
scenes almost as much as Rape scenes turn my stomach.

Also didn't like "Swatstika" type weapon used by the Asian girl, it's another symbol that turns my stomach.

I LOVED Mickey Rourke
I LOVED Benicio Del Toro
I LOVED THE elf

Brent

8.3

 

[Citizen87645]

Not to mention a person of color wielding an apparent symbol of hate and bigotry would suggest there is something else going on (i.e. NOT Nazism).

 

[ThomasC]

Color? Miho (or at least Devon Aoki) is Japanese. Unless there's a color associated with the Japanese that I don't know about. I know yellow can be associated with Chinese, or does that apply to all East Asians?

 

[Citizen87645]

1. person of color, person of colour -- ((formal) any non-European non-White person)

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-...erson+of+color

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

My friend found this out the hard way. He kept his hat over his eyes for the last three-quarters of the film. Interestingly, because of all of the narration, he followed along pretty good except for some of the dialog slight scenes in "Big Fat Kill" and the final confrontation in "Yellow Bastard" he was still very much into and aware of what happened in the flick. Reminds me of an old radio drama in that respect.

 

[Robert Anthony]

I agree, and part of the reason "The Hard Goodbye" worked so well was because Marv's narration was the best out of the three. But I'm just saying there didn't need to be so MUCH of it. A combination of Rourke's acting and less narration would have been just as effective, I think.

 

[rob kilbride]

Did I get it wrong or was the girl at the beginning, who Hartnett's character kills, Becky? The conclusion I reached was that to avoid the torture she would receive from the prostitutes who she sold out, she hired Hartnett to give her a painless death, hence the voice over about saving her "I'll cash her check in the morning". That would explain why the blonde has her eyes colored as Becky's are. Isn't the blonde Becky without a wig. And since the scenes bookend the movie I couldn't remember if they were the same girl or not. If I'm wrong it wouldn't be the only wrong avenue I contemplated but was never sure of.
I was starting to think that since Dwight was said to have a new face, and had problem of hallucinating, and Marv mentioned having to be sure if everything was real, that Marv somehow survived the chair. Though he seemed pretty darn dead. But nothing seems impossible in this world and Marv seemed pretty damn indestructible. This would also jive with Rosario Dawson's character being close to him because I'm sure she respected what Marv did for a fellow prostitute. I guess I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage not being familiar with the GN's. And since the scenes bookend the movie I couldn't remember if they were the same girl or not. I loved this movie by the way!

 

[Patrick Sun]

The salesman killed a different girl at the beginning of the film, and she was in the red dress, and had green eyes (and was played by Marley Shelton).

Becky had light blue eyes, and it's left to your imagination whether the salesman/doctor finished off Becky in the elevator. Alexis Bledel played Becky.

 

[rob kilbride]

Ok but why the I'll cash her check in the morning line. Why would he kill someone and recieve a check from that same person. Or am I missing something? I actually had the impression that the girl paid him to kill her from that line from the very beginning of the movie.

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

He could have been talking about the check he got from whoever hired him to kill her. It's "her" check, as in the check he gets from killing her, as opposed to a check that she gave him. I didn't like that elevator scene, I thought it seemed "tacked on", since it didn't connect at all with the events that preceded it. I enjoyed the movie, but didn't like how it concluded with a scene that made no sense to me. Also, I sympathize with those who are complaining about the voiceover narration. I understand that it was necessary to make the movie more faithful to the graphic novels it was based on, but it was overdone at times.

 

[rob kilbride]

It wouldn't be tacked on if my theory were correct. Are they definitely different actresses? It would explain the mysterious scene that started the movie.

 

[Seth Paxton]

100% agree Adam.

If character voice-over isn't film noir, I don't know what is. Characters saying cool things, tough sounding things, overly hip, that's noir to me, and a big part of the appeal. Same as it is in Sunset Blvd or Double Indemnity.

 

[Seth Paxton]

"I'll cash her check in the morning".

I thought she had hired him to kill her, rather than committ suicide. Setting up the idea of how hard yet slick things are in Sin City. I assumed she either was ill and going to die a painful death or was going to be killed by someone who was after her anyway. Or perhaps just suicidal and wanted to be loved a bit before she died, to make it a more tolerable passing.

To me such a twisted interaction, being hired by a woman to kill her yet also to romance her before you did would seem to fit with what I thought they were trying to say about Sin City as a place and an ideal.

Maybe a reader could explain if there is more to it than shown.

Obviously at the end he is on a new job and that's to take out Becky, hired by the other hookers. The opening shows us his MO, how he is the romantic killer.

Even if someone else hired him to kill the first girl, we still understand his MO and it is still twisted enough to fit Sin City and some of its contradictions (like the hookers being the most capable instead of the most vulnerable).

 

[Timothy Alexander]

The line "I'll never know what she was running from. I'll cash her check in the morning" pretty much tells you that the lady in red paid for him to kill herself.
It was pretty straight foward to me. But then, I also read the short comic it was based on.

 

[JonZ]

"A combination of Rourke's acting and less narration would have been just as effective, I think."

But the idea was to have the comic book on screen,hence using the pages and storyboards and duplicating as much as possible exactly onto the screen. I mentioned the subtle things like the way RR highlighted bricks in peoples shadow and such - to duplicate the comic.

Normally I would agree with you, the less narration the better, but not here.I like the idea of bringing the comci book itself to life instead of a adaptation.

 

[JamieD]

Rob, they're completely different people.

I actually thought it was very effective. Shows that in Sin City, you're never safe, you're never hidden. Everyone can be gotten, for a price (be it financial, spiritual, or physical).

I took it that he had been paid to find her and kill her (Marley) and at the end had been paid to do the same with Becky, and Becky knows it, with the look in her eyes and the way she says goodbye to her mother.

Ah, and I see Seth had the same interpretation.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

It's a pretty good story, but definitely a break from the other tales.

Hopefully, they'll decide to let Miller work on a new story (to be in the film) that we haven't seen. He can release the comic when the movie comes out

Or we can get a LOT of Dwight.

Is the score any good on it's own?

Thanks,
Chuck

 

[David Rogers]

The DVD news from Rodriquez is excellent. That's a cool thing to do on the disc, and so easy too .... the discs and players support seamless branching, so use it to setup a flick like this to be broken back out into its basic arcs. Added scenes to those arcs is just creamy icing on a great cake.

Right now, this is the best movie of the year. I don't expect it to hold up, but it'll likely be in the best of the year as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Timothy Alexander]

I think the next Sin City should go:

"Just Another Saturday Night" then go to the credits, then "Family Values", followed by "Hell & Back", followed by an original Frank Miller story, ending with "Silent Night."

Those two Marv stories would be great bookends.

 

[Robert Anthony]

But comic books aren't movies, and they cut out pages of the book for the movie, and also removed the soundeffect balloons as well, so whether the IDEA was to have the book onscreen--they didn't do it. It becomes an adaptation by necessity.

And if you're going to break your literal translation rule to chop out pages for pacing, and change the framing on some of the panels for aesthetic reasons, why not also pare back some of the dialog?

I'm not saying there shouldn't have been ANY narration. I'm not totally ignorant to the trappings of Film Noir or anything. I just think that things that work in a comic book don't always work in a movie, and endless, slathered over every frame running commentary is one of those things. It's overkill, even for typical noir levels of narration. It was like watching an audiobook near the end of "Yellow Bastard." and it started to pull me out of the story.

Like I said earlier, I think in smaller doses, like the stories will be presented on DVD, it won't be so bad. But butted all up against each other for over 2 hours--it starts to wear.