Blog 7

        The blog I want to talk about is in the stories “The Kidnapper Bell” and “City of Commerce” in the collection Los Angeles Noir. And how these two stories depict the iconic Los Angeles area as being defined in the stories and how they give the reader the impression on, Let’s stop right there. I’m really trying to make this blog sound imaginative with words that I rarely use in casual conversation. And let’s face it this is my blog not a composition paper, so what I really meant to say was. I want to compare these two short stories and the way they describe Los Angeles and how if a reader wasn’t a native to Los Angeles they could still get a mental image of the location that they are describing the stories. And also I would like to touch on how we, as being locals to the area see there description as being accurate. I really liked these two stories and in the first story “The Kidnappers Bell” I do have some knowledge of the location and on the second story “City of Commerce” I really don’t have much memory of this location which is perfect for my blog.

        In the” The Kidnapper Bell” the setting is around the Los Angeles river and china town, and really the writer Jim Pascoe doesn’t give a whole lot of detail on china town its self just the type of people and setting that there is in this one bar. Which it pretty much the setting in most bars. But as far as their locations to the Los Angeles he dose mention that is west of china town. In the story the main character Jim describes the river in not a bad way but I would have liked to have seen more definitive description on how the river looks. In my mind when you hear the word river I automatically think of sand covered banks with a rushing wall of water surging by, with trees on both banks. And in some parts there are trees and some resemblance of this but not in the area that he is describing. He does try and  describe it in a sort of a way as when he states ‘crest of cement lining the deep, empty river basin’ but this description should have included the general size of this mammoth part of the river which is huge and that this river has been used in famous movies like ‘Grease’ during the car race. As to give the reader the (I know what that place looks like now) affect. But one part I remember quite well and his description is what is only seen in Los Angeles as a land mark and is quite old in fact. And that is when he describes the storm drains that are painted like the faces of cats. You can see these if I’m not mistaken from the I5 freeway. But I’m not sure because it’s been a long time since I’ve been by their but I remember those from when I was much younger and when I use to travel that route and that is distinctive to L.A.

        In the story “City of Commerce” by Neal Pollack the description is good I suppose but I’m not a real authority on this city because I really don’t remember this city too much and have not been to the casino he is describing in the story. As far as I’m concerned he does not point out anything real distinctive as to give the reader something to relate to on the L.A. seen. Except the location of the freeways that he travels to get to the City of Commerce and the casino. There really isn’t that much mention of land marks to give the reader the visual image of where he is in location reference to L.A. but the description of the casino was excellent. All in all I thought the stories were for the most part really good and did enjoy them.

Blog 6

        “Space, Time, and Subjectivity in Neo-Noir Cinema” by Jerold Abrams.  Wow there is a lot to think about in this article. Especially about the neo noir protagonist and the classic noir protagonist. I really wish I had enough time to see the movies that where discussed in the article to give you better examples but the ones that I did see were so long ago that I don’t remember the contents of them. But I really enjoyed the article and how Abrams put the examples together. The best way I can think of to compare the differences of the classic noir protagonist and neo noir protagonist in the article is simply put. The classic role is about a character trying to find out about crime and in the processes he is challenged about his own character. In neo noir the protagonist is much more complex, he is for the most part trying to solve a crime but in the underlining process trying to find himself and who he really is. This most of the time results in his own demise. What I found more interesting in this article is the loss of the femme fatal. There might be one but in most of the movies that Abrams mention that I have some memory on I really don’t remember a femme fatal changing or altering the main characters choices in life. Most of the time that’s handled by an outside source.

        Like in the description of the movie angle hart with De Niro and Rourke in which case is classified as past noir, is about the protagonist also being the villain along with the devil kind of taking the place of the femme fatale. The examples of neo noir the past, present and future that abrams gives in the article was in mind really good. I like that he gave movie examples to go by and that’s a big help in making my decision for what kind of movie I want to do my report on. The future noir is what intrigues me the most. I like how they take the frustration of classic noir and transformed into the future by adding the elements of sci-fi. In this I mean you still have the traditional some body done somebody wrong but now you have some aliens involve or maybe even android’s. It really brings in the third element, could you imagine Bogart chasing down E.T. lol. With present day noir I think most of this involves conflict from with in, and I really think Abram’s open my eyes to a new kind of noir with the Bourne saga. I would have never thought of Jason Bourne as the classic noir protagonist but after reading how they use and illness as say may amnesia to bring that whole crime era back it now makes perfect sense. After reading this article it really has me thinking on what movies I have enjoyed over the years that can be classified as noir.