Michael Madsen liked the movie and signed on as Executive Producer. It directly helped get a limited theatrical run in LA and distribution through BayView Entertainment. It was a wild ride and definitely motivation to keep going further. The movie is available here - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
I made the movie for $5K because I'm an obsessed filmmaker and Noir was the genre I had to start my journey with. It was very cool that Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) liked it so much that he wanted to help it find its audience and he signed on as Executive Producer. Watch The Dirty Kind on Amazon here (available in the US and UK) - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
Roman Polanski didn't make Chinatown in B&W because noir isn't about color, it's a state of mind. That's what I feel a lot of neo-noirs are missing. I refer to the trailer for Motherless Brooklyn. It looks like it's trying to recreate something physically, but fails psychologically. In Chinatown all the clothes looks lived in. It doesn't look like costumes for a movie. That's how I went about making my neo-noir The Dirty Kind. I didn't want to try to recreate an old movie. I wanted to recreate a feeling that existed in the 40's, 70's, now and forever. Watch The Dirty Kind from Executive Producer Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) on Amazon Prime or DVD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
Michael Mann's Thief (1981). Michael Mann has a unique style that people immediately recognize from movies like Heat and The Insider. That was not his style during the 80's and definitely not his style for his feature film debut, Thief. This is a sleek, well-crafted neo-noir and it feels like every shot, every camera movement, every grain of film was planned within an inch. It's a beautiful, albeit sad movie about how those living in the underbelly are destined for misery.
The Dirty Kind draws from Thief's understanding of the purgatory that is the underbelly. For the criminals it is obvious, but for Raymond it is a journey of discovery. He thought he was part of the "normal" world, but in the end, the cockroaches go underground where they know they belong.
Watch The Dirty Kind from Executive Producer Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) on Amazon Prime or DVD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) directed by Alexander Mackendrick. This is a blueprint on how#noir is about personality, not profession. A movie about a columnist and a publicist is darker than many of the noirs of the era because the character's souls are rotten and they let their desires supersede their morality. Sidney Falco is ambitious and that ambition drives him to sign a pact with the devil, J.J. Hunsecker. The result is a downward spiral without any winners. No murder, larceny, or other high level criminal offence. Just people manipulating each other callously for personal gain.
The Dirty Kind, the movie about a young private investigator who allows ambition to influence bad decisions, borrows heavily from Sweet Smell of Success. Raymond and Sidney want the same things in this world and do everything in their power to make sure they hollow themselves out into a shell of a human being along the way.
Watch The Dirty Kind from Executive Producer Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) on Amazon Prime or DVD -https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
David Fincher on the set of Mindhunter with a custom Red Xenomorph camera the company designed just for his needs. A very cool behind the scenes pic and a look at how simple a set can look in the digital age.
To say Fincher is an inspiration is redundant because there is not a filmmaker starting their careers after his that isn't in some way influenced by his work, whether directly or indirectly. He is also a master of film noir and I will forever be his student.
Watch my own noir The Dirty Kind from Executive Producer Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) on Amazon Prime or DVD -https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
True detective is a reminder of how much people love the Noir genre. I also love that it's an anthology series. You get a beginning, a middle, and an end and don't have to watch the characters become caricatures and the story become tired.
Whenever I see the apex of Noir like True Detective, I'm reminded why I wanted to make The Dirty Kind in the first place. If you have a chance and are into the genre, check out The Dirty Kind on DVD or Amazon Prime here - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
True detective is a reminder of how much people love the Noir genre. I also love that it's an anthology series. You get a beginning, a middle, and an end and don't have to watch the characters become caricatures and the story become tired.
Whenever I see the apex of Noir like True Detective, I'm reminded why I wanted to make The Dirty Kind in the first place. If you have a chance and are into the genre, check out The Dirty Kind on DVD or Amazon Prime here - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
Jacques Becker's Le Trou (1960). An intense and dark movie about a prison break that walks you through, step-by-step, as if you were in the cell taking part in the bust-out. While released in 1960, parallel to the French New Wave, Le Trou plays as more of a #noir that inspired the new wave - both Godard and Truffaut looked up to Becker as a filmmaker.
The Dirty Kind draws from movies like Le Trou - a story about desperate characters concocting a plan to get out of a hole, only to end up dropping deeper into darkness. Desperation is a key theme in noir cinema and it was important to make sure the characters in The Dirty Kind were desperate enough to get themselves into more trouble.
Watch The Dirty Kind on Amazon Prime or DVD -https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6
You hear that, everyone? Lol
I played around a lot with colors and film stocks when making my last feature, The Dirty Kind, and wanted to create something that could be applied quick, at the very least as a starting point for how you want your footage to look.
Before Goop showed the world that Gwyneth Paltrow can run a cult, she showed us she can act in Paul Thomas Anderson's debut, Hard Eight. This movie is a perfect example of why people are so fascinated by #noir movies - they show a world we know exists around us but our compulsion to live "square" keeps us from stepping foot into this foreign territory.
The Dirty Kind draws from Hard Eight the need to showcase this world that goes on all around us and if we'd just lift the rug a bit we'd see the hookers and the cons and the gamblers. Not when they're ready to come to us for redemption, but while they navigate their natural environment.
Watch The Dirty Kind from Executive Producer Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) on Amazon Prime or DVD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R6YGSR6