'Payne'ful
A dark night in a city of cinema that knows how to keep its secrets. But on screen 12 of the Acme theatre, one man is trying to find the answers to film’s persistent questions. Dustin Noir, film critic.
The world of film is dark city of flickering neon, a few bright beacons feebly illuminating a mixture of torn fishnet stockings, blood stained cardboard boxes, and empty bottles floating down the sidewalks like glass vessels on river Styx, slowly carrying whispered sorrows into the steaming mouth of the underworld. But neon is a deceptive beacon, warm and inviting from a far, but close up marking a two-bit slut shop full of lifeless shadows feebly puppeteered by a balding man with dollar bills for eyes, the kinda guy who looks at your shoes instead of your face. When I first saw the neon sign for "Max Payne", I was drawn to it like moth to an exposed electrical fire. Shoulda known. Sometimes all you get flying towards neon is a thinner wallet and burnt wings.
Dustin Anglin