summer break so i've got some free time on my hands, i watched akira kurosawa's stray dogs and roman polanski's chinatown back to back last night and felt real blue after it all, film noirs got my blood running black i couldn't fall asleep. chinatown is set in pre-war los angeles, with jack nicholson's jj gittes (a private dick) shit talking and lying his way to find out the truth, stray dogs' got toshiro mifune's detective murakami running across sweaty post-war tokyo in search of his missing gun. dusty and sweaty films, kurosawa's got eyes made out of watermelons, his visuals are that rich and sweet. mifune give a subtle show but we get glimpses of the wolverine rage he'll show off in his later movies (seven samurai!) and their endings... damn, don't they make you want to drink yourself to sleep.