Crime 101 (2026)

Crime 101 is a little LA neo-noir gem directed by the Brit Bart Layton (American Animals).  Heist, angst, existentialism, it's based on a novella by Don Winslow (Savages).  The title refers to the 101 Freeway in Southern California, entering Los Angeles, and the faved heist location of the blue-eyed Thief Davis  (Chris Hemsworth, reminiscent of another Michael Mann pic, Blackhat). 

The ensemble casting is cool:  Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro,  Jennifer Jason Leigh (more like a cameo cos she has only one scene, surely cut for time), and Nick Nolte in a part sim lliar with Jon Voight's in Heat.

Produced by Working Title Films, Crime 101 was bought by Amazon MGM, outbidding Netflix,. which is great cos they also distributed in Theaters (through Sony).

Mostly a Heat homage, plus elements from Mann's Thief, Walter Hill's The Driver, even a scene fromTrue Romance ;)

A nice conversation on Steve McQueen and the iconic Mustang from Bullit add on. 

See in in the cinema, it's great widescreen and sound and score-  Blanck Mass. 

7 out of 10 / 3 1/2 out of 5 !

Islands (2025)

 Islands is an odd piece, film noir under the sun, actually much at dusk. Shot all in location in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain, it premiered at Berlinale 2025 as a Special Presentation.

The director is German,  Jan-Ole Gerster (also co-writer), the actors are Brits, Sam Riley, Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing.  Shades of Ripley  (Highsmith's) and Hitchcock. Well acted, existential slowburn anti noir ;). Atmospheric score and sound design. 

see it in a cinema, if you still catch it !

 3 1/2 out of 5, 7 out of 10 !

Spider-Noir (2026)

"With No Power Comes No Resposibility"

The Nicolas Cage is back with something cool in black and white (and color) but I'd rather see it Noir as in the title. Premieres May 24th on Amazon Prime as in in collaboration with Sony, who's only Marvel character they got rights too...

From the looks it's more of a Sin City / Frank Miller, The Spirit / Will Eisner. 

Breendan Gleeson is the villain.

Hopefully this will rock, as gamebased Fallout TV series did, or DC / HBO recently two interesting spinoffs, The Penguin and The Peacemaker and Marvel/ Disney did mega meta Wonder Man.

Cliff Booth is back !!!

Cliff Booth aka Brad Pitt, the stuntman from Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood is back in the new Netflix film  The Adventures of Cliff Booth, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by David Fincher !!!

Timothy Olyphant is also back as western TV actor James Stacy (Lancer).

Here's the teaser trailer. Coming soon this year !!!