Perception_de_Ambiguity About the unpredictability of life, about how "nothing really happens for a reason, it just happens" (the film's first spoken words). About how nobody else matters if you found your one true love (even if this love happens to be your twin sister). About how the best people sometimes have to be the most morally bankrupt ones to get ahead in a depraved society. About smoking simply for the reason that it fills the air with atmosphere, infusing something into a void.An IMDb reviewer wrote a wonderful thing about Sheryl Lee in this film, allow me quote it. "Sheryl Lee gave a terrific performance as Lois, the sex crazed lady cop who becomes obsessed with Marty (Billy Zane). She was so desperately needy and shameless in her appetite for Marty that it seemed she couldn't live unless she was breathing the air he just exhaled." The same reviewer also wrote how unfitting Billy Zane is in the film because his moodiness was so "un-50's". I agree that it would be a rather untypical character for an old film noir but that's just one of the areas where it shows that 'This World, then the Fireworks' does its own thing, it doesn't merely try to emulate a classic film noir, the filmmakers know that, for example, they can be more frank in the depiction of sexuality and violence and they gladly use that opportunity. Rue McClanahan as the mother (known from Golden Girls) looks like an old, withered, crazy, washed up version of Marilyn Monroe, which seems all kinds of appropriate. Director Oblowitz says his main inspiration was Welles' 'Touch of Evil' which seems all kinds of appropriate as well.The French just love it (how else to explain that there are half a dozen French DVD releases of the film while there doesn't seem to be a single American one...although the French screwed up the beautiful title). Maybe the full-screen version (which has more information at the top and bottom but also cuts off quite a bit of the sides) actually works better but one way or the other it works, especially after the wild first third that introduces us not only to the characters but also to this world, the pace settles down with the slow, jazzy "The Thrill is Gone" setting the mood and the film starts molding the emotional core of its main characters while remaining unpredictable and varied.

Tebsin49 The Fact that all characters are so obnoxious makes it an uncomfortable film. The dissection of each characters depravity is overwhelming in it's graphicness. But The Centre of The Film is The Protectiveness of The Male Sociopath for His Sibling I hope I can some day find The Jim Thompson Short Story but somehow I believe some story's only achieve Their True Identity when Turned into Film Billy Zane is Demonic. Sheryl Lee is Licentiously Seductive and not exactly Innocent!!! Gina Gershon The Ultimate Female Sub: For Billy Zane's Predatory Murderous Alpha Male. The Seduction of Lee by Zane is Startling in that it takes place in the The Middle of The Day in The Middle of A Busy Townscape. Violence is Commonplace and can erupt from almost nowhere Every One is Doomed and Upon A Roundabout of Damnation Welcome to The Underbelly of America.

VOGEL211 A young reporter has an incestuous relation with his twin sister who is working as a prostitute. Growing up in unkind circumstances after they became eye witnesses of a murder their father committed, the twins held even tighter to each other and the knowing mother was never disposed to intercept their relation. It is correct that the core story does not provide a great "pointe" but the stereotyped personalities are about to make the movie quite entertaining by creating some kind of suspense with, unfortunately, no determined Issue. The acting was quite good regarding the strange and sometimes absurd emotional actions of the characters. All in all, I wouldn't grant an Oscar but 8 points for keeping me close to the screen for 100 minutes

drspecter Billy Zane is perfect as the sociopathic Marty, and his voice-over narration IS the Jim Thompson novella. This World is simultaniously an overblown parody and a loving homage to not only Thompson, but fifties hardboiled thrillers in general. Gritty touches of realism mix with a nostalgiac 50s pastiche and stylized performances and camera work. Sure to be over the heads of most modern viewers (see above review) but if you love film noir, and especially the pulp novels that helped spawn it, this film is beautiful, hillarious, and genuinely misanthropic. All the performances are very accurate to the way the characters acted in the novella. Shot like a combination of a moving Edward Hopper painting and an Italian Giallo thriller. HIGHLY recommended!