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Topic:
Guilty As Charged: Super Sexy Thrillers: Now Disc. "9 1/2 Weeks" (1986)
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somethingfamiliar
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
3/22 5:10pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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Great movie. I always have to rewatch Bud and Exley's fight a few times.
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I'm not a quitter, but that human pile of garbage would make Satan weep.
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solojones
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
3/22 10:48pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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Absolutely spectacular film. I was 9 when it came out so no, I didn't see it in theatres  Didn't find it undazzling on the small screen, though. I just... wow. I love noir, and this film is probably more noir than real noir  If that makes sense. They just hit all the characters, all the style, the story, the tone, the twists. Amazing. In fact, now I want to watch it again because I think it's been about 2 years since I saw it last and I own it.
...do I even have to mention that I think Kevin Spacey and Guy Pearce kill in this?
Josh, I have to disagree, though. I think Titanic is a very good film, but I think this one's more solid on the whole because there's nothing I can critique it on and there are a couple little things with Titanic.
-sj loves kevin spacey
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6 x 9 = 42 Proud member of the Colbert Nation  Obi-Wan Kenobi and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Ghost Ship Executor All Hail Cliegg's Blue Leg!
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
3/22 11:10pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
- Date Edited:
3/22 11:11pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
KnightWriter
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It's just a splendid film all around. Maybe it would be fairer to say that for me, the highest highs of Titanic were higher than the same for L.A. Confidential, and the former was a more personal film for me (I did see it in theaters, by chance on opening day to boot, and so that permanently etched itself into my perception of it from the get go; sadly, I did not do the same for L.A. Confidential). Had I seen both on the big screen, I could just as easily prefer the latter (though I suppose Titanic brings out an idealist/romantic side in me that few other films do).
Anyway, not to get stuck on that .
Has it really been over ten years since this came out? Goodness gracious. As this time ten years ago, I think it was still playing.
I agree that there's nothing really to critique it about, and you just have to sort of take it as it is. Russell Crowe's come a long way as an actor since the movie, but I think he owes much of it to his success in it. The ending is superb as well, in a quiet way (I'm referring to the actual ending, as Bud White drives off).
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"May you live all the days of your life"
"The Obama Car will be fueled by FISA amendments and emit civil liberties for exhaust." A-B
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solojones
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
3/22 11:28pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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Pft, the Rollo Tomasi incident in the ending is better. What a great lightbulb moment.
I saw Titanic 3 times in theatres... NOT because I thought Leo was cute. I didn't. I liked history
-sj loves kevin spacey
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6 x 9 = 42 Proud member of the Colbert Nation Obi-Wan Kenobi and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Ghost Ship Executor All Hail Cliegg's Blue Leg!
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
3/22 11:50pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
- Date Edited:
3/22 11:53pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
KnightWriter
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You were a bit young to go for that reason (any perceived cuteness of the actors, that is) . I must say I've felt vindicated in my defense of it early on for some time now, as both lead actors have gone on to stellar careers (DiCaprio and Winslet).
As for the ending, there's just something about the last scene I really like. It's hard to articulate. I do love the hotel ending, of course, particularly the gunshot in the back. That seems to almost go without saying, though. The score for the actual last scene, when the car drives off, meshes well with the mood and sort of sums up the movie itself ("the beat goes on", in a sense).
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"May you live all the days of your life"
"The Obama Car will be fueled by FISA amendments and emit civil liberties for exhaust." A-B
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soitscometothis
Registered:
Jul '03
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Date Posted:
3/23 6:00am
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
- Date Edited:
3/23 6:07am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
soitscometothis
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I think L.A. Confidential is a movie where everything comes together perfectly - acting, directing, and of course the script. The three main protaganists all have great character arcs that change them - they most definitely are not the same people at the end of the film that the were at the beginning (poor Jack). Watching a character go on a journey, grow, evolve, whatever, is very compelling stuff when it is done right. Seeing Jack rediscover his integrity, Bud achieve his potential and start using his brain, and Ed make the jump from by-the-book cop to someone who is willing to get his hands dirty to bring in the bad guys, it's just.. rewarding. And it gives you something to think about after you've watched the film, which you can't say about too many major studio productions these days.
My question: Why does L.A. Confidential work so well while The Black Dahlia , also a period detective story based on an Ellroy novel, just fails to convince or engage in the way it should?
Edit: now I need to rewatch this too.
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solojones
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
3/23 4:01pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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I was just going to ask about The Black Dahlia. I haven't seen it but of course have heard the very mixed reviews.
-sj loves kevin spacey
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6 x 9 = 42 Proud member of the Colbert Nation Obi-Wan Kenobi and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Ghost Ship Executor All Hail Cliegg's Blue Leg!
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
3/23 4:06pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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solojones posted:
I was just going to ask about The Black Dahlia. I haven't seen it but of course have heard the very mixed reviews.
-sj loves kevin spacey
I've seen various parts of it, and it just isn't remotely as good. It shows that you can gather up the parts you need for a successful movie, and then be completely unable to put it all together.
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"May you live all the days of your life"
"The Obama Car will be fueled by FISA amendments and emit civil liberties for exhaust." A-B
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
3/24 10:29pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 11. "L. A. Confidential"
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10. "Chinatown"
"If you haven't seen this twisty noir, you don't know Jack ... Nicholson, that is, at his jaded best as P.I. Jake Gittes in Roman Polanski's '74 masterwork thriller about sordid business in '30s L.A. Faye Dunaway and John Huston add crackle to an already crackling script; Jack wears his bandaged broken nose like a badge of honor."
Very, very noir film noir.
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
3/24 11:14pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 10. "Chinatown"
- Date Edited:
3/24 11:18pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
JohnWesleyDowney
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I've seen various parts of it, and it just isn't remotely as good. It shows that you can gather up the parts you need for a successful movie, and then be completely unable to put it all together.
I think this is what went wrong with Black Dahlia, last minute change in directors:
From wikipedia:
The movie was originally in pre-production with David Fincher attached as director and Mark Wahlberg attached to play Lee Blanchard. Wahlberg was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the planned filming of The Brazilian Job. Fincher originally envisioned "a five-hour, $80-million mini-series with movie stars."
When De Palma became director, he replaced Wahlberg with Aaron Eckhart shortly before shooting began in April 2005.
This film was shot in Los Angeles, California and in Pernik, Bulgaria, at an estimated cost of $50,000,000. Filming took place largely in Bulgaria, no doubt, as a cost-saving measure, and because of producer Boaz Davidson's ties to production facilities in that country. Only a handful of exterior scenes were actually filmed in Los Angeles.
Chinatown is one of the very best movies of the 70s, and a perfect fusion of a director doing his best work, a great script from the masterful Robert Towne, and Nicholson in one of his best roles. I read somewhere the working relationship between Polanski and Faye Dunaway was so terrible they were hitting each other and throwing objects on the set. Still, the movie turned out great.
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
3/25 8:34am
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 10. "Chinatown"
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Eckhart is better than Wahlberg, but da Palma seems past it.
Yes, Polanski and Dunaway *hated* each other.
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solojones
Registered:
Sep '00
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Date Posted:
3/25 1:10pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 10. "Chinatown"
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Very good movie. Not quite as amazing as I'd been led to believe (just saw it recently). I think because it began a neo-noir thing that wasn't quite perfected yet. Still very good, but I think a film like LA Confidential does a better job of it because it has a good film like Chinatown to look to and improve upon. Chinatown's a little loose... but still very good. And classic. I just kind of dislike something automatically being 'better' just because it's older. I honestly think there are better neo-noirs.
I was happy to see that Jack Nicholson can actually play someone other than a crazy arrogant jerk. That was nice. Too bad it almost never happens.
-sj loves kevin spacey
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6 x 9 = 42 Proud member of the Colbert Nation Obi-Wan Kenobi and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Ghost Ship Executor All Hail Cliegg's Blue Leg!
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
3/25 10:55pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 10. "Chinatown"
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9. "Fargo"
"It's the funniest film on our list, but don't be thrown by the folksy accents, the oddball characters and the police chief's (Frances McDormand) constant need to barf: 'Fargo' is a dark, richly satisfying whodunit that could've only been made by the Coen brothers. We'll never look at a wood chipper the same way again."
A very weird film, and one of my favorites. And yes, the woodchipper scene is terrifying, not because someone ends up in one, but because you are afraid Marge will get hurt. I was yelling "Get some backup!" at the screen.
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JohnWesleyDowney
Registered:
Jan '04
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Date Posted:
3/25 11:08pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 9. "Fargo"
- Date Edited:
3/25 11:11pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
JohnWesleyDowney
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I have a friend who lives in Minnesota and I've visited him many times over the years, and being from Texas, and having worked in radio and voice work, I really notice the way people talk. So everytime I go up there, I get quite an earful of regional, upper midwest accents.
Which brings me to...Fargo!
If there is one thing (on top of their great filmmaking) that the Coens get right, it's the accents. Half of my enjoyment of Fargo was the delicious way the characters spoke.
And yet, when they made No Country for Old Men, they did a fine job of getting the actor's accents right as well, deep in the heart of Texas. From Minnesota to Texas, the Coen's have an ear for authenticity, even if it is occasionally exaggerated for comedic effect.
Great film, and I love Frances McDormand as Marge. She deserved that Oscar.
Frances McDormand was born in Chicago in 1957, and was adopted by Canadian minister Vernan McDormand and his wife Noreen, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned her B.A. in Theater from Bethany College in 1979 and her MFA from Yale in 1982.
Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple. (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother Ethan Coen in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy and, in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy award four times - for Mississippi Burning (1988), Fargo (1996) (for which she won the Best Actress award), Almost Famous (2000) and North Country (2005).
Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, Frances McDormand dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
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Zaz
Title: Manager:
The Amphitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
3/26 4:34pm
Subject:
RE: Guilty As Charged: Great Crime Thrillers: Now Disc. 9. "Fargo"
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The accents are exaggerated. I've been to Brainerd.
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