Just watched LA Confidential again...

[PADDY]

WHAT a great movie that is, and Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger both of who I don't rate as actors, weren't half bad in it [huh] . I then followed it up with Mulholland Falls which is a great hat flick and vintage style movie too. Both highly recommended folks!!:eusa_clap

 

[jake_fink]

LA Confidential is a great film. Mullholland Falls looks good but didn't come together at all well. Dick Sylbert was production designer on Mullholland Falls and Jerry Glodsmith did the music for LA Confidential. Both men were invloved in making Chinatown and both will be missed.

 

[plain old dave]

I like the Dragnet riff; the TV show that was starting, "Badge Of Honor", is direct homage to the greatest cop show of all time, Dragnet.

 

[Feraud]

I recall seeing the film when it came out and not liking it very much. Subsequent viewings have made this a favorite.
I am still not thrilled with Kim Basinger's performance but thought Spacey, Crowe, Pearce, and Cromwell were excellent!
This thread makes me want to watch it again...

 

[Doctor Strange]

Outstanding! Simply one of the finest American films of the 90s. I've seen it a half-dozen times, and I could watch it again right now!

"Do ya have a final valediction, boyo?"

"...Rollo... Tomasi..."

 

[Feraud]

Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes - Style icon!

 

[jake_fink]

LA Confidential is so superior to the dreadful Ellroy adaptation Black Dhalia they are like night and day, though they are set around the same time and the books have cross over characters. In LA Confidential the Frolic Room IS the Frolic Room while in BD the Frolic Room is the FR on the outside and some ersatz, overdesigned lesbian bar on the inside.

BTW, anybody see Los Angeles plays itself?

BTW BTW Anybody see Curtis Hanson's feature on the In a Lonely Place dvd?

 

[Flitcraft]

Great movie!
Kevin Spacey was awesome!
Always worth a re-watch.
Don't always like Russel Crowe, but thought he was great in this.

 

[Flitcraft]

Its a shame Black Dahlia wasn't of the same calibre.

 

[Feraud]

BTW BTW Anybody see Curtis Hanson's feature on the In a Lonely Place dvd?

This is a "must own" dvd but I do not have it yet.
What is the scoop on Hanson?

 

[jake_fink]

The scoop on CURTIS Hanson is that he is a director with a long career, a real professional who makes decent well-crafted films for the most part. LA Confidential is his very best work, although Wonder Boys is better than you might think. His new film, Lucky You looks awful, but I find both Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore seriously unappealing. He is a"life-long Angelino" and a great source on film history so his work on the IaLP disc is really intersting. So is the extra stuff on the LA Confidential disc. Definitely worth a look.

Sorry - no extra copies at the mo'.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Have both, but haven't watched them in a while. Now I want to.


Lee

 

[Tomasso]

I've seen it a half-dozen times, and I could watch it again right now!

Me too, but I've been practicing some restraint as I have a tendency to over-watch my favorite films. I've watched Godfather I into the ground. :eusa_doh: I find that if I limit viewing to once every three or four years it helps keeps them fresh.

 

[Helen Troy]

Good movie, but nothing like the book. Ellroy is difficult to make movies of, because of the very long timespan of the books, and all the many different characters personal plots and agendas that have more or, often, less do to with the main plot. What makes the books great makes them difficult to translate into movies.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

LA Confidential is so superior to the dreadful Ellroy adaptation Black Dhalia they are like night and day, though they are set around the same time and the books have cross over characters. In LA Confidential the Frolic Room IS the Frolic Room while in BD the Frolic Room is the FR on the outside and some ersatz, overdesigned lesbian bar on the inside.

Ellroy's book, Black Dahlia, was great. It's not what actually happened, it just uses a real event in LA history as a springboard into a new story and runs with it. I preface my remarks with that because there are so many people (not here of course) who see a movie and then think that's EXACTLY what happened. "I've seen JFK, so I know what really happened with the Kennedy Assassination." But Ellroy never intended this as a documentary that finally solves this long-unsolved murder case. It's just an historic event that starts the ball rolling with his story.

That said...I wouldn't call this a "dreadful Ellroy adaptation." He didn't adapt his novel, soI don't think the problems with the movie belong on Ellroy's doorstep. He wrote the book which screenwriters and directors and producers then messed around with. If you had said "dreadful DiPalma adaptation of Ellroy's novel," then I'd wholeheartedly agree with you.

Reports are that when Ellroy said, long before the movie was released, he was pleased with the film and what he had seen and been shown, it was pretty early in the process. It was long before it was all hacked up and reworked in editing, long before the more condensed finished product was available. His reports were about a much longer, unedited movie that probably was much better. Then probably a quarter to a third of what he saw was left on the cutting room floor.

This is why so many "director's cut" versions of movies are far better - you get to see the entire project as the director envisioned it. Debbie Reynolds sang "You Are My Lucky Star" to a billboard of Gene Kelly early in Singin' in the Rain but that scene was cut from the theatrical release and not shown for 50 years. When you see it now, suddenly puts a different spin on things at the end when he sings it as she starts to run out of the theatre.

But I just do not understand why, in Hollywood, they have these screenwriters who can't write a novel that's publishable or an original screenplay that's filmable and saleable due to their own lack of originality, talent or ambition, who then feel the qualified to take what's already a great story with a great plot and completely hack it up, creating a new story that, invariably, is pure junk. Tell the story - don't change it. Don't add anything new, and be careful when you're doing your pruning and combining. But just tell the story the author wrote, not your own misguided plot.

I completely understand the necessity to cut some of the more minor characters & storylines or combining them due to the constraints of time or budget. But if you've read Ellroy's book and then seen the movie, you know it's a completely different story. A different plot, a different murderer, new scenes added having nothing to do with the story, important scenes are cut that affect the cohesion of the entire story.

The shootout in the staircase - what the heck was THAT about? Why is a demented slasher-killer using a gun for the one and only time? And what's the point in changing the main family's name from Sprague to Linscott? It does nothing to add to or take away from the story so why even bother? Maybe the screenwriter's girlfriend is name Linscott and that would chalk up a few points with her - who knows? The small storyline with Lee's sister being murdered is cut, and a quick little flashback would have explained his fixation and motivation with the Dahlia case. "I couldn't solve my sister's murder, but I'm going to solve THIS one!"

There are just certain actors and producers and directors in the film business that when you hear they're connected with a project, you just know nothing good's going to come of it. You just have to sit back and watch the ensuing train wreck play out before your eyes.

 

[jake_fink]

Ellroy's book, Black Dahlia, was great. It's not what actually happened, it just uses a real event in LA history as a springboard into a new story and runs with it. I preface my remarks with that because there are so many people (not here of course) who see a movie and then think that's EXACTLY what happened. "I've seen JFK, so I know what really happened with the Kennedy Assassination." But Ellroy never intended this as a documentary that finally solves this long-unsolved murder case. It's just an historic event that starts the ball rolling with his story.

That said...I wouldn't call this a "dreadful Ellroy adaptation." He didn't adapt his novel, soI don't think the problems with the movie belong on Ellroy's doorstep. He wrote the book which screenwriters and directors and producers then messed around with. If you had said "dreadful DiPalma adaptation of Ellroy's novel," then I'd wholeheartedly agree with you.

Reports are that when Ellroy said, long before the movie was released, he was pleased with the film and what he had seen and been shown, it was pretty early in the process. It was long before it was all hacked up and reworked in editing, long before the more condensed finished product was available. His reports were about a much longer, unedited movie that probably was much better. Then probably a quarter to a third of what he saw was left on the cutting room floor.

This is why so many "director's cut" versions of movies are far better - you get to see the entire project as the director envisioned it. Debbie Reynolds sang "You Are My Lucky Star" to a billboard of Gene Kelly early in Singin' in the Rain but that scene was cut from the theatrical release and not shown for 50 years. When you see it now, suddenly puts a different spin on things at the end when he sings it as she starts to run out of the theatre.

But I just do not understand why, in Hollywood, they have these screenwriters who can't write a novel that's publishable or an original screenplay that's filmable and saleable due to their own lack of originality, talent or ambition, who then feel the qualified to take what's already a great story with a great plot and completely hack it up, creating a new story that, invariably, is pure junk. Tell the story - don't change it. Don't add anything new, and be careful when you're doing your pruning and combining. But just tell the story the author wrote, not your own misguided plot.

I completely understand the necessity to cut some of the more minor characters & storylines or combining them due to the constraints of time or budget. But if you've read Ellroy's book and then seen the movie, you know it's a completely different story. A different plot, a different murderer, new scenes added having nothing to do with the story, important scenes are cut that affect the cohesion of the entire story.

The shootout in the staircase - what the heck was THAT about? Why is a demented slasher-killer using a gun for the one and only time? And what's the point in changing the main family's name from Sprague to Linscott? It does nothing to add to or take away from the story so why even bother? Maybe the screenwriter's girlfriend is name Linscott and that would chalk up a few points with her - who knows? The small storyline with Lee's sister being murdered is cut, and a quick little flashback would have explained his fixation and motivation with the Dahlia case. "I couldn't solve my sister's murder, but I'm going to solve THIS one!"

There are just certain actors and producers and directors in the film business that when you hear they're connected with a project, you just know nothing good's going to come of it. You just have to sit back and watch the ensuing train wreck play out before your eyes.

A dreadful adaptation OF Ellroy.

Better?

 

[Lincsong]

But I just do not understand why, in Hollywood, they have these screenwriters who can't write a novel that's publishable or an original screenplay that's filmable and saleable due to their own lack of originality, talent or ambition, who then feel the qualified to take what's already a great story with a great plot and completely hack it up, creating a new story that, invariably, is pure junk. Tell the story - don't change it. Don't add anything new, and be careful when you're doing your pruning and combining. But just tell the story the author wrote, not your own misguided plot.

I completely understand the necessity to cut some of the more minor characters & storylines or combining them due to the constraints of time or budget. But if you've read Ellroy's book and then seen the movie, you know it's a completely different story. A different plot, a different murderer, new scenes added having nothing to do with the story, important scenes are cut that affect the cohesion of the entire story.

I think it has more to do with arrogance,......and a lack of their own creativity.lol I don't mean to hijack a thread but there are many many examples.

That being said. I liked L.A. Confidential.