LA Confidential (1997)

One of the more satisfying noir films, LA Confidential has the 1950’s LAPD rubbing the Hollywood underbelly in a picture that was nominated for nine Academy Awards.  The film won Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars for Brian Helgeland and Director Curtis Hanson (from the James Ellroy novel) and Best Supporting Actress went to Kim Basinger who also won a Golden Globe.  It’s the great writing and great performances that make this one of my most favorite films (probably in my top 20). After Ellroy saw it, he was quoted as saying, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level.  It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters."

I like to introduce the film to friends of mine that have not seen it because frankly the plot is complicated enough that having someone watch it with you is a tremendous help in appreciating its many marvels.  If you aren’t sure, the second viewing will nail it for you.  I have not read the novel but several of the things that happen are based upon rumors that circulated and actual events which occurred in and around Hollywood and the Los Angeles crime scene.  You can visit the awesome www.imdb.com to get all kinds of thrilling information about the film’s trivia. 

LA Confidential received box office success as well as critical acclaim.  It stars Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, and David Strathairn.  Before working on films, Kevin Spacey made a great mark in the TV series Wiseguy (1987-1990) as Mel Profitt in 1988.  Several of the co-stars and minor players made that series watchable such as Joan Severance as Susan, Mel’s sister, Patti D’Arbanville as Amber Twine in 1989, and David Strathairn as a Sheriff in 1990, among other guest stars and celebrities.  Other Spacey works which I highly recommend are The Usual Suspects (1995), Se7en (1995), The Negotiator (1998), Pay It Forward (2000), and the Netflix series House of Cards (2013).  You may be feeling I have missed some films here but I do not recommend films that I don’t feel strongly about or haven’t seen.  Russell Crowe movies I recommend are The Insider (1999), Gladiator (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Master and Commander (2003) and Cinderella Man (2005).  Guy Pearce films I recommend are Memento (2000), The Hurt Locker (2008), The Road (2009), and The King’s Speech (2010).

James Cromwell has been in over 160 films and TV shows so I am only going to list a few where the role or the impression was significant and the film is personally recommendable:  Babe:  Pig in the City (1998), The General’s Daughter (1999), The Green Mile (1999), Space Cowboys (2000), I, Robot (2004), The Queen (2006), and Surrogates (2009). While I can’t imagine any disagreements about LA Confidential being Kim Basinger’s best work, it is still worth seeing Nine ½ Weeks (1986) and Batman (1989) which are watchable for many reasons including her performances.  I should state for the record that I have not seen 8 Mile (2002).  Danny DeVito is a strong performer whether in comedy or drama and I therefore recommend some movies here highly and others not so highly but which his presence saved One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Terms of Endearment (1983), Romancing the Stone (1984), Twins (1988), Batman Returns (1992), Renaissance Man (1994), Junior (1994), Get Shorty (1995), and The Rainmaker (1997).

David Strathairn may be most well known as being consistently cast by John Sayles whom he met in college; however, his body of work extends beyond Sayles to movies such as LA Confidential , George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).  I have not seen Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979) which was Strathairn’s debut but I recommend:  Silkwood (1983), Iceman (1984), Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), Limbo (1999, also starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) on which film I worked for a time before giving up my career in ‘the biz.’  [The two of them were incidentally the nicest cast members that I met on that production]; The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012).

Two other LA Confidential notable contributors:  Music by Jerry Goldsmith (over 131 credits including 18 Oscar nominations and one win (Best Music, Original Score for The Omen, 1976), eight Golden Globe nominations and seven Primetime Emmy nominations and five wins, five Grammy nominations and a multitude of other award nominations and wins) and a personal musical favorite Planet of the Apes (1968); and cinematography by Dante Spinotti (over 65 cinematography credits including two Oscar nominations, three nominations and a Lifetime Achievement Award (2012) from the American Society of Cinematographers and two nominations and one win and a personal cinematography favorite The Last of the Mohicans (1992) from the British Society of Cinematographers.

Running Time:  138 Minutes

Favorite Quote:  “[Voiceover] Something has to be done, but nothing too original, because hey, this is Hollywood.”  (Danny DeVito as Sid Hudgens)

KILL BILL Volume 1 [2003] & Volume 2 [2004]

I have placed Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) in my Top Ten Films of All Time and you can read my review on it in the archives under April 2014 or directly go to that page by clicking on this link: www.lisasmovielist.blogspot.com/2014/04/pulp-fiction-a.html

As I stated before writer-director Quentin Tarantino crafts cinematic sequences that mix heady-themed, snappy dialogue with visceral action to create intense, if not orgiastic, masterpieces.  While all of Tarantino’s films are in this same class, both Kill Bill films are a special case for several reasons.  [Effectively telling one story in two films, these two are here treated as one film, hence one review.]  The fact that the star/hero is female is one reason I am putting this film in a separate class from the other Tarantino films.  A male friend told me they didn’t really get the movie and I replied, ‘you have to understand female resentment to really appreciate it.’  My boyfriend and I watched both movies over the last two nights and he asked me if they are ‘feminist.’  I guess they are and he wasn’t asking just because the hero is female.  Several of the men in the film are killed by the female victims that the male characters had victimized in a sexual way.  [The other motive for killing (both male and female victims) is that they attempted to murder the heroine (vs self-defense).]  There is no doubt that Uma Thurman carries the movie and kudos for that but I’m not sure that by itself makes it feminist…

The main plot of the film (I hope I am not giving it away, ha ha) is the killing of Bill and his main sin appears to be that (outside of not being ‘nice’) is that he attempted to kill (and had others attempt to kill) the heroine who basically has left the clan.  While Bill appears to have some remorse for attempting to kill her, it is not enough for the female character to let this go and it is worthwhile to examine this as the main character herself has made the transition from ‘killer for hire’ to only killing for the reasons mentioned above. Therefore, it appears to me, that the negating of Bill’s motive (that it is not okay that he does not allow her to choose someone else) is essentially supporting the legitimacy of feminism. Since it is not okay for her to determine who or why she should kill or love (which is an anti-feminist stance), she is effectively an instrument or object belonging to Bill which is what she will not submit to and therefore becomes a self-determining female or feminist.

If these arguments seem too intellectual for you then I direct your attention to the scene where Lucy Liu as Oren-Ishi cuts Boss Tanaka’s head off (and there ensues an interesting speech from the top of the table).  It calls to mind Robert De Niro as Al Capone in Brian de Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) where he makes a speech around a big dining table and sums up by beating a guy’s head in with a baseball bat. Yes, women are now bad asses too.  [And that’s not even mentioning the multi-cultural thing which is pretty awesome, too.]

I don’t have any special opinion about the fact that the precipitating factor is her becoming pregnant although I’m sure some would argue that this is a legitimate way to a) show that since she has to now be in charge of someone else she gains some sense of agency which she lacked before and b) it emphasizes the nature of her conflict in a specifically female way.  Of course this all begs questions like:  What is the opposite of a feminist film?  What makes feminist motives different from non-feminist motives?  Can this film be judged by the same standard as any other film starring a male hero?  I would only suggest you watch Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012) before you try to answer those kinds of questions.

Tarantino’s obvious paeans to anime, martial arts films, samurai warriors, heros in general, comic books, specific film genres, musical styles and other known favorites are found in these films and it is a testament to his deft handling that whether you are aware of them or not, the appealing sequences are worthy of study as short films on their own.  Like Pulp Fiction, the story is told in a nonlinear fashion; however, Tarantino has title cards which are a considerable help in keeping the chronology straight.  Finally one more reason these films are for me in a class by themselves is that they work so well as one story told in two episodes.  If you have time watch them in one sitting.  If not, try to keep the time between them as short as possible.

I don’t have much to say in the way of how Tarantino’s often over-the-top treatment of violence might offend some people however, in this film it is done to such an effect that it approaches comedy and frankly I couldn’t stop myself from laughing several times. (This might be why I can watch Tarantino’s films over and over but I can hardly stomach any of Oliver Stone’s movies more than once.  If you want to complain about violence then feel free to dismiss Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick, too as I’m okay with that since I feel Tarantino belongs in their company anyway.)

The Kill Bill films were produced by Lawrence Bender.  The other Bender-Tarantino pictures which I highly recommend are Reservoir Dogs (1992, starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney and Michael Madsen), Pulp Fiction (1994) [see my earlier review], and Inglorious Basterds (2009, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Michael Fassbender among others, including narration by Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel).

Kill Bill stars Uma Thurman (nominated as Best Actress for a Golden Globe), David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Viveca A. Fox, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama, Shin’ichi Chiba and Chia Hui-Liu among many talented others). The film was nominated for five BAFTA’s including Best Actress (Uma Thurman), Best Editing, Best Film Music, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

Running Times:  Kill Bill Volume 1 is 111 Minutes; Kill Bill Volume 2 is 136 Minutes

A Favorite Quote:  “That woman deserves her revenge and we deserve to die.” (Michael Madsen as Budd) 

A Sentimental Favorite:  “You and I have unfinished business!” (Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo, AKA The Bride, AKA Black Mamba)