L.A. Confidential film

[Johnny Textface]

This is on Netflix just now. I saw it when it came out and remember thinking it was like a classic film. Also, I think reviews at the time were very positive (I was probably influenced by them to an extent being young and just getting into proper films).

Watched it tonight and it seems pretty well made for the most part, and the performances are ok, although Russell Crowe's character doesn't really resemble a human being of any sort. But the script and the camerawork are clunky as fuck. I kept noticing lots of ADR which kept popping me out of the film and making me rewind to confirm.

Not as good as I remember, thoughts?

[Keebleman]

I thought it was a wonderful adaptation of an incredibly dense 500 page novel (which felt like it had been boiled down from a 1500 page original).  The movie took the massively bold step of excising the central character (Guy Pearce's dad) yet never missed him.  Kevin Spacey is badly miscast - George Clooney would have been ideal - and while Kim Basinger is ok I have no idea why she won an Oscar, unless the Academy just felt the film should receive something else big bar screenplay and they were happy to chuck Titanic's Gloria Stuart overboard (ha!) to ensure this.  But that's being pernickity.  It's tight and entertaining and full of quality.  Even Russell Crowe's he-man act doesn't grate.

[mothman]

It's one of those films I seem to have watched so many times I've no interest in seeing again. Easily the high point of Curtis Hanson's directorial career - though, I quite like Wonder Boys; it's also striking how totally 8 Mile seems to have faded from the memory...

[Kermit the Frog]

The Basinger Oscar win is still baffling. It's not like it's a particularly demanding role, or that she does it exceptionally well, nor was it the case that she was a particularly well respected actress who was 'overdue' the award.

[Sebastian Cobb]

i like it, I can never work out how much of the camp/dreamlike/cartoonishness is intentional... but then who cares, who framed rodger rabbit is great.

[Waking Life]

I struggle to talk about this film without comparisons to the book. I did really enjoy it as a distillation of a great book. Hadn't noticed the ADR, although it's very exposition heavy (which is a noir thing anyway) even without the full labyrinthine book plotting.

I did watch it in Netflix with my girlfriend fairly recently (she lost interest) and still enjoyed it, although still think there could be a better version made of the story. Still would like a full HBO treatment of Ellroy from Black Dahlia onwards, although it would still be an epic and the recent books would now be difficult to incorporate.

[H-O-W-L]

I've never seen this but I've heard it's very in the vein of L..A. Noire, one of my favorite underrated games. Does that hold true?

[bgmnts]

I've never seen this but I've heard it's very in the vein of L..A. Noire, one of my favorite underrated games. Does that hold true?

Well it's a neo noir film about three detectives trying to solve interconnected cases with an overarching conspiracy. So sort of? LA Noire is more episodic if memory serves but there are wider conspiracies happening throughout the game.

It's one of the best films ever made anyway. 

[Ignatius_S]

I've never seen this but I've heard it's very in the vein of L..A. Noire, one of my favorite underrated games. Does that hold true?

LA Noire takes a lot of ideas from from LA Confidential and Dragnet. Speaking as a fan of the latte two, I enjoyed how much they influenced the game - that influence could be seen as a homage, others wouldn't be so charitable.

Elements like Cole's backstory and using Ray Pinker as a character, I couldn't see something the developers coming up with independently.

*edit* I should mention that Dragnet was a massive influence on LA Confidential and Ellioy's writing generally. In a reprint of Jack Webb's The Badge, Ellroy said that the book and Webb showed him the way as a writing although in a 'you don't say....' kind of way - if anyone listens to Webb's narration on shows like Dragnet, Pete Kelly's Blues or Pat Nokak For Hire, the staccato style is unmistakably a massive influence on Ellroy's writing.

[Neomod]

LA Noire takes a lot of ideas from from LA Confidential and Dragnet.

and it's soundtrack from Chinatown.

I love both.

[Ignatius_S]

and it's soundtrack from Chinatown.

I love both.

I was just sticking to just the writing! John Buntin's LA Noir is also worth checking out - I found it a little disappointing (e.g. the Cohen vs Parker framing attempt just didn't work and wasn't necessary for a non-fiction and the reviews were a tad generous) but a fairly interesting read.

[dissolute ocelot]

I saw LA Confidential a couple of years ago, and while a lot of it is unbelievable, it's a gripping and entertaining film. And I'm not sure why a film about Hollywood should be believable. Although to be fair it does struggle with tone, with Hanson not entirely sure how seriously to take it: Kevin Spacey appears to be in a slightly different movie than Guy Pearce.

Regarding books, Jon Lewis's Hard-Boiled Hollywood is an interesting non-fiction book, halfway between film studies text and salacious true crime. It covers a lot of seedy topics including the fate of struggling actors like Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia victim) and Barbara Payton (who was notorious for drinking and drug abuse but had a short and fairly awful life), gossip mongers, the blacklist, how Sunset Boulevard relates to the real experience of screenwriters, etc. It's can get a bit pervy with all the glamorous young women suffering horrible things, but also good background info.

[QDRPHNC]

I rewatched this recently. When I first saw it, it would have been a 10 on 10. But with an older and more cynical eye, I'd drop that down to a 7. Still very enjoyable though, and some really great performances. Spacey's role could have been cast better, but I don't think he was a bad choice. He pulled off that Hollywood smarm that separated him from the rest of the cops. I'd also forgotten that Frank Costanza's top computer salesman popped up too.

One of the things that really dates LA Confidental is the way they use the score, which seems more invasive and manipulative than what we're generally used to these days. It's something I've noticed whenever I revisit a movie from that 90s.

Fared better than The Usual Suspects though, I was amazed how much a rewatch dropped that movie in my estimation, but I blathered on about that in another thread a while ago.

Years ago, Ellroy was doing the TV interview rounds because some movie was coming out, can't remember. I stop channel-hopping to watch him and - describing his book - he says, "It's a book for a whole family... if your family is the Manson family." And I though urgh, but of a shit line. Few days later he's on another show. "It's a book for the whole family... if your family is the Manson family." Weeks later, I catch him on TV again. And before the thought, I wonder if he's going to say that stupid... has even left my head, he goes, "It's a book for the whole family... if your family is the Manson family."

Also, there's a bus tour company in LA called Esotouric and they actually run bus tours with Ellroy on board taking you round all these locations that feature in his books. Never been, only found out about it because I briefly worked with the folks who run it.

[colacentral]

I was way ahead of the curve in hating The Usual Suspects from day one.

I thought the score for LA Confidential was intentionally over the top and manipulative to pastiche that era in Hollywood; same with the performances and dialogue.

I also think Spacey is well cast - he's playing a sleaze and that's exactly what he is. It's prescient, really. I haven't read the book, so I'm just taking the character for what's portrayed in the film.

One of the great heel turns, of course. That would make for a good thread, but it would be impossible to avoid spoilers.

[letsgobrian]

i like it, I can never work out how much of the camp/dreamlike/cartoonishness is intentional... but then who cares, who framed rodger rabbit is great.

The book has a major plot thread about the Hollywood animation business that the film drops, so possibly it's going be inherently there in an adaptation even with the material excised.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The book has a major plot thread about the Hollywood animation business that the film drops, so possibly it's going be inherently there in an adaptation even with the material excised.

Ah right I didn't know that, would you say the book is worth reading then?

[Blumf]

I like it, very enjoyable to watch, but would never venture above a 8/10 in scoring it.

For those that have read the book, could you make another film out of the dropped plots?

Shame about The Black Dahlia.

[mothman]

Coming off the back of Usual Suspects and Se7en, Spacey was very much flavour of the month and so his casting in what is basically a secondary role makes sense given the two male leads are then-unknown Australian actors and the female lead was regarded as a bit of a joke.

Thinking about it, Basinger never really capitalised on the career revival you'd think this'd've given her...

[greenman]

Really I think the same problem with a lot of mid 90's Hollywood that its just rather too bland.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Anyone seen Romeo Is Bleeding? It came out a few years earlier and has Roy Schneider, Gary Oldman, Sydney Bristow's mum from Alias and Juliette Lewis in it. It got panned as a hacky pastiche at the time but I watched it fearing the worst a while back and it was basically fine.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Love it, having seen it about five times although haven't seen it in a few years so due a rewatch.

I remember reading an interview with James Ellroy where he was full of praise for Guy Pearce, said he nailed the character perfectly. The interviewer kept asking him what he thought of Russell Crowe but he kept avoiding answering. Asked him one last time as the interview ended and he just replied "Guy Pearce was great". I thought Crowe was excellent but haven't read the book and clearly didn't jive with Ellroy.

[jobotic]

Inferior to the book by a long shot but nevertheless not bad
..

James Cromwell is perfect as Dudley Smith, just as I pictured him when I read the novels he appears in. Would have loved to have seen more with him as Smith, one of the great fucking evil bastards, lad.

[bgmnts]

Seriously the opening few minutes of Danny De Vito's narration, setting up the story to Hit the Road to Dreamland us probably my favourite film introduction sequence. It's absolutely perfect.

And Spacey's response to why he became a cop became just a simple choked up "I don't remember."

Fucking amazing.

[Egyptian Feast]

I remember reading an interview with James Ellroy where he was full of praise for Guy Pearce, said he nailed the character perfectly. The interviewer kept asking him what he thought of Russell Crowe but he kept avoiding answering. Asked him one last time as the interview ended and he just replied "Guy Pearce was great". I thought Crowe was excellent but haven't read the book and clearly didn't jive with Ellroy.

He said he didn't rate Crowe and especially not Spacey at a Q&A I attended when 'Perfidia' came out. I think Crowe was perfectly cast, so would've been interested in hearing who he'd have casted, but he moved on to other subjects and when I spoke to him afterwards, he was only interested in amusingly slagging off David Peace.

For those that have read the book, could you make another film out of the dropped plots?

Not really. The Dreamland stuff and the serial killer plot are too tied into the main story to really work on their own, though the former could possibly be reworked into something interesting.

James Cromwell is perfect as Dudley Smith, just as I pictured him when I read the novels he appears in. Would have loved to have seen more with him as Smith, one of the great fucking evil bastards, lad.

I picture him as more of a brick shithouse than the wiry Cromwell, though he does a great job (despite being given that cringy line about how he wouldn't want to be in Exley's shoes when White catches up to him "for all the whiskey in Ireland").

[Ignatius_S]

Anyone seen Romeo Is Bleeding? It came out a few years earlier and has Roy Schneider, Gary Oldman, Sydney Bristow's mum from Alias and Juliette Lewis in it. It got panned as a hacky pastiche at the time but I watched it fearing the worst a while back and it was basically fine.

A big factor it got panned was to do with the weight of (unrealistic) expectations. It was a film project that was being mooted for quite a while that a huge of buzz around it in Hollywood and something that lots of people wanted to be involved with - lots of high hopes, which didn't pan out. Alex Cox made some interesting observations about how this happens in the industry when citing Romeo Is Bleeding in relationship to another film - possibly, Day of the Locust, which various directors were mad on adapting and everyone thought was going to be an 'important' thing. Interestingly (well, to me) Romeo Is Bleeding is directed by Peter Medak, who replaced Cox on Let Him Have It.

Personally, I think one of the issues was it being part of the neo-noir scene - lots of hype, but with a tendency for attempting to compensate a lack of substance with slapping on style with a trowel. There was a lovely review of a re-issue of Detour in Sight and Sound that commented how much the teams behind neo-noir could learn from the film and a better understanding of noir in general (e.g. it's .

I quite liked Romeo Is Bleeding but even with exceedingly tempered expectations, it was a disappointing and frustrating watch. Have meant to get around getting a copy though...

[Ignatius_S]

He said he didn't rate Crowe and especially not Spacey at a Q&A I attended when 'Perfidia' came out. I think Crowe was perfectly cast, so would've been interested in hearing who he'd have casted, but he moved on to other subjects and when I spoke to him afterwards, he was only interested in amusingly slagging off David Peace...

Yeah, I thought Crowe was fantastically cast - and gave a wonderful performance. It's a role that relies on physicality and thought he was perfect.

And ah, to hear that slagging off...

...Not really. The Dreamland stuff and the serial killer plot are too tied into the main story to really work on their own, though the former could possibly be reworked into something interesting...

Absolutely - and personally, I would struggle to see why to use them in something else. One reason I think that the film was so good is that they did a great job in deciding what needed to go - I'm a big fan of this in adaptations and think one reason so many are problematic is that they try to incorporate too much.

I picture him as more of a brick shithouse than the wiry Cromwell, though he does a great job (despite being given that cringy line about how he wouldn't want to be in Exley's shoes when White catches up to him "for all the whiskey in Ireland").

Cromwell is very different physically to how Smith is portrayed in the books - a physically imposing, very large man - but gives a great performance that really captures the character.

[Ignatius_S]

Coming off the back of Usual Suspects and Se7en, Spacey was very much flavour of the month and so his casting in what is basically a secondary role makes sense given the two male leads are then-unknown Australian actors and the female lead was regarded as a bit of a joke.

Thinking about it, Basinger never really capitalised on the career revival you'd think this'd've given her...

At the time - and would argue things haven't changed much since - Hollywood isn't exactly known for great leading roles for females over 40 years old.

[The Culture Bunker]

Cromwell is very different physically to how Smith is portrayed in the books - a physically imposing, very large man - but gives a great performance that really captures the character.

I suppose you can ask who could have played it as a mountain of a man that was around at the time - Cromwell is at least very tall. If they were making it now, they'd could cast Dave Bautista and I wouldn't be surprised if he did a good job of it.

[mothman]

At the time - and would argue things haven't changed much since - Hollywood isn't exactly known for great leading roles for females over 40 years old.

True. But there are some; it seems others already had the market cornered...

[zomgmouse]

Hush Hush!