"He's harmless! He just likes to touch dead things!"

[cleolinda]

So... we just got back from The Black Dahlia, and... I seriously have no idea what happened in that movie. Like, I mean, I think I understand, you don't have to explain it to me, but I don't think I realized how very, very well L.A. Confidential was made until I saw this one. Because L.A. Confidential, I could follow most of that. Even when they lost me at one point and I wasn't sure exactly what the conspiracy was, I understood what the end goal was supposed to be. This one, it was like, there was boxing and then there were riots and then there was more boxing and Scarlett Johansson was hot, but kind of wooden, and she and Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart had some kind of ménage à trois, except Aaron Eckhart was too dumb to realize it, and then suddenly he went crazy-go-nuts over the Black Dahlia thing, and Scarlett's all like, "Well, he did have that sister of his murdered back in the day, and sometimes the lambs still scream at night," and then Hilary Swank was Irish!Katharine Hepburn and her family was so very, very crazy, and Aunt Petunia was wrong in the head, y'all, and there was lesbian porn and then a big musical number with k.d. lang and then Aaron Eckhart got, like, choked and garroted and slashed and shot and dropped on a pointy fountain and crushed by a falling anvil and then they scraped up what was left and burned it, and Josh Hartnett took some time out from sleeping with Hilary Swank to have emo monkey griefsex with Scarlett Johansson and then it turned out that everyone in Hilary Swank's family killed the Dahlia. Like, I think they took turns, and there were scary clown paintings. And then Aunt Petunia shot herself in the brain with a tiny, tiny revolver. Also, Josh Hartnett is very tall. And by the end of the movie, I really liked listening to him monologue. It was kind of like Sin City, only in color, and with fewer castrations. But twice as many lesbians.

Comments

[hyperactivegirl.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAhahahahahahahahaha


this made my night.

Seriously.

And would you mind if I took the last few sentences of this and made it into a moving text icon, if i credited you for it? The, "And then Aunt Petunia shot herself in the brain with a tiny, tiny revolver. Also, Josh Hartnett is very tall. And by the end of the movie, I really liked listening to him monologue. It was kind of like Sin City, only in color, and with fewer castrations. But twice as many lesbians. " made me happy. :)

Also, I'm so so sorry for your loss. *hug*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, go for it.

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

Now, really, that does sound like the best movie ever.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I only wish it were actually as good as it sounds.

[akathorne.livejournal.com]

I didn't really want to see this until I read your summary. It sounds quite mad.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Any time Fiona Shaw was there, the movie was absolutely nuts. That, and the part where Aaron Eckhart got killed fifteen different ways.

[vampirepig13.livejournal.com]

Absolutely typical hard-boiled neo-noir. Friggin' loved it.

[vampirepig13.livejournal.com]

To defend myself, since I seem to be the only one enthralled...
Noir fiction has never been regarded as brilliant writing, and the movie is the parallel. It wasn't great, but the images were enough to give you nightmares make you want to learn more about Beth Short...A winner, in my book. And the detective-y metaphors? C'mon. That's just hot.

I think Scarlett Johansson played the typical genre blonde rather well. All the women played the genre part well...Of course, I hate that they're written that way sometimes, but it's still good.

The Black Dahlia will never be a really amazing movie, and it's verysad, because she tried so hard to be a star. Perhaps it's a Hollywood curse: Her murder ruined her attempts at stardom forever, and not just while she was alive.

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

...so I might see this now.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Funny how that all sort of makes a twisted kind of sense in the Ellroy novel, but comes off as The Crazy in the movie.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I really think having hundreds of pages of context would really, really help the story--that is, the book probably *does* work. Because I kept forgetting that Nash and DeWitt were two separate people, for some reason, and kept getting confused about who the hell everyone was supposed to be.

[kismeteve.livejournal.com]

I wanted to like it, I really did. It was just so awkwardly constructed and the audience I was in was laughing. Just laughing at it. Hanson did a much better job adapting Ellroy.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Okay, honestly: "THE END" came up on screen and someone behind us yelled, "Thank God!" I think any time there's a noir story with some kind of conspiracy in the plot, there's going to be a requisite amount of confusion. But at least with Hanson, I *thought* I knew what was going on, even if towards the end it was more like, "So then something something DUDLEY! IT WAS DUDLEY!" Or whatever James Cromwell's name was. This one, it was like, Josh Hartnett is shooting antiques and Hilary Swank is cuddling up to her not-father and Aaron Eckhart apparently knew about all of this. Or not. Or maybe. At some point. What?

[lonesomepioneer.livejournal.com]

It was kind of like Sin City, only in color, and with fewer castrations. But twice as many lesbians.

SOLD. *checks local theaters for showtimes*

[whisperwords.livejournal.com]

...oh my god, I heard the movie was terrible but your REVIEW is brilliant. *cracks up*

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

You sounded like my daughter - on sugar - and caffeine.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

It's a few years since I've read the book, but I had many many "where the fuck did that come from moments" of which I'm sure some were justified.

Like... I'm sure Blanchard's found in a shallow grave in Mexico in a really icky scene. Not garroted/slashed/shot/stabbitied/anviled/burnt (the last bit made NO SENSE to me) in what must be cinema's definitive example of overkill. Purely because that pretty much is the definition.

And what's the idea with the case being solved. Isn't the whole point that the real Black Dahlia case has never been solved? Isn't that the very meaning of "unsolved murder" surely? And the book being Ellroy's valediction for his mother's unsolved murder? Except... wiki is telling me that the book does solve the case. I thought I could remember there being some solution, but that it was wrong, and you realise at the end that there's police corruption (in an Ellroy book? Never!) and the solution isn't really right and... I think I need to read the book again.

The film looked gorgeous, but I was actually seriously annoyed with the way it was shot. Stylistically it was just wrong wrong wrong. So jarring.

And the little musical sting that shared the first four notes with the theme from LA Confidential... I can see what they were trying to do there, but it was really irritating because I know that score so well and the music kept flying off in the wrong direction.

I didn't go in there expecting to like it as much as LA Confidential. Of course I wasn't going to. It's my favourite film for so very many reasons that I just can't put into words. But I didn't expect to be left quite so confused, despite having read the story and knowing what was going on. I found the beginning especially harsh - you were thrown into the boxing and the zoot suit riots and it just went bam bam BAM without letting you work out what the hell was happening. There's a time and a place for that kind of film-making, but it's not here.

I would seriously recommend reading the quartet (and then moving onto his other books) despite the whacked-outness of this adaptation. They are deeply compelling books. Ellroy's style is very... clipped (which somehow suits crime fiction) and it can take a little while to get used to. The books are highly graphic though, as a warning. I don't think you'd have trouble with this Cleo, but I still consider it a warning to give.

(Incidentally - the film of LA Confidential is SO MUCH clearer and less convoluted and generally easier to understand than the book. Which just makes my brain want to explode. I seriously applaud Hanson and Helgeland for the job they did trying to find a 2 hour film out of the most tangled web of plot threads I've ever seen - that's middle-child of a trilogy to boot!)

[duncanatrix.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Blanchard? Bleichart SEES HIM DIE. In LOS ANGELES. WTF.

It doesn't go by the book particularly well and it CERTAINLY isn't historically accurate.

[ahsirakh.livejournal.com]

So... M15M?

*opportunist*

[ravenofthejade.livejournal.com]

Would this summary be a movie in less than five minutes? XD

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say that about sums it up. I saw this movie and...it tried, I really think it did, but so much went wrong. I guess my main problem was the pacing: it took forever to get to the actual murder around which the movie was supposed to focus, but then it sped up, and people started dropping like flies.

Your summary, however, is made of Win. I particularly like "then it turned out that everyone in Hilary Swank's family killed the Dahlia. Like, I think they took turns, and there were scary clown paintings." HEE.

[duncanatrix.livejournal.com]

Augh dammit. I just submitted a long, long, long, detailed, ridiculous spoiler to The Movie Spoiler and TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE DEAD SISTER THING. Oh well, I guess we shall have to live without.

But if the spoiler by Amy or BroadwayBabe gets posted, that's mine! And it would be my third, ooooh. I heart The Movie Spoiler.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

You had me at Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart and Menage a Trois *g*

[alpheratz.livejournal.com]

OT, but Fiona Shaw is so unpleasant as Aunt Petunia, and then I saw her on a HP extra once, and she turned out to have the most charming smile and laugh. I've been crushing since.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Fiona Shaw is awesome. *nods emphatically*

[derangeddarling.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was one of the people that was laughing. I seriously couldn't help it at some parts (like Scarlett's outburst, "she looks like that dead girl!")

Like you said, I really wanted it to be a really good movie, but I didn't think it was. But I do think it might be a Bad Movie I Like. Not a Bad Movie I Really Like exactly, but still. Maybe one I'll pick up when it's on the $10 rack at Target. Just because even though I know it's not supposed to be, I think it's really funny, and it would cheer me up on bad days. ^.^

[arielchan.livejournal.com]

Dude. Is that an Alanna-puff in your icon?

[theendofallthat.livejournal.com]

Fiona Shaw kicked my ass in this movie. I hearted her. She was the only good part.

when the movie was almost over and Josh turns to see the Dahlia's body on ScarJo's front lawn--the audience lost it. I turned to my friend and said, "Really? Really? Was that necessary?!" so bad.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

It actually freaked me out, that part, except that the crow sent it over the top. The part that just killed me, though, in terms of hilarity, was when Scarlett followed him to Hilary's house, and the camera's like, "Scarlett! Scarlett! SCARLETT!!"

(I adore your icon, btw.)

[mycenae.livejournal.com]

I reread the book, planning to see the movie, and at first I couldn't remember who the killer was, and then I thought it was Madeline and then I couldn't remember again and finally I got to the end and remembered why I'd forgotten in the first place. It makes NO SENSE. So, yeah, not surprised the movie is confusing and weird. k.d. lang isn't in the book.

L.A. Confidential was a great book, and completely worth reading even if you've seen the movie. The adaptation is doubly amazing once you've read the book, because they basically said, "Let's take about 1/3 of what's here and do a movie from that." The feel for the main characters is perfect in the movie, so it was kinda fun reading the book, realizing I had no clue what was going to happen, and getting to imagine the actors in all these new and different scenes.

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm thinking I probably don't want to see Black Dahlia. I love noir, and I love LA Confidential, but um. If it's really as much of a mess as it seems like? Don't think it's gonna usurp Ed Wood for my #2 movie spot. (LA Confidential is #1)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah... catch Black Dahlia on cable. While you're drinking. That's probably the best way to see it.

[queenmabwords.livejournal.com]

But in a good way?
I'm interested in the story, but not too interested in seeing the movie. Maybe I'll read the books about it.

[georgie21.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I still don't get the Clown Paintings. Or why that movie needed so much lesbian sex.

[careyleah.livejournal.com]

I think "more lesbian sex" is pretty much DePalma's motto.

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

since elizabeth short is from my hometown (she lived three blocks away from me, and when i was in high school the city put up a plaque near what was her home), i know i'm going to cave and see this. and then i know i will hate myself for it.

[lilitou.livejournal.com]

I wanted so badly for this to be a good movie. The actual murder case is fascinating, so while I've never read Ellroy's novel, I had really high hopes for this movie. Now I'm totally not even going to see it. Sigh.

[manasseh.livejournal.com]

and then Aaron Eckhart got, like, choked and garroted and slashed and shot and dropped on a pointy fountain and crushed by a falling anvil and then they scraped up what was left and burned it

So... Aaron Eckhart = Rasputin? All that's missing is a beheading.