The New Classics: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

By Michael Cusumano 

The best genre parodies are so full of affection for their targets that they can’t help but make a superior example of the very thing they aim to satirize. It can be fun to throw tomatoes at a genre’s contrivances and cliches from the outside, but titles such as Young Frankenstein or Down With Love circumvent your ironic detachment to provide the far more satisfying experience of playing with these tropes from inside a story you care about. 

This kind of rare pleasure is one of the reasons Shane Black’s crime caper comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has amassed the following it has since it underperformed in theaters back in 2005. Black’s film actually does double satirical duty, lampooning both the world of Raymond Chandler-esque noir and the world of the hyper-masculine, wise-ass body cop action movies of the 80’s and 90’s, a subcategory Black helped to inflate to absurd levels as the big gun screenwriter behind films like Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout...

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Best of the "Whodunnit?" Genre (Part Two)

by Eurocheese

If you missed part one, we're celebreating the whodunnit subgenre since Knives Out is out soon. Last time we listed rules of the genre (not all mystery and investigation films are whodunnits) and sang the praises of Gosford Park and The Thin Man. Now let's continue the list,

6. The Big Sleep
Bogie was bound to show up on this list (spoiler: he will again), and what better way to do it than next to his leading lady Lauren Bacall in her (arguable) career-best role...

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Posterized: Writer/Director Shane Black

Shane Black with Ryan Gosling at the Cannes premiere of Nice Guys this weekSince we've already done "Posterized" episodes on both Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, who co-star together in this weekend's new comedy Nice Guys, let's look at the man behind their bantering bros curtain, Shane Black. The 54 year-old director hit the big time with his very first produced screenplay 29 years ago, the smash hit buddy action flick Lethal Weapon (1987).

He's stuck to the high-concept action/comedy genre like glue thereafter making obscene amounts of cash during the heyday of that genre (the early 90s). If he's not interested in stretching, at least he does them better than most. Eleven years ago he finally moved into the director's chair for the underseen critical darling Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Strangely for a successful creator in a lucrative genre that isn't exactly relegated to the arthouse, he's not been that prolific in his 29 year career. (If you're curious about how it all shook out this old piece at Grantland is a must read)

Boy movies, least of all buddy comedies, aren't a thing TFE is known for so it's a little bit of a curveball today in Posterized but we're curious:  How many of his 8 films have you seen? 

Screenplays: Lethal Weapon (1987), The Monster Squad (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Last Action Hero (1993), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996); Screenplay & Directing: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Nice Guys (2016).

And which is your favorite?

Curio: Type Is All You Need

Alexa here with your weekly art break.  Although film is a medium that makes meaning with images (with "show, don't tell" as a newbie screenwriter's mantra), it can't be denied that the words spoken in some films have taken on a life of their own; movie quotes are simply part of the vernacular. In that spirit, here are some artists that have cleverly distilled a movie down to its words, sometimes with unexpected results.

Kiss Bang Bang by illogicality.   

A Blade Runner moment from Jan Skácelík.

More images after the jump

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