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 Three)

Part One Gosford Park, etcetera
Part Two The Maltese Falcon, etcetera
...and now we conclude the countdown of the best whodunnits in honor of the impending release of the all star mystery Knives Out.

by Eurocheese

2. Memento
I know Christopher Nolan isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – fair enough. Whodunnits are essentially excuses to get inside the head of a killer. To start with a murder, realize the killer can’t trust his own thoughts , and try to put together who is pulling the strings in his mind… what an impressive conceit to thrill die hard mystery fans. Disorienting the audience in every scene while cutting in clips of a paranoid, trapped man trying to piece together his memories, without giving anything away? I have to believe Agatha Christie herself would applaud the finale...

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Noirvember: L.A. Confidential (1997)

It's Noirvember. Here's Lynn Lee...

For a film set in the ’50s, L.A. Confidential (1997) looks and feels surprisingly contemporary.  Maybe it’s because so many of its themes still resonate today: police brutality (especially against racial minorities), broken Hollywood dreams, and the addictiveness of celebrity and power.  Maybe it’s because so much of the film is shot and lit in a more naturalistic, less stylized manner than your typical hardboiled crime movie, which makes the more obviously noir-ish sequences really pop by contrast.  But I think what distinguishes it most from its classic forbears is that it ends up being less memorable for its atmosphere or its plot twists than its character development of not one detective-protagonist but three, whose parallel narrative lines end up converging over the course of the film.

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Curtis Hanson (1945-2016)

Director Curtis Hanson passed away yesterday at the age of 71. Word is that Alzheimer had forced a retirement five years ago.

Eminem won a Song Oscar for his collaboration with Curtis Hanson in "8 Mile"

Hanson's brush with A list "prestige" was brief (3 Oscar nominations for producing, co-writing, and directing the much-admired LA Confidential) but his career was a fine example of versatile craftsmanship. He served as an important reminder that there's more to directing than auteurial stamps...

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Visual Index ~ L.A. Confidential's Best Shot(s)

It's Tuesday night, time for another Hit Me With Your Best Shot. This week we're looking at Curtis Hanson's 1997 Best Picture nominee L.A. Confidential, which was nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Cinematography (Dante Spinotti) both of which it lost to the 52,000 ton Titanic. But it's a lot of people's idea of a modern masterpiece so I was fascinated to read what others had to say about the movie.

See it through multiple sets of eyeballs, in this case 17 of them by clicking on any of the thirteen shots selected ... and please do comment if you like something you read. The series only works properly when people participate. 

BEST SHOT(s)
Arranged in rough chronological order

Making news just like they make movies...
-Coco Hits NY 

Opened up and unnervingly close at one and the same time...
-Timothy Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy

At its heart, Curtis Hanson's stylish exercise in film noir tropes is a reflection on manhood and masculinity...
-RJ, Home Film Schooled 

A clever tip of the hand, although not an overly obvious one...
-Allison Tooey 

A turning point for the character...
- Andy Hall, Three Pounds Lost 

The birth of Shotgun Ed reveals a confident directorial eye...
-CineMunch 

Just as I became disillusioned, my shot would reflect the disillusionment of Ed Exley...
-abstew, The Film's The Thing 

Is it possible to pinpoint the exact moment when a performance wins an Oscar?...
-Michael Cusumano, Serious Film 

Despite the cool dusky warmth, Bud still walks in haunted noir shadows... 
-Nathaniel R, The Film Experience

One of my favorite moments in Kevin Spacey’s career...
 - Robert Hamer, Awards Circuit 

The rain pours as Bud’s hard-boiled mask crumbles... 
-Derreck Johnson 

That's how you die when you're in close-up...
-Cal Roth 

I'm just the guy they bring in..."
-Intifada 

A live wire, always ready to brawl when necessary...
-Shane Slater, Film Actually 

At any given point, any of them could be on either side...
-Jason Henson, The Entertainment Junkie

After all his moralizing, Exley has rolled in the dirt...
-Margaret, We Recycle Movies 

One of the reasons I love this shot is that it really fleshes out the character of Bud White...
-A Fistful of Films 

NEXT THREE FILMS - THE SCHEDULE