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originally printed 09.21.06 in the Eureka, California newspaper The Times-Standard.
Black Dahlia
An adaptation of James Ellroy's novel about two 1940s L.A. cops who head up the hunt for the killer of starlet Elizabeth Short.
Durant: First off, this movie is classic noir. Not the new noir, like "Pulp Fiction," but the classic straight up 1940s noir. I half expected to see Edward G. Robinson make an appearance.
Josh Hartnett pulled off the naive, younger detective pretty good and "Thank You For Smoking" star Aaron Eckhart nails the veteran cop.
The use of voice over usually gets on my nerves, almost like there's someone sitting right behind me in the theater that won't shut up, but because of the classic noir feel it fits like a corner puzzle piece.
Also there's classic noir lines like "Nothing stays buried forever. Nothing. And something like I've been aiming my gun at a lot of people this week and haven't had the chance to shoot anyone."
But there's parts that aren't classic noir -- the violence. It's graphic, bloody and sounds really, really bad. Best falling scene in a long time.
Brian De Palma did a great job for the first three quarters of the movie, but then it was like he looked at a clock saw his movie was already an hour and 40 minutes long and said "OK, let's just tie everything up, whether it makes sense or not."
My brain still hurts from trying to process all of the information dropped in the last 10 minutes of the film. If I wanted to try and figure out equations like that I'd go sit in on a calculus class at HSU.
Hold on, take the variable, minus the common denominator multiply all loose ends by Y and divide by three = Rating: M
Faulk: About an hour and a half in, I was loving this movie.
As Durant mentioned, it had all the old classic noir characteristics -- the shadows, the investigator, the women of loose morals, the cheesy but somehow entertaining voice overs. But about five minutes later, I was left scratching my head.
Scottish rich men turned pimps? A whacked out gardener named Georgie? A rich and crazy dame with a penchant for clown smiles and lethal garden tools? There's less perversion in my family and we have the patent on freaky behavior.
It all just seemed to collapse from its own weight -- and I know how that feels.
One day the director was happily editing the second act's scenes together when he realized he had two hours of set up and only 15 minutes to end an exceedingly complicated movie. Enter voice overs to save the day. And montages. And music. And more voice overs. And Scarlett Johansson's busom. More busom. Please. More busom.
At the end, I wasn't sure who killed who, why, and when. Bank robbery? What bank robbery? Doppelganger stag film? Just what the hell is going on here?
Rating: M
Don't forget to check out the Fat Guys shelf at the McKinleyville Figueiredo's or our page at www.myspace.com/fatguysonfilm and our show every Saturday at 3 p.m. on 94.1 KSLG.
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