L.A. Confidential

On the list of movies I need to get around to seeing, I finally got around to seeing L.A. Confidential. Based on the book of the same name by James Elloy, L.A. Confidential is set in, surprisingly enough, Los Angeles.

Set in the 1950's, Los Angeles is competing with Chicago and Washington, D.C. to be the most crooked city in America. Not only is their a lot of organized crime, but organized crime within the police department. But then Guy Pearce (Edmund Exley) is promoted to Detective Lt. He has it set in his mind that he's going to do his job the right way and without corrupting influences, much to the chagrin of Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell).

When a disgraced former cop ends up dead, Exley wants to solve the case, but is butting heads with Detect Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) and Officer But White (Russell Crowe). But in this case of cops versus cops, Exley's investigation is turning up more than he bargained for. And he better be careful, because people close to the case start ending up dead.

L.A. Confidential has an all-star cast. In addition to those previously mentioned, Danny DeVito stars as Sid Hudgens, the magazine insider who works with the police for inside tips on hot stories, Kim Basinger, as Lynn Bracken, the love interest of many a man, and David Strathairn as Pierce Patchett, the local pimp lord.

Directed by Curtis Hanson, L.A. Confidential is Rated R for violence, language, violence, sexuality, and violence. The movie is about 2 1/2 hours long, so if you've never seen it make sure you block out a good chunk of time to watch it because you'll be glued to the screen.

I LOVED this movie and would easily watch it again. I'm actually disappointed that I never saw this movie earlier than I did. The movie was nominated for 9 Academy awards, including Best Picture. Kim Basinger won for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland won for Best Adapted Screenplay. Additional nominations were Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Director, Best Art Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.

For the above reasons, I give L.A. Confidential the sparsely distributed 5 Stars.

W.

Anyone that knows me or reads my other blog knows that politically I lean slightly to the right. Okay - a little more than slightly, but that's not the point. When I saw that Oliver Stone was producing a movie about George W. Bush, I could only picture the worst. After all, Old Olly is known for his conspiracy movies and I was a bit afraid that he would pal up with Michael Moore and prove how George W. Bush created Hurricane Katrina and directed it to the 7th Ward in New Orleans.

Stone Cold Oliver is known for his conspiracy movies. Remember JFK, The Doors, Born on the 4th of July, Nixon? Though he has put out some good ones - Platoon, Wall Street. But he's also produced some duds - Camera, Alexander. I've never seen Natural Born Killers, so I cannot comment on that one.

W. stars Josh Brolin as the W. I'll have to admit, he did a good job with the voice. He really did sound like the former President. However, I must admit that on the whole, the acting sucked. Thandie Newton's performance as Condileeza Rice was comical to the point where I really was "LOL". Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell was nearly as bad. James Cromwell, the 9 ft tall thespian, made no attempt to impersonate George H. W. Bush, but that was probably okay. Elizabeth Banks, who I have a slight attraction, did a fair job as Laura Bush, and again, made little attempt to actually impersonate her. Richard Dreyfuss, on the other hand, had perhaps his best performance since Jaws. He portrayed Dick Cheney and portrayed him as we would think of him.

Now, we all know that W is a bit of a doofus. Okay, he's a huge doofus. His grammar is horrible, he stumbles in his speeches, he makes up words, he can't think on his feet. We get that. However, Stone made it a point to get every gaff W's ever said into 2 hours. It was like watching David Letterman's daily Bush-bashing, but not funny. And the result of this is 2 hours of the worst movie ever made. At several points I though about turning the movie off and pouring Tabasco sauce in my eyes - something that would me more enjoyable.

W. is rated PG-13 for piss-poor acting, drug and alcohol references, and a liberal agenda, but more on that in my political blog. The movie is 129 minutes long, but that's 115 minutes too long. I do not recommend this movie. In fact, I recommend that you avoid it at all costs. Go rent some gardening documentaries. You'll get more out of it. I give his piece of junk movie the lowest rating - 1 Star.