l.a. confidential Tagged Articles at Cinematical

YouTube was being spectacularly unhelpful today -- I wanted the clip when James Cromwell drops the Rollo Tomasi bombshell on Guy Pearce, because I constantly rewind it trying to figure out how Pearce achieved a mix of knowing horror and blase innocence. What I found was this short bit, so I'm making do.

Admittedly, it is my favorite scene in the movie which probably makes me a terrible person -- but Russell Crowe breaking that chair is the definition of tough. Bud White is rarely a name that comes up on the list of greatest badasses (it's always John McClane, Darth Vader, Rambo) which is a terrible oversight that pop culture should rectify immediately ... before he decides to play one-in-six again.

There's a pretty informative story about how, after getting the gig to adapt his own novel The Cider House Rules, John Irving sat down feeling fairly confident, thinking something to the effect that "Hey, all I have to do is re-type who people are, what they do and what they say -- this'll be a breeze ..." and, after doing that with his novel, found he had enough screenplay pages ... for a nine-hour film. Adaptations are tough: What do you leave in, what do you leave out? Is fidelity the only true measure of worth, or can carefully-made changes actually improve the film version of a book? Below are some of my picks for the best adapted screenplays of the past ten years; as ever, this list is wildly subjective, and our ever-hungry comments section awaits your picks. ...

1) Jackie Brown (1997)

A great example of how tweaking a good book can make it even better -- Quentin Tarantino's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch moved the setting from one coast to another, changed the race of one of the leads -- and, by ignoring such petty details, wound with a film that completely nails the talky, criminal, human spirit of Elmore Leonard's amazing body of work. Leonard's work also gave Tarantino the first grown-up story he's ever worked with, and Tarantino stepped up to the plate and delivered -- as fond as I am of Pulp Fiction's incendiary inventions, I still think Jackie Brown is the better actual film.

2) Children of Men (2006)

Another case where the screenwriters modified much of the book to the improvement of the story -- P.D. James's novel takes place over a period of months, while Curaron's film speeds by over a few days like a fever-dream nightmare. There are other changes, too (Clive Owen's lead is no longer related to England's all-powerful Big Brother, but, instead, Danny Huston's minor functionary), but the decision to strip Children of Men down to a few nightmare days was incredibly insightful -- and made for an adaptation that works as an amazing film.

Putting together last week's list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.

So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"

Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list:

Even though I hated his Miami Vice movie, I still consider myself a fan of Michael Mann's work, and I continue to look forward to whatever he delivers next. And it looks like his next will be something to really, really look forward to. Variety reports that Mann will direct a film noir about a Hollywood murder investigation and that Leonardo DiCaprio is expected to play the detective. The project, which was packaged by CAA, is currently being shopped around to the studios with a script written by John Logan.

The film will take place in the 1930s on the MGM lot and will apparently feature cameos from people like Judy Garland and Bugsy Siegel (people playing them, anyway). The plot will likely follow the detective as he is hired by the studio to clean up a scandal involving a starlet who may or may not have murdered her husband. The only other part of the script that has been revealed is that there will be a major shootout that takes place in the Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. Despite the fact that no studio is yet confirmed (New Line has been revealed to have bid, but too low), the film will start shooting in February.

There can never be too many period noirs set in Hollywood, which had a lot of interesting scandals during the golden era, but after the failure of The Black Dahlia some studios may be hesitant to think there's a chance for another L.A. Confidential. Still, with Mann, DiCaprio and Logan teamed up -- they all worked together on The Aviator, which Mann produced -- it will be difficult to lose with this film.

This is my third post this week on dueling projects. I could say something about bad things coming in threes, but that just doesn't make sense when discussing competing pairs. Plus, dueling projects are not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, the latest is that two separate sequels to L.A. Confidential may be in the works. Sounds pretty good to me.

We told you about one of the sequels, an adaptation of James Ellroy's White Jazz starring George Clooney, back in October. Now, TMZ has word that another film, which won't be an adaptation of any source, is also being planned. This one will supposedly feature the cast (Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, specifically) as well as the writer and the director (Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson, respectively) of L.A. Confidential and will pick up where that film's story left off.

Considering White Jazz should have little to do with the characters from L.A. Confidential, there is no reason both projects can't exist. Surely there will be some protest from Warner Bros., the studio that released the original film and is releasing, through Warner Independent, White Jazz. The more direct sequel from Hanson will be set up at 20th Century Fox. Regency Enterprises, which produced the original film and which was formerly based at Warner and is now based at Fox, presumably still owns the rights to the L.A. Confidential characters.