Kevin wrote:
"They may not be MALTESE FALCON/CHINATOWN good, but several
(some mentioned by Jim, some not), including TWILIGHT, NIGHT
MOVES, THE CONVERSATION, THE DROWNING POOL, WHERE'S MARLOWE?,
LOVE AT LARGE, MEMENTO and THE TWO JAKES have their
defenders."
Ah, Night Moves!
Is it just a coincidence that several of these star Gene
Hackman? I'd never thought of Conversation as a PI movie, but
on reflection, that's exactly what it is, he's just a PI who
specializes in eavesdropping. It's not too far behind
Chinatown on my list of favorite movies of all time. I
actually prefer it to the two Coppola films that bookend it,
the Godfathers I and II.
I was kinda disappointed in Where's Marlowe? A friend had
highly recommended it. And it stars Miguel Ferrer, a guy I
always thought had cynical PI attitude to spare, so I was
looking forward to seeing him actually play one. However, the
movie never decided if it was a postmodern deconstruction of
the documentary film process or of the PI genre, so it failed
at both goals. Worse yet, it wasn't nearly as funny as it
thought it was. Still, I must admit there were a lot of good
bits, not the least of which was that the filmmakers' first
documentary looked at how LA got its water, just as Chinatown
did.
Mark
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