The Black Dahlia
2006 dir. Brian De Palma






This isn't just the worst movie of the year so far...this may be the worst movie Brian De Palma has ever made, and that's saying something. That's counting "Snake Eyes," "Raising Cain" AND "Mission to Mars."

Generally, you give four stars for a movie: one for acting, one for cinematography, one for writing and one for editing and overall presentation.

This is a one star film. Some of the cinematography is great. Most is okay. Some is laughably bad. The acting goes from passable to terrible. Where the writing isn't painfully languid, it's muddled. As for storytelling, well, the film kind of meanders around for an hour and a half with no sense of anything being at stake and then kicks into high gear for a shrug-inducing third act wrapup of multiple plot elements, some of which were not even INTRODUCED during the dilauded-inspired first two acts.

The only stand-out performance is Fiona Shaw as the drunken society matron. Her high-camp drag-queen performance pulls the film awkwardly, but with some refreshing humor, into "Mommie Dearest" territory.

Oh, and note to Brian de Palma: first person cameras were edgy and experimental in the 70s but today they just make the audience think they're playing Doom. When the main character's evidence collection at the site of the murder is shot this way, I'm thinking "switch to your shotgun and shoot into the closet...there's a bile demon in there!"

And note to Ellroy: if you anticipate that your book is going to be made into a movie, try to pick character names a little more distincitve from each other than "Bleichert" and "Blanchard." It's hard enough to care about these people without their names sounding exactly the same. That's like naming all your characters 'Roy' for no reason...friends often have the same name, but it's not always the best literary choice.

See, here you have a movie about one of the most sensational murders in modern American history. A killing which, at the time and even now, has inpired conspiracy theories and public dread. Elizabeth Short is the ultimate Hollywood enigma: failed actress, invisible even to those around her until she is brutally murdered, at which point she is burned into Hollywood history forever. She is the lacerated metaphor for how LA (especially Ellroy's LA) will fucking eat you, fucking alive and that's what we all love about it.

But the movie captures almost none of this. We see very little public interest or even reaction to the killing. We see very little of the political mechanations of the investigation. LA Confidential struck a great balance between real gumshoe police work and law enforcement image-management...and it was at its brilliant BEST when it showed that these two things are not mutually exclusive.

But in The Black Dahlia, we barely get sense that Elizabeth Short's murder mattered to anyone except a handful of primary characters.

And, like the book, the movie leaves itself painted into a corner: you must have cops solve the case to pay off the story, but the case was never solved so the cops must find the truth and choose to bury it.

This problem has been solved time and again in films, usually with a nice piece of "conflict of duties" melodrama. I won't spoil it, but let's just say that if this is what you're hoping for, you should manage your expectations a little.

One star. Jason sez this one isn't even worth a punchline.

The Libertine
2004 dir. Laurence Dunmore

"I am John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, and I do not want you to like me."

There's small chance of that. Johnny Depp's Earl of Rochester is one of the most unlikable characters in recent film history, which is not to say unwatchable or uninteresting, but purely unlikable.

There are other charismatic villains, to be sure, but few are played for such downright loathsomeness as the title character in the Libertine.

On the surface, this story is pitched as a battle of wills between an inveterate drinker and womanizer, a scandalous, atheistic teller of truth and the forces of social hipocrisy that would see him silenced. We've seen these stories before: the noble artist speaking truth to power which strikes back by exploiting his personal weaknesses.

But that's not quite what you get here. The Second Earl, for all his scandal, was not in the end a very accomplished man. He died young, having spent much of his youth flailing in the British court and writing insulting plays about Charles II. Your run of the mill high school YouTube blogger basically has more to say.

No, this film is a study in pretense, on the part of both society AND the Earl.

Cynicism is the enemy of passion, and the Earl claims both as central to his nature. But where cynicism and passion reign in equal parts, no worthwhile crop can grow and for the poor unfortunate soul trapped between these poles, the best one can hope for is a kind of stasis or slow deterioration.

Depp's Libertine is the original rebel without a cause. Charles is a pompous boor, but not a tyrant by any means and he gives Wilmot opportunity after opportunity, favor after favor. The women in Wilmot's life are, without exception, loving, honorable and supportive...even his wife who must endure his snide apathy.

In the end, Rochester is consumed not by society's hipocrisy, but from within by the consequences of his own actions. As he falls into a wretched state, the words which sounded so bold and enticing coming from a healthy, youthful man with clear skin take on a pathetic air of revulsion. His hissing, syphilitic boasts of sexual conquest should be required viewing in any "abstinence-only" sex ed program. The wages of sin are made as visible here as in Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Grey.'

And for all the Libertine's boasting, the character who truly embodies his stated values is the actress, Elizabeth. She will be no man's wife. She sees no dishonor in prostitution so long as the market is so widely indulged. She refuses to surrender the passion in her life, acting, despite it's emotional difficulty and lack of subtantial reward. She is no cynic, and this is what the Earl finds so appealing. In his place, she would achieve the greatness he never could.

And he knows it.


Brilliant performances all around. Fantastic directing by first-timer Laurence Dunmore. The combination of "Barry Lyndon"-esque natural light with a "Matrix"-like cold green color palette really brings out the sense of a country rotting from within, with the Earl festering like a kidney stone.

Only quibble is with some of the makeup. John Malkovich's prosthetic nose borders on the laughable in a few scenes, but this is only a quibble.

Three and a half stars. Gaius Jason sez he does not want you to like it.