Shane Black and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang/The Long Kiss Goodnight

This is designed to make all the bloggers out there jealous. An evening with two Shane Black films and Shane Black himself. Since it is the Christmas Season, it only seems appropriate that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the main feature here. If you haven't had enough of the question whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, get ready for the encore with this sour seasoned greeting. It is a delicious mixture of violence, comedy and tragedy, all told around the Christmas Holiday. It will certainly not be everyone's favorite pudding, but it will make a lot of people laugh at the holiday season and remember why they hate the holidays.

I love seeing films at the Egyptian and the American Cinematique has created some great programming for the month of December, including a new 70mm print of Lawrence of Arabia which a certain youngest child and I will most certainly be taking in during the upcoming break. Tonight however is all about the marvelous Robert Downey Jr./Val Kilmer action comedy. Written and directed by Shane Black. 

From the beginning, I was reminded that I love this movie for it's idiosyncrasies. The titles are animated with shadow graphics and in a flash back sequence we see young Harry (The RDJ character) in his magician mode. The second character in this sequence who plays a major role later in the film is a little girl who grows up to be Harmony (the Michelle Monaghan character). That we pass the next twenty years in a few brief seconds is one of the marvels of how movies can be told.

The accidental nature of Harry's arrival in Hollywood and the guilt that trials him sets up the rest of the plot. This is a plot that is pretty complicated and may at times leave some gaps that are never completely filled. The Choice by Black to keep moving forward without lingering too much over the dangling threads is one of the things that keeps the film from getting bogged down in logical consistency at the expense of narrative drive.   When "Gay Perry" is introduced and becomes a foil for Harry for the rest of the film, we get a buddy comedy layered on top of a modern noir. Val Kilmer may not have had as good a role as this in the last fifteen years, and he was great. 

The big question that film fans have concerns what is Black's thing about Christmas. Most of his films are set around the holiday and make explicit references to it. As he explained, "''it's like falling asleep in the back seat of the car with your father driving and singing a tune as the lights flash past your window. It is a feeling of childhood security knowing your Dad is taking care of you. When you get to L/A. The Christmas references are different, a broken figure of a saint or lighting that looks slightly out of place, but it's still Christmas. It's a culturally shared experience." He credits "Three Days of the Condor" with inspiring the Christmas motif in his films. 

Black was modest and honest in describing his freshman directorial effort. He was happy to give credit to improvements in the dialogue to actors who improvised during rehearsal. He also noted that some of the photographic effects were a result of accident rather than planning. He uses the term "running and gunning" as the description of their filming schedule. One person asked if he had plans to film any other movies with different holidays and he joked about his time bomb race against the clock set during Breast Cancer Awareness week. There was also a question about the design of the story being a reverse "Chinatown" where the incest angle is different and not what you think it is going to be. "Every assumption you make is wrong and at the end you are faced with an old man bedridden that you beat on."

The second film on the program was "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and he frankly admitted that he wrote it alone in part as a way of coping with some depression. He was complimentary about director Renny Harlin but admitted there were some things that he would change about the film, which is one of the reasons he wanted to direct himself.



He strongly advised us to stick around for the second feature, which only about a third of the audience did, but we were rewarded with a great over the top serving of 90s action film that featured Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. He debunked the notion that the plot has any 9/11 foreshadowing, as he put it, "it's just a movie."

Both films were on 35mm but Black's parting comment was that 35mm bows in the middle and is fuzzy, so he is happy with digital projection.

Thelma and Louise 25th Anniversay Screening

At some point before this movie opened, I saw a trailer and both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were in a convertible with guns in their hands. At that point, without knowing anything further, I was in. The movie turned out to be a landmark Ridley Scott film that created a media sensation that kept people talking most of the summer. It was nominated for six Academy Awards (though not Best Picture) including nods for the two stars and the director. The end of the film was iconic and much parodied and it still packs a punch today. Although it is a road picture, it also subverts a lot of the traditions of such film stories.

I understand how it is seen as a feminist picture. The subject of how men relate to women in contrast to the way women relate to each other is explored in several interesting ways. Thelma's husband Darreyl, played by an excellent Christopher McDonald, is a possessive  but disengaged spouse. He sees only what his wife can do for him or how she effects the way he will be seen. Harlan and J.D. are both exploiters of women. One might be less violent and more polite than the other, but his perception of them is the same, they are target rich environments. Jimmy, a breakout role for Michael Madsen, and Detective Slocum, the surprisingly sympathetic Harvey Keitel , both want to help the women in their crisis but have difficulty understanding why they are being shut out in very different ways. [The next year they would be antagonists Mr. White and Mr. Blonde].

Sarandon is the older more mature of the two friends, and she is the one who is most wounded at the start but we never see it. Louise is a walking functioning example of PTSD. As we get hints about events in her past, her motivations and perceptions become more understandable to us. Legal or not, her actions that start the two off as fugitives would be applauded by most in the audience. Thelma is a tougher specimen to examine. She is all contradictions. She starts off timid, then becomes liberated, and then near catatonic. She says it best towards the end of the movie:

Thelma: "But, umm, I don't know, you know, something's, like, crossed over in me and I can't go back, I mean I just couldn't live."

At some point the empowerment of the two women overwhelms their sense of proportion. The patterns that preceded their adventures become paths they can't avoid. Louise is blinded by her past and Thelma is resentful of it. When people complain about the end of the film, they need to keep that in mind.  Thelma starts her rebellion and freedom from Darryl by simply not asking his permission. Like a teenager, she overdose the vices, drinking to excess, smoking, unencumbered sex and finally robbery. She is acting out against the father figures she sees in her life, especially the unpleasant spouse she has been trapped with. Louise runs because she has been conditioned to do so. She runs from the man who loves her, from the sympathetic police officer that wants to keep her from being killed and mostly she runs from her own past.

There is a star making turn by Brad Pitt in the film. If ever there was an example of lightning striking a career, this is it. He is all charm and hot looks and that is what blinds Thelma to his faults. Louise was suspicious from the beginning but she is that way with nearly everyone. Both women share the lead in making decisions at different points in the film. It's not important which one made which bad choice, what is important is that they are not going to let any man choose for them. That is the subversive message of the film. I am probably blinded by not being a woman, so some of their choices seem plain stupid to me, but that did not mean I was not entertained or fascinated by these women. Twenty-five years ago, I said to my wife when the film was over, "That was a hell of a movie". It's still true.