Chinatown or LA Confidential?

They have certainly been linked as "deep think" period Los Angeles crime thrillers, but Chinatown is set in the 30's and LA Confidential is set in the 50's -- imagine the difference between LA Confidential (set in the 50's) and a movie set in the 70's.

So, we're talking different eras entirely between Chinatown and LAC, but folks just group them together anyway. Which is right -- and fine.

And this: Chinatown is about a private eye; LAC is about working cops. There's a difference there, too -- though certainly Jake Gittes, an ex-cop, is always dealing with the cops.

The critical record books hold Chinatown well above LAC on "Best of lists," but I dunno. I personally rather like LAC better if only for a few things:

ONE: More characters interacting on a grand scale. Three variations on "bad cops"(even the good Ed Exley is bad) and how they criss-cross, clash, and partner up. Chinatown is pretty much "with Jake all the way." The bad cops in LAC are all heading for redemption, one way or the other.

TWO: More "epic levels" of historical interest in LAC: The movies, TV, hookers(who look like movie stars), porn, gossip. Criss-crossed with: Anglos, Mexican-Americans, and African Americans in LA. LAC looks at the City of Angels from all sorts of angles. And I daresay the most important one is: the gossip. What Danny DeVito's low rent gossip monger sees in the future has come to pass, many times over. Its all gossip today. Cable TV, reality shows, politics. The Real Housewives. The Kardashians.

THREE: Action. The final shoot out in LAC is as great an action scene as any "summer cop thriller" ever gave us, but in a more cerebral film.

Chinatown has the historic shock of incest and the slicing of Jake's nostril(leaving it wounded for the rest of the movie. LAC has its own great shock that I like on its own terms.

They're both great. The critical world prefers Chinatown.

I prefer LA Confidential.