MovieChat Forums > L.A. Confidential (1997) Discussion > who saw it in the cinema back in 97?

who saw it in the cinema back in 97?

posted 5 years ago by bozo_500 (13151)
12 replies | jump to latest

saw it in a near empty theatre, saw it mainly because part of my degree course was on the history of Hollywood so lots about the 50s, but also it had great reviews (Empire ***** stars) so gave it a go and it was awesome - knew who spacey was from Usual Suspects etc. and devito, cromwell, basinger etc but the main 2 guys were pretty unknown - Guy from Neighbours/Queen of Desert and Crowe from the sharon stone western couple years before (& romper stomper). was pretty blown away by the 50s setting, and the clever plot, great characters, and action packed ending

there were a whole bunch of films to see in that nov/dec period (Face/Off, The Jackal, Starship Troppers, Alien4, Bond, and of course Titanic) but LA Con was probably the best . crazy it lost out all the Oscars to Titanic..

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

So, what’s your point?

[–] liscarkat (18589) 5 years ago

I saw it in a theater way, way back in '97 when this was just a territory and dinosaurs ruled the earth.

[–] bozo_500 (13151) 4 years ago

I miss those times

[–] liscarkat (18589) 4 years ago

We lived in caves and watched our movies by fire light, but we liked it that way.

[–] Jones70 (6585) 4 years ago

I wish but I was only 6 at the time.

[–] rudeboymurray (3279) 4 years ago

I did. It was a good film, dripping with atmosphere, although I haven't had any real desire to go back to it in the years since. I do recall being disappointed, just a little, by the ending. I saw it in one of the big cinemas on Leicester Square in London and as I recall it was reasonably full.

There were quite a good films in the awards race that year. My favourite (by far) was The Ice Storm, which was shockingly blanked completely in the Oscar nominations. I thought it should have swept the board.

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

SPOILERS

I saw it opening weekend, September 1997. As I recall "The Full Monty" opened the same weekend, and I chose LA Confidential over that one. They were both very well reviewed.

I'm very glad I saw LA Confidential as soon as possible because that way, I was blown away by the outta nowhere, sudden death killing of Kevin Spacey by James Cromwell. I don't think I've EVER been so surprised by a main character getting suddenly taken out like that.

I remember a big GASP in the crowd when the shot hit Spacey, and a light groaning as he slowly (and perfectly) died.

I liked everything about that movie -- start to finish -- from the song and cynical Danny DeVito narration that open the movie to the well-earned and surprising happy ending in which it is revealed that Bud White survived.

I went to see it again immediately so that I could study exactly HOW it came to be that Smith murdered The Big V. Key dialogue "Its a good thing that my wife and four lovely daughters are in Santa Barbara" Dudley says -- ergo the shooting can take place with no witnesses. And how Smith puts a coffee cup and saucer in Jack's hands right before shooting him -- so Jack can't grab for his gun.

Jack's final words -- Rollo Tomasi -- are one of the great script devices in history. Jack is assessing Dudley AS Rollo Tomasi, and (unknowingly?) setting up Smith to be fingered as the killer -- which happens (wonderfully) in the VERY NEXT SCENE with Smith and Ed Exley (in the published screenplay, when Smith asks Ed about Rollo Tomasi , the script read: "Vincennes cries out his killer's name from the grave.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I ended up seeing LA Confidential a total of four times at the movie theater that fall. I wanted to study it as well as to enjoy it again. The dialogue(from James Ellroy), the atmosphere, the acting and something I think that was key. In epic form, the movie shows how Los Angeles in 1953 hosted a confluence of entertainment vehicles(movies, TV, porn, gossip rags) and racial interactions (white, Mexican-American, African-American.) Its all there, in great, entertaining complexity.

And I couldn't know that day I saw LAC in the theater how meaningful that film would turn out to be to me. A great surprise.

[–] bozo_500 (13151) 2 years ago

sounds similar to my viewingt just blown away how insanely perfect a movie it was. i remember being pretty surprised it lost out at the oscars bc it should really have taken all the top awards Picture Director, actors etc the lot (only Basinger and screenplay won out) any other year it would (Titanic)

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

sounds similar to my viewingt just blown away how insanely perfect a movie it was.

---

Sometimes I went into movies excited and in anticipation, knowing that they were going to be great and special: The Godfather was one, and Jaws was another. The hype, the stories of production for a year, the anticipation of waiting for the movie to finally open at a theater. I went in and got what I was excited about and I was satisfied.

But with LA Confidential, I went in expecting "something OK, I hope" and I can still remember being excited from the first minutes on, with growing joy as the movie became more complex, entertaining, surprising and moving. As one critic wrote in her rave of the film: "So this is what happens when they do everything right."

It was the visuals, too: after gangsters get shot through a glass window at night(from a swimming pool area, how LA), we get a close up of blue gunsmoke swirling in a perfect circle as the remaining glass falls from the broken window. Poetry.

The cast was surprising. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce weren't household names(and two Aussies as LA cops, yet.) Kevin Spacey was a star of sorts(recently Oscared for The Usual Suspects), but he only recently had been SUPPORTING folks like Dustin Hoffman and Sandra Bullock. The two names in the cast were DeVito(recently in Batman Returns as the Penguin) and Kim Basinger(in the original Batman.)

I recall imagining an "all star version" of LA Confidential: how about Mel Gibson in the Crowe role, Bruce Willis in the Spacey role, and Johnny Depp in the Pearce role(or go all the way: Tom Cruise.) Impossible, really, no budget could hold all those stars. Something worse almost happened to LAC: the studio wanted ONE big star (say Gibson in the Crowe part) with lesser actors in the other roles. Then it would have become a "star vehicle" with no equality among the characters.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

i remember being pretty surprised it lost out at the oscars bc it should really have taken all the top awards Picture Director, actors etc the lot (only Basinger and screenplay won out) any other year it would (Titanic)

---

One of the things the Oscars is about(or USED to be about when popular films competed) is something in life itself: luck and timing. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. LAC drew "bad" -- Titanic, which was a Big Deal but not terribly well reviewed for its script(which wasn't even nominated for an Oscar.) Objectively, I think it is great that a crowd pleaser like Titanic DID win the Best Picture Oscar...I'm just sorry LAC had to lose.

I think that LAC could have beaten Braveheart for Best Picture in 1995. Or The English Patient in 1996. Those got "half hearted wins." It could have beaten Shakespeare in Love in 1998(which beat the front runner, Saving Private Ryan, which maybe LAC could not win.) But not Titanic in 1997.

But...that's the breaks.

Here is one example from an earlier decade:

The Godfather was originally planned for a Christmas 1971 release. It got moved to Easter of 1972. Had The Godfather been a 1971 release, I think it would have beaten The French Connection for Best Picture -- and cleared the way for Cabaret to win the 1972 Best Picture award.

But...that's the breaks. You compete in your year of release, against the competition that year.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

(only Basinger and screenplay won out)

---

They gave out Best Supporting Actress early in the Oscar show; Basinger's win had me fooled that LAC might go all the way. But as the night went on -- no.

Indeed, LAC suffered from the fact that not ONE of the male actors in the film was nominated, which actually spoke to how great so MANY of those guys and their characters were. They all cancelled each other out for nominations. Me, I think that Kevin Spacey as Jack Vincennes remains his best and most unforgettable role -- but he won for other movies. Danny DeVito took his usual "comedy grouch character" and suckered us: THIS guy was a horrific human being, a destroyer of people's lives. Should have been nominated. But DeVito, Spacey, Crowe , Pearce, Cromwell, Straithairn -- ALL could have been nominated for Best or Supporting.

When it was all over, folks realized that Kim Basinger sort of won "as the woman, on behalf of her men" but she WAS good in that part. Slightly aging, tough enough, vulnerable enough -- and interested in a date that wasn't a "date."

The Best Adapted Screenplay win was great. To me, the Screenplay awards(and there are two, Original and Adapted) are where a lot of "alternative Best Picture winners" can be found. Winning scripts from movies that SHOULD have been Best Picture winners include: Chinatown, Network, Pulp Fiction, Fargo, LA Confidential, and Sideways.

I remember that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau gave out the Best Adapted Screenplay award and LAC director-co-writer Curtis Hanson (a former film critic) said how proud he was to get the award from those two -- especially because they had worked for the writer-director Billy Wilder(whose cynicism and wit sounds in LA Confidential.) Within a few years after handing out that award, Matthau would die in 2000 and Lemmon in 2001. It was the end of an era.