Day 52: A Movie With The Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted)

CHINATOWN (1974)

Chinatown has long been considered one of the greatest screenplays ever written. Robert Towne has yet to create anything better or at least equal to this masterpiece. It's a gritty noir with a tough-yet-flawed detective who has to dig his way around murder, lies, real estate ventures, and incest. The elements are so deeply-layered and inter-woven that it took me several viewings to finally piece all of its brilliance together.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ReBONDing: Diamonds Are Forever

Image
Reevaluating the Sean Connery Era (1962 - 1971, 1983) DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) Directed by Guy Hamilton Written by Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz Ian Fleming (novel) Running Time: 120 minutes Original Verdict: Because of Connery's high fee, the film's special effects budget was significantly scaled back, which was apparent on screen. Let us also not forget the "gay" assassins as well. Rating: 3 out of 5 . THE REEVALUATION The Cold Open: James Bond is on the hunt! Hunting down Blofeld for murdering his wife, or at least that's my assumption. Bond moves from henchmen to henchmen until he finally locates him at a Plastic Surgery Clinic and Spa. Disguised as a doctor, Bond is found out, has a very clumsy fight, and disposes of Blofeld in what we presume is molten clay. I guess Blofeld is now dead? It feels rushed, disheveled and completely unsatisfying. That's not how you treat a lady, double-oh seven. The Story: Diamonds Are
Read more

ReBONDing: Goldfinger

Image
Reevaluating the Sean Connery Era (1962 - 1971, 1983) GOLDFINGER (1964) Directed by Guy Hamilton Written by Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn Ian Fleming (novel) Running Time: 110 minutes Original Verdict: By far my favorite Bond film and usually hailed by most fans and critics alike as the quintessential James Bond movie. Talk about gadgets: the Aston Martin DB5 makes it debut with rotating license plates, water jets, smoke screen, radar and ejector seat. Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) set the standard as the perfect Bond villain, while Oddjob became one of the best henchmen of the Bond Franchise. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) starts the list of my Top 5 Bond Girls. Rating: 5 out of 5 . THE REEVALUATION The Cold Open: We finally get our first fully developed pre-title sequence and it's spectacular. It's everything you want in a cold open: A mission that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film, a well-timed explosion, the white tux reveal from un
Read more

My Thoughts on Kevin Smith and Clerks III

Image
Kevin Smith posted this morning that at 4:20 AM (his pun more-than-likely intended) he started writing the third and final chapter of Clerks : THE BEGINNING OF THE END 20 years ago today, we started shooting CLERKS. 20 years later, with no plan or provocation, I jumped out of bed at 4:20 this morning and started writing CLERKS III. It's been like hanging out with old friends. And after 2 hours of tapping the keys and giggling, I have come to a conclusion... CLERKS III will be the best film I'll ever make. And while I'll let a majority of his other films slide under the radar right now (even though I do believe that his craft as a screenwriter peaked with Chasing Amy ), his move here to make a third installment of Clerks (especially when his second venture with the same characters wasn't any better), seems awfully sophomoric. I get it, dude, you're an immature guy and you like to talk and write about immature things. I listen to your pod-casts regularly and
Read more