Confidential is a 1997 american neonoir crime film directed, produced and cowritten by curtis hanson. I cant hear the starlets name without thinking about the movie l. How did exley hear what his supervisors were saying about him at the end when he is being interviewed. A period film set in the vein of neonoir movies such as chinatown with a great cast of actors is something i thought i wouldve considered great. Narcotics sergeant jack vincennes, recovering from substance abuse himself and given to feeding breaking stories to the local tabloid press as well as the hit tv show badge of honor to make himself look good. Confidential is a 1997 american neonoir crime film directed, produced and cowritten by. Martin says game of thrones finale sort of got book ending right, but not everything martin says he expects his final two thrones books to. To refer to movies as one would refer to books would be heresy and. Oct 09, 2014 1 gone girl by gillian flynn really, the film of the moment, as it was the thriller of the moment a while back.
A great deal of attention has gone into creating the look and feel of a. Confidential is epic noir, a crime novel of astonishing detail and scope written by the bestselling author of the black dahlia. Confidential tv adaptation gets passed over by cbs. The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see. Now one has time to revisit some movies that may be interesting and watch them more than once. Lance armstrongs secrets is a book by sports journalist pierre ballester and the sunday times sports correspondent david walsh. I love white jazz but a big part of that love is the payoff for it being the end of the series. Confidential is one of my favourite books of all time, and my favourite james ellroy book. He takes all of the themes he explored in previous novels and packs them into a book thats an even larger, more epic tale of crime, perversion, and hollywood corruption than any of his previous books. A horrific mass murder invades the lives of victims and victimizers on both sides of the law. However, if you can tame it, youll find a masterpiece that youll keep coming back to again and again. If it is ozzie and harriet which is so often the target of the decades detractors, it is dragnet which is getting the same treatment in l.
Confidential was a key magazine of the 1950s, a monthly that sold millions of copies with its seamy exposes of celebrity drugs and sex. It is basically a policedetective crime story but it is beautifully constructed with a film noir style. The epigraph is a glory that costs everything and means nothing steve erickson. The director confessed to disliking the characters for too long into the story, and. The movie is an excellent instance of adapting from a novel with a complicated story line. She reads her notes and reveals that theyd previously gone to roland navarettes place for drugs, which is. The big nowhere is probably the best overall book in the quartet. Liberace, that fey fucker, does what, well, what liberace does. The title refers to the scandal magazine confidential. Ed exley, the golden boy of the police force, willing to do almost anything to get ahead, except sell out.
And three lawmen are caught in a deadly spiral, a nightmare that. Confidential ends with exley shooting smith in the back instead of arresting him since he knows the department would never let the truth come out. Confidential 1990 is a neonoir novel by james ellroy, and the third of his l. Confidential is also a 1990 novel by american crime writer james ellroy. Ed exley, a patrician who venerates his herocop father, presumably holds high ideals and unassailable standards. The terrific 1950s california mood, dialog, and performances winning an oscar for kim basinger are what make l. But the infamous nite owl massacre an apparent robberygonebad at a 24hour diner. Jun 06, 20 1950s hardboiled detective noir that goes deeper and darker than any other book in the genre, l. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol.
Published in 1990, it was ellroys coming out party as a force to be reckoned with in the genre and the dawn of a new generation in crime fiction. Sagalike narrative hardboils down to three gutsy, basically honest but flawed lapd officers. Confidential, a new film directed by curtis hanson from the novel by james ellroy. Cancelled, no season three for history channel series. Confidential feels like the book that james ellroy has been preparing for and working up to during his entire career up to this point. Officer bud white, on the other hand, is brutal, violent, vengeful and jack trashcan vincennes, formerly of the. Meeks, stensland, vincennes, reynolds, the missing heroin are all linked. He is observed by a group of others, including the chief of police and the da, who sit outside the room behind a oneway mirror. Its a book that doesnt let up, keeps on going for the jugular, and puts up a fight. Here the show is thinly disguised as badge of honor and it occupies a place in the background of the action for the sole purpose of showing up the. Confidential and was drawn to its characters, not the plot.
On reading, youll not only be rewarded by not only a bonus new ending and eyepopping violence but the inimitable, sometimes virtually incomprehensible but always awesome l. Obviously, this post includes many spoilers about the gone girl movie and book. Confidential, ed exley is in a supposedly soundproof interview room, giving a statement to two detectives. After stealing the one ring and fighting with frodo elijah wood, gollum andy serkis plunged into the fiery pits, and the one ring was finally destroyed. Bud white, ready to break the rules to seek justice, but barely able to keep his raging violence. Published in 1990, it was ellroys coming out party as a force to be reckoned with in. Confidential script at the internet movie script database. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Confidential by brian helgeland based on the novel by. Vicennes, a clothes horse, consults for a dragnetlike tv show. As his justreleased perfidia rolls out, he talks to co.
Confidential, the densely plotted 50s cop yarn based on james ellroys novel, is chilly and brutish and unforgiving. When he is on there is no writer alive who can touch ellroy. Officer bud white, on the other hand, is brutal, violent. Straithairn as her highend pimp, ron rifkin as the thoroughly corrupt district attorney. If you have any question about this novel, please dont hesitate to contact us or translate team. Gone girl director david fincher may team with james.
Mansion hancock park night the kleig lights are out front. Three very different cops are all after the truth, each in their own style. Energetic, sprawling and often stylistically irritating police procedural that follows three lapd members over a tenyear period, beginning in 1950. Even when ya know the plot from the movie its still riveting. James ellroy novel, brian helgeland screenplay 1 more credit. He is the novels most compromised character from a moral standpoint, and yet he is, by virtue of being the only one left standing at the end and having the most power in the universe of the book, the closest thing we have to a clear main character. The blog entry is here, and this is part of what i said. The story eventually encompasses organized crime, political corruption, heroin trafficking, pornography, prostitution, and hollywood. Confidential has been hailed by critics as one of seminal works of neonoir. Initially rejected by his publisher for being too long, ellroy knew that none of its labyrinthine subplots could be cut without destroying the integrity of the whole. Create about how to write immersive pageturners like his classic, l. Over the opening strains of i love you, california, a montage. The movie is an excellent instance of adapting from a.
A lot changed in middleearth after the lord of the rings both in the books and the films. Those who arent somebody in hollywood are nobody, and with a cast of actors who in 1997 were all unknown faces, l. Confidential by brian helgeland based on the novel by james ellroy november 16, 1995 minor revisions fade in. They are the black dahlia 1987, the big nowhere 1988, l. D lingo that plunges you headfirst into a time and a place that is long gone and full of hinky hopheads but forever exhilarating.
At the end of all the credits, there is a brief scene from badge of honor. Confidential the likelihood of a given movie these days being based on a book or a short story or some other extracinematic source is pretty high these days. I found it on my dads night table and read it breathlessly, the stories of reefer parties, multiple divorces, wifeswapping and leading men who liked to wear frilly undergarments. Confidential, a dark tale of intoxicating corruption, is a worthy. Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and. Watch vanity fair confidential on investigation discovery mondays 98c. Come visit sometime to read the latest chapter of l. Confidential quotes showing of 3 some men get the world, some men get exhookers and a trip to arizona. Open library is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published. The film tells the story of a group of lapd officers in 1953, and the intersection of police corruption and hollywood celebrity. I thought about it, but departed still has this modern millennium atmosphere, while the l. I wasnt knocked out by the fabled twist in the plot, but i still enjoyed the book hugely.
This movie is already a few years old and yet it has become recently reacquainted with it, due to doctors orders bed rest. Confidential is actually the third book in a series of four books called the l. The screenplay by hanson and brian helgeland is based on james ellroys 1990 novel of the same name, the third book in his l. Gone girl, by gillian flynn, is a twosided contest in which nick and amy dunne tell conflicting stories. As the sky darkens, triplekleig lights begin to sweep back and forth. See more ideas about movies, james ellroy, kim basinger. When someones killing imprisoned mob boss mickey cohens gang. Confidential was turned into a noir classic, but that was an exception for. I wonder if theres a reference elsewhere in the film that im missing, or whether perhaps its a sequence from the book that has transferred clumsily in the adaptation. The book contains circumstantial evidence of cyclist lance armstrong having used performanceenhancing drugs. With kevin spacey, russell crowe, guy pearce, kim basinger. The final film in the trilogy, the return of the king, had a big impact on the future middleearth and its most important characters.
It is also about honor and doing the right thing in the face of adverse conditions, sticking to your guns. James ellroy is the preeminent crime novelist of our time. Confidential is one of the finest american novels, but only if you can handle it. Ellroy was asked by a member of a book talk audience if he wasnt guilty of overdoing his staccato style just a touch and ellroy, apparently an absolute pussycat, agreed that, yeh, she was probably right. Given the controversy already surrounding the twisted conclusion in the. Equally high is the chance of, when in conversation with others about such a movie, some motherfucker opening their mouth and saying, it wasnt as good as the book. Confidential is on netflix, and get news and updates, on decider. The magazine sank in a sea of lawsuits, but it created a genre. Gone girl director david fincher may team with james ellroy for hbo drama. Confidential by james ellroy 5 5 the third book in the l. Confidential, based on james ellroys 1990 noir novel that spawned curtis hansons oscarwinning 1997 film. Plus theres the complex and fascinating relationship between cops exley and white, who confront the worst aspects of themselves and nearly kill each other, only to end up allies. Based on a book by leading crime author james ellroy, l. Confidential was yet another popular property on the verge of a television treatment, with cbs having gone into development of an adaptation of james ellroys classic 1990 noir novel.