Black Dahlia Pretty Good, Not Great

I thought Black Dahlia was pretty good. All the physical things--sets, costumes, music--were terrific. Hartnett was dull but Johanssen, Eckhart, Swank and Kirschner were excellent.

The problem is, as a 40s noir exercise, it is well done but not that relevant to today. It's all too melodramatic and overhyped to reach us in the 21st Century. It did what it did well, but what it set out to do had real limitations.

I will say that it was much better than the very similar film Hollywoodland.

So far, the best films I have seen this year include Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Man, The Da Vinci Code, Scoop, Who Killed the Electric Car? and The Illusionist.

Comments: 7

Skipster Too Sep 20, 2006, 12:54pm EDT

When you express that it's not relevant to today, I wonder if you also don't enjoy Turner Classic Movies.

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Lisa B. Sep 20, 2006, 1:11pm EDT

Thank you and you also gave me movies that slipped my mind so that I can put them in my Netflix list of movies that I will want to watch when they come out on DVD.

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Alan Waldman Sep 20, 2006, 3:44pm EDT

EB, Lots of old movies are relevant today, but because this is such an old-fashioned, stylized melodrama it doesn't work for me. Casablanca always works for me, on the other hand.

Lisa B,
If you are a Netflixer, you might check my Best Movies of the Year lists for 1999-2005 elsewhere on my Gather page (and searchable). There are some really great movies there you might have missed, such as The Dinner Game, Memento and Croupier. I suspect those pages are also searchable on Gather.

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Alan Waldman Sep 23, 2006, 12:11pm EDT

I just had a Lousy Josh Hartnett Festival this week as I endured his wooden performance in both Black Dahlia and the DVD of the time-wasting Lucky Number Sleven. One thing I like about Dahlia was it was worlds better than the similar film Hollywoodland. Both deal with unsolved murders and have fictional characters you care nothing about trying to solve them. Both get wrapped up in the trite lives the bad writers created for those fictional characters. You really hate the loser detective in Hollywoodland. At least Hartnett is surrounded by interesting characters. Avoid Lucky Number Slevin at all costs. Attrocious/pretentious writing and a good cast wasted. It is a cheap knockoff of the vastly superior (in fact, classic) The Ususal Suspects.

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Corina Carrasco Sep 25, 2006, 3:38pm EDT

Gee! I read a really scathing review of the movie in another gather.com group. The writer said she would not recommend anyone watching the movie, regardless of whether they paid for it or not, as she felt it was a total waste of time. I decided I would watch the movie myself and decide whether it is good or not. So until I finish watching it, I won't comment but I was glad to read the above posts because it leads me to believe that there is still hope for this movie!

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Leanarda S. Sep 28, 2006, 6:59pm EDT

I watched this movie and was disappointed. It had to many plots going on , the ending was silly and unreal. I wish it would have focused on the life of the Black
Dahlia instead of so many different characters. Hiliary Swank looked beautiful and
the settings and costumes were awesome , but thumbs down to the confusing
and boring plot.

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Liz K Nov 3, 2006, 11:18am EST

Wow, I feel like I'm the only person in the world who enjoyed this movie! Everything about the exaggerated melodrama worked on me. Suspense, fear, thrill -- I felt the emotions that noir is supposed to evoke. Harnett's acting was as uncomfortable and drawling as the usual pulp narrative. Have you read the novel? It has a certain cheesy -ness to it that you just have to let yourself be led into. Suspended belief.

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Black Dahlia Pretty Good, Not Great

Comments: 7

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