Movie Review - "Copycat" (Jon Amiel)

 1995

Meaningless Rating: *

I'm a sucker for thrillers of the 1990s, a sub-genre unto itself, and always on the lookout for a new hidden gem. Despite certain reviews online, this film, which feels like a feature-length episode of Criminal Minds, is not one of them. Plot-wise, it's a cross between Seven and The Bone Collector. Holly Hunter plays M.J. Monahan, a police detective on the case of a serial killer who bases their crimes on Dahmer, Bundy, et al (thus the title). M.J. is aided in her search by noted criminal psychologist, and agoraphobe, Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver). Confused direction, soap operatic acting, lazy mis-en-scene, and a boring plot... Copycat fails on all fronts. The single star is only for a somewhat interesting opening scene.

Movie Review - "To Live and Die in L.A." (William Friedkin)

 1985

Meaningless Rating: *****

Another neon night in the city of angels. Secret Service agents Jimmy (Michael Greene) and Chance (William Peterson) secure a hotel for President Reagan, who can be heard espousing the flawed economic theories that have led to our present day mess. In a movie concerning counterfeiting, we're immediately asked - what's the difference between bullshit about money and bullshit money? An attempted terrorist attack, but Chance saves the day, preventing jihad: the would-be martyr explodes off the roof, the bright bloody mass mixing with the twinkling lights below... The sky overhead is black, but the ground is alight with fallen stars. Five minutes in and this movie is as prescient as a DeLillo novel.

Jimmy investigates a counterfeiting ring led by the reptilian Masters (Willem Dafoe), a painter of some talent who revels in burning his portraits upon completion. Are they not truly finished until they're devoured by flame? Jimmy is blown away and thrown in a dumpster. Naturally, Chance swears revenge.

Perhaps hoping to rein him in, the Secret Service pairs Chance with the by-the-books Vukovich (John Pankow). Enlisting Masters' attorney, the duo sets-up a sting. The only problem is it requires more dough than the agency can afford to front. No problem - using a tip from the nervous Ruth (Darlanne Fluegel), whom Chance uses for information and (consensual?) sex, he and Vukovich intercept a diamond smuggler carrying fifty thousand bucks. This leads to not only the best car chase scene I think I've seen, but also some of the best shots of Los Angeles. From the concrete river bed to the freeways to the narrow streets around warehouses, dust and trash kicked up and mingling with the sun-kissed smog, nowhere in the city is safe from Chance's single-minded pursuit.

By the final scene the full meaning of the title is revealed, and the viewer realizes this story could not have been set anywhere else. L.A. is for dreamers, the self-creators, where their identity is whatever they're fronting that day, that moment. It is the city of death and rebirth, a black hole where one can disappear into the vacuum of culture and be reborn anew as some twisted mirror image of themself. It is a city with interchangeable people in stagnant roles.

To live and die in L.A. That's an entire philosophical treatise.

Movie Review - "Mouchette" (Robert Bresson)

1967

Meaningless Rating: ****

How much humiliation can one girl take? It's not enough she's poor; it's not enough she has no future: Mouchette is the outlet for the town's misery: she is admonished as a slut; her nose is shoved into piano keys during class; she is slapped by her father in front of a boy at a crowded carnival; she is raped by the town epileptic (which, in a an attempt to cope, she twists into something she can own): no single humiliation will suffice. She tries talking to her mother, but the baby wails and her mother dies: Mouchette cries in silence, alone. She fights back in the only ways her juvenile mind can reason - throwing dirt at classmates; wiping mud from her ill-fitting clogs onto a nice rug; tearing and soiling her mother's burial shroud, a gift from a supposedly kind woman... But these people are not kind; these people are polite, and politeness in spite of their judgement is perhaps worse: it is pity, mere social obligation; politeness is expecting, and in that expectation there is animosity and even violence. The only one capable of true kindness is Mouchette, and though she tries to harden herself to the world, the sensitivity inherent in that, needed for that, leaves her exposed, and so her undoing is inevitable. Her life, or the lack thereof, is inevitable... And so she takes control in the only way she can, by ending it.

Book Review - "The Poet" (Michael Connelly) - Bosch-verse Book 5

 Meaningless Rating: **

In this overwrought, and sometimes flat-out stupid, novel, Connelly introduces the first new hero since Harry Bosch to his crime fiction universe: Denver journalist Jack McAvoy, who is convinced his police detective twin brother did not kill himself. But digging into the case reveals something even more sinister at play - a serial killer who hunts police detectives on particularly difficult cases, stages their suicide, and quotes lines from Edgar Allen Poe in their supposed suicide notes. The hunt brings him into an uneasy alliance with the FBI, and a ridiculous romance between himself and one of the agents. (Again I ask - are any of his characters capable of the simple one night stand?)

There's an unfortunate tendency with serial killer fiction to make them closer to a comic book super villain than the evil which actually haunts our world. Is this because we must make sense of the unconscionable? Or is it simply the inability of an author to truly capture evil and accurately portray it? Connelly seemed able to do it with his first serial killer in "The Concrete Blonde," so why not here? Was that a happy accident, or since the titular serial killer of "The Poet" takes up so many scenes, the author has to make it somehow palatable to the audience? I don't know the answer, but I do know it leaves this antagonist feeling closer to Batman's Riddler or Joker than Ted Bundy.

As usual the red herrings are obvious, though the twist is a true surprise, and one that isn't contrived - or at least, not any more contrived than anything else about the killer. The usual deficiencies regarding relationships abound, though Connelly does show a knack for some of the quieter moments between Jack and his sister-in-law, and his background in newspapers lends verisimilitude to a story that's about as real and gritty as anything produced by DC or Marvel Comics.

Book Review - "The Last Coyote" (Michael Connelly) - Bosch-verse Book 4

 Meaningless Rating: ***1/2

On suspension due to throwing his supervisor through a window, Bosch finally commits to solving the biggest case of his life - the murder of his mother, a Hollywood prostitute. As I went through the story, I feared Connelly would tie the murder into the larger tapestry of Los Angeles, make it a big conspiracy among the city's rich and/or powerful... And while there is certainly an element of that (Connelly can't completely forgo his more soap operatic tendencies), he smartly grounds the resolution, and in doing so, he's able to keep human his evermore mythological hero. Bosch's romances still ring hollow - a one night stand is never simply a one night stand, but a grand statement about life and death and love - and every plot beat requires a deep examination into Bosch's psyche. Unfortunately, while the character is interesting, there's just not much to Bosch, no depths for the author to plumb, and so this "insight" rings false. One looks forward to the quiet confidence Connelly has in his later work.

Book Review - "The Concrete Blonde" (Michael Connelly) - Bosch-verse Book 3

 Meaningless Rating: ****

In the greatest Bosch-verse novel up to this point the author shows early on his aptitude for the courtroom drama. The legal proceedings, while breezy to read, are riveting and full of escalating tension. Also, Connelly introduces his first, and still best, serial killer. He completely forgoes motivation for the Dollmaker (the name given to the killer by the media based on his MO for painting his victim's nails), and presents his copycat as little more than a sick son of a bitch. The red herring is obvious, the resolution less so, and decidedly bleak as characters suffer collateral damage both emotional and physical. Even Connelly's penchant for schmaltz can't overpower this exciting, twisted entry in the Bosch-verse. Only the third in the series, and perhaps still the best to date?

Book Review - "The Black Ice" (Michael Connelly) - Bosch-verse Book 2

 Meaningless Rating: ***1/2

It's a warm Christmas night in the city of angels. LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is called out to a flea-bag motel. Fellow officer Calexico Moore has been found dead, his head painting the faded, smoke stained walls, the AC on full blast to slow the decomposition and delay the finding of his body. Moore's life was in shambles: his marriage was over, and he was under investigation by IA for selling a new street drug, the Black Ice referenced in the title. The department is quick to rule it a suicide, sweep the embarrassment under the rug. Except for Bosch. Something doesn't seem right, and he can give a damn about appearances and the reputation of the LAPD. His investigation takes him south of the border, putting him smack dab in the middle of a cartel power struggle, climaxing in yet another set piece worthy of an action movie.

I remember thinking when I first read this book that it was one of the weaker entries in the early part of the series; on re-read, I see it as one of the strongest. In the first novel, Bosch comes across as an over-zealous do-gooder. Yes, he does things his way, but he still follows the letter of the law. By the end of this second book, Connelly succesfully course corrects his hero, makes it clear that Bosch lives by his own code, his own sense of justice. Unfortunately, Connelly either doesn't see what makes his creation so interesting, or he lacks the will or talent to fully explore it. I think it's the latter. Connelly does attempt to tackle the morally gray nature of Bosch, yet it feels insufficient. I can't help but feeling it would be best not to explore Bosch's nature. The novels are more interesting when things are left ambiguous, when we're not tossed a cursory scene of Bosch wrestling with his demons so he doesn't scare away the mass market paperback crowd.

Book Review - "The Black Echo" (Michael Connelly) - Bosch-verse Book 1

Meaningless Rating: **1/2

Michael Connelly's debut novel, and the first in his shared crime fiction universe, in which we are introduced to the quietly tortured, resolute genius of LAPD Detective Harry Bosch. The murder of a fellow Vietnam veteran leads to the unraveling of a heist and a damn good Heat-esque set piece (three years before the movie). Flashbacks, loves, turncoats, and department bureaucrats abound: Connelly does nothing new with the cliches and stereotypes, though he does wield them confidently and expertly - and that's not nothing. Where he falters is in the human moments; Connelly is reductive of emotions. Ham-fisted dialogue renders an awkwardness in the reader - I was embarrassed for our hero. But... one can't help but feel the potential in Connelly's hero. Bosch is compelling (there's a reason the tropes with which Connelly builds his work have withstood the ravages of time). Masterful mystery-thriller plotting and pacing allows the reader to easily and quickly move past the negatives.

Ramble - The Free Will Crapshoot

Free will without societal guard rails creates too many burdens, limiting free will. So, absolute free will is non-existent.

Without government, without legislation providing basic needs, free will does not exist. Stability is needed to truly allow for free will (to place a barometer in this ramble, free will is defined, rather elegantly, even after almost 250 years, as the pursuit of happiness). Without stability, choices are not made based on happiness, rather they are made based on survival.

If a person is required to first provide their own stability before they can pursue their supposedly God-given right of the pursuit of happiness, then it is a crapshoot on wether anyone actually achieves free will (in the context of the world today, it is something that must be achieved, it is not given, it is not one of our inalienable rights); and as the generations go bye, the number of those who achieve stability, and are thus granted the right of free will, dwindles, living as we do in a state of raw capitalism (our form of capitalism, perhaps the only outcome of capitalism, being zero sum).

With no governmental regulations on capitalism, with weak or non-existent social welfare programs, we are denied our constitutional right of the pursuit of happiness.

We are denied free will.

Ramble - Legacy As Meaning, Legacy As Life

What is the sum total of life, existence? Is it legacy? Defining legacy as what we leave behind, both in blood and substance. As blood: a family who fondly remembers you, yes, but also that you contributed to a lineage; that you left your family, primarily though not necessarily only your children, better off than before your existence. My children will stand on my shoulders, and their children should stand on theirs; we each contribute to this collaborative crescendoing greatness through the ages - to do otherwise, to leave one's family, especially one's children, worse off than your parents left you, is not only a failure of life but a failure of morals. (Not taking into account the myriad ways a child can fuck up their legacy regardless of the parents' doing.) This is the legacy of necessity, in which we should be expected to, at minimum, toe the line; provide (be the provider).

Beyond blood, into substance: We should strive to lead lives measured in work, pursuit, and the accomplishments earned along the way. This is not only speaking towards work as necessity, providing food and shelter. In fact that shouldn't count at all in how we define legacy as substance. Work as in a job or career, the success of which, should only be defined by how well you provide. No: substance, true legacy substance, is something with which you can use to measure the breadth of your life. The sum total of your thought and expression, be it in athletics, or journaling, or art, or charity. "This was the period of my life in which I wrote X." "That was the year in which I built houses in Y." "That was the month I ran my personal best in the Z."

Life with only blood legacy is nothing more than animalistic in the sense you accomplish only survival. Life with only substantive legacy is hollow, almost narcissistic, devoid of humanity. A fulfilled life must be defined by legacies of both blood and substance.