Double Dose: Cheers To The Long, Good Movies

(Double Dose is two films from the same director, writer or star...or genre or theme...pretty simple.  Today:  two very different crime movies with the words "Long" and "Good" in the the title, but not "The Long Good Friday")

The Long Goodbye : 1975, d. Robert Altman - Criterion Channel
The Long Kiss Goodnight: 1996, d. Renny Harlan - netflix

I'm an Altman novice, so I don't know if the ambling, naturalistic, many-people-talking-at-once dialogue is a signature of his or not, but I liked it...to a point. Within this shaggy detective genre, one generally gets the sense of purpose to the shaggy detective's actions, but here it's somewhat obfuscated by Altman's style. It has all the beats of the Raymond Chandler story it's based off of but it executes them in such a nonchalant way that it becomes difficult to know what's important and what's just ambiance, at least upon first watch. 

Gould as Chandler's legendary private dick, Philip Marlowe, is a conundrum. On the one hand he's seemingly given up on life, talking big to cops and mob bosses, completely unconcerned for his own safety (I get where Natasha Lyonne Russian Doll character Nadia is taking inspiration from). He has zero romantic or sexual drive (which is actually kind of an admirable choice for the character given the gaggle of often nude hippie women hanging out on the patio next door) and he doesn't seem terribly affected by all the abuse of women he sees (and there's a discomforting amount of abuse towards women here). His asexuality here finds the femme fatale, played by Nina van Pallandt, not only lacking any of the expected menace, but also lacking the allure. Such is Altman's take.

I need to source the veracity
of whether this Jack Davis
poster is real or really just a 
Mad Magazine excerpt

Altman seemed very disinterested in making a typical noir, or even neo-noir. There are few shadows here. While the plot is everything (it's certainly not a character study) it also seems like it's nothing. Gould is so laconic in the role he seems passive in his investigation even when he's being proactive. This take on a Chandler story was obviously inspiration for The Big Lebowski, where the Coens saw opportunity to push the shagginess further, and heighten the ambling nature of its protagonist.

John Williams soundtrack here might as well not exist, so little impression does it make. There's an original song that gets both played and sung frequently throughout the film, which I found distracting. It's not a particularly catchy tune and Altman really tries to force feed it as part of this world. Also Altman's general use of music is quite unsophisticated, especially in the opening sequences which intercut between multiple scenes and different songs which should be diagetic but aren't.

Visually the film is exceptionally well composed, with Altman constantly interested in at least two beats of action happening at once. His use of glass -- as barrier or reflection -- is part of the theme about transparancy... you can only see through people so much before your focus shifts to what being reflected back at you. There's definitely craftsmanship at play here, I'm just not certain all of it is successful.

There's no transition to really hang these two films, together.  It's just a cheeky pairing so I'm just going to start writing about The Long Kiss Goodnight, which I remember liking quite a bit... 25 years ago when I saw it in theatres. I think I watched it once following that, either having dubbed a copy from a laserdisc rental to vhs, or having just bought outright a vhs copy. DVDs were only 2 years away which would make my cassette collection obsolete immediately.

After a rocky start with a shaky voiceover, Geena Davis is pretty great as the badass with amnesia who forgot she was a badass until she's hit on the head again and things start coming back, you know Fred Flintstone-style.

Sam Jackson is even better, doing his Sam Jackson thing of being the best motherfucking scene partner on the goddamn Earth.

Shane Black's script is punchy and charming as Shane Black scripts tend to be, though some gay panic and overuse of the word "bitch" mar things a little. And of course it's Christmastime. And Black sets up "9-11 was an inside job" 5 years in advance.

Renny Harlan's direction is fine, not flashy or daring, but mostly gets the job done. I mean, the three big moments - the window jump, the water turbine torture sequence and the grand finale with the Christmas lights are all memorably badass. Plus they blew up the Peace Bridge, which is some kind of statement.  Exactly what, I haven't parsed yet.

Love mid-90's Toronto and Hamilton subbing in for Jersey, and seeing Honest Ed's (RIP) as a backdrop for Atlantic City was a good laugh.

This was a good time.