The One Movie Blog: Chinatown

Intro

I love movies. I have loved movies all my life. I grew up on them. When I was eight years old, I managed to convince myself I would make movies when I grew up. Now I am in the process of getting a degree in Film Studies. I write about film more than ever before, partly because I have to for my classes, mostly because I enjoy it, because I have something to write about. Sometimes it helps me understand the film better; sometimes it helps me understand myself better.
I created this blog as a place to showcase my work, and also as an incentive to keep writing reviews, analyses, and essays over breaks, when there’s no one here to grade me.
I have tried many times, and failed, to explain in a coherent manner why it is that I love films. Here is my best—and most coherent—guess.

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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Gangster Squad (2013)

Shot in bright, shiny cartoon colors rather than noir shadows, Reuben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad takes us back to the darkest days of Los Angeles that never were, circa 1949, when cops, judges and politicians were up for sale. The highest bidder is real-life gangster Mickey Cohen, who turned the postwar City of Angels into a city of sex, money, power, and vice.

An (over)dramatization of actual events recorded in Paul Lieberman’s book, the movie features an all-star cast (Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Nick Nolte to name a few), playing clichéd characters trying to dodge the constant blaze of bullets and bad dialogue. Gangster Squad is full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.