You know that whole "do see, don't see DVD" I tried to accomplish? It got kind of behind, particularly because some of the DVDs were just so wretched that I couldn't even bother (I'm looking at you, Rumor Has It). Well, here are a few new ones that may be of interest. Or not.
First up, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Wanted to like it, enjoyed some of it (especially Robert Downey Jr.'s performance), but overall it's a big fat B. There is a fine line to be walked mixing dark humor and lots of violence, and writer/director Shane Black has tried -- and come close -- before. His Last Boy Scout was so loud,
I'm still hearing it, but not totally bad, and The Long Kiss Goodnight had scenes that still warm my heart.
And KKBB falls into this category of noble effort, failed execution. Still, parts of it were humorous (RDJ's description of meeting girls at parties in LA: they're named "Jill, spelled J-Y-L-L-E" is very spot on, but it's not that difficult to make fun of the Hollywood hangers-on scene, and Entourage does it better). In a nutshell, RDJ's character is a small-time crook who falls into some good fortune -- he thinks -- when he stumbles into a casting call and is brought to Hollywood. But from the first party he attends, murder most foul is afoot and when he discovers his high-school crush (Michelle Monaghan, also seen in Mission Impossible 3) is involved, he decides to take his amateur detective skills (he's playing a detective in the movie-within-the-movie, and following around a real detective, played by Val Kilmer) to solve the crime and get the girl. It all falls deeply, sometimes humorously, often bloodily apart. Sometimes funny, often wry, with a hefty and random body count, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang ultimately flops, but is not a bad ride.