Top 5 L.A. Movies

There are not too many movies coming out this week. I had a chance to see La La Land but I’m not allowed to talk about it until next week. But La La Land was just nominated for 12 awards by the The Critics’ Choice Film Awards, so I decided to do the top 5 movies that take place in Los Angeles. There are a LOT of movies based in LA so please forgive me for not including your favorite.

Honorable Mention: Collateral

I really wanted to put this movie on the list because it is extremely underrated. But if I am being honest with myself it just doesn’t have enough to make the final five. This 2004 Michael Mann movie was advertised as just another action movie starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, but that was not the movie at all. Collateral offers some philosophical discussion about what defines a person and features beautiful shots taken all across LA. If you get the chance see this movie, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it’s more than you expected it to be.

5) The Big Lebowski

Admit it, when you first saw The Big Lebowski you started drinking White Russians. Hell I still drink White Russians whenever I can get my hands on some cream. Lebowski is a cult classic with so many memorable lines it is tough to name them all. Even the lines censored for the TV airings are legendary ("This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!”). If you go out to LA you can get tours of where this movie was shot. I don’t know what it is about The Big Lebowski, but this is a tour I would want to go on. The Dude can abide and so can I.

4) Chinatown 

Directed by Roman Polanski, Chinatown was supposed to be a trilogy about the corruption that goes on in Los Angeles, but the second movie bombed and they never even made the third one. However, Chinatown remains a near perfect film, terrifically acted by Jack Nicholson. I took a screenwriting class in college for funsies during my senior year and the script they used to teach us how to properly write a screenplay was Chinatown. The movie includes a ton of cultural moments that you’d probably be shocked to learn originate from this story including one of the movie’s major reveals. The thrust of the story revolves around the city’s water shortage; it seems some things about LA never change.

3) Die Hard

Yipee Kay Yay Mother Fucker. Die Hard is one of the most defining movies of the action movie genre and propelled Bruce Willis into a career of shooting bad guys in the head. Its not really a good sampling of Los Angeles as it takes place entirely in one location but the fact that he is from New York and visiting Los Angeles becomes an important part of the fish out of water narrative. John McClane spends most of the time walking around battered and bruised and without those damn shoes. The movie is an homage to the Western genre, which is how McClane gets his catch phrase and is called Roy Rogers by evil-doer Hans Gruber. Speaking of Alan Rickman, he is also fantastic in this movie; the scene where he slips out of his German accent and into an American one with ease is so fun and effortless it’s no wonder Rickman became one of the best actors of his generation.
 
2) Who Framed Roger Rabbit

There may not be a third Chinatown film, but you might as well consider Who Framed Roger Rabbit a continuation of the corruption story, featuring cartoon characters. The writers of Roger Rabbit were heavily influenced by Chinatown and the story is based on an actual plan to boost car sales in LA by getting rid of public transportation. The major difference between the two is Chinatown is a movie I feel I should watch, whereas Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a movie I want to watch. Except when Judge Doom puts that little shoe in The Dip—just thinking about that scene haunts my dreams.

1) Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino is a master of dark humor and he showcases that throughout Pulp Fiction, which was only the third movie he directed. This movie is on countless lists as one of the best made movies of the past 25 years. In the years since it's release it has served as inspiration, been parodied, helped revitalize the career of John Travolta and made Samuel L. Jackson a household name. The story tells several different narratives, jumping back and forth in time, weaving in and out of the city in a wonderfully bloody and violent fashion. If nothing else, the movie inspires a trip to France to get a Royale with cheese.

Next week I’ll be allowed to talk about La La Land. Until then, stay safe out there.