KISS KISS, BANG BANG
KISS KISS, BANG BANG
June 28 and 29 2010, DVD, home living room, from library
Yes, I still use the library to check out movies and watch them! Now and then.
Many years after countless glowing recommendations, I finally settle in and watch this ridiculous little gem from director Shane Black and everybody's favorite crazy-in-recovery, Robert Downey Jr. and find it to be just as good as everybody says. I'd love for this to become a quote monster like LEBOWSKI, IDIOCRACY, or ANCHORMAN because it's at least as full of hilarious one-liners and retorts as those slabs of comedy genius. Maybe the lines just don't sound as good coming out of people who aren't RDJr, the fairly luscious Michelle Monaghan (damn, Iowa turns out some good-looking people!), or the voluptuous horror of Val Kilmer, who - you know what? - I have never stopped believing in. Val Kilmer is money in the fucking bank. He has never once let me down. Now I have to watch ALEXANDER, even if it's awful; it might be enjoyably awful. I'll make sure I'm good and high and have some grapes to peel and maybe soft toys to throw at the TV, and maybe a good friend who can co-heckle. But dammit, I want to see Fat Val do some crazytime. He is utterly fantastic in KKBB as "Gay Perry", and maybe I'm just a giant badazzled softy, but I thought he did a great job of really being a fully rounded, genuine, out gay guy, complete with snark, bitchery, protectiveness, and impatience with stupidity. He's not camp; he's just ... this guy. Who likes dick. Y'know?
Anyhow. RDJr, to be redundant, is superb here. This was one of his first major post-recovery films, and he looks great and is utterly at the top of his game - but when has he ever not been? Even his biggest detractors will admit that the guy is a goddamn professional who never gives less than his thespianic best. Here he's Harry, a hapless, impulsive, brave, horny, in-way-over-his-head petty crook posing as a Hollywood actor posing as a private detective. He rediscovers Harmony Faith Lane, the girl of his hometown adolescent dreams (Monaghan), who is an aspiring starlet who hasn't done more than one major commercial, but ends up at the right parties and nightclubs anyway. There's a plot about her sister having hired Harry to investigate some crooked actor guy (and an even deeper, somewhat out-of-place subplot about the sister having been sexually abused by their father), and Harry takes on Gay Perry to teach him the ropes about the P.I. business. Of course things are way more complicated and deadly than they first assume, and there follows an exhausting romp all over Hollywood as the bodies of nubile girls and anonymous tough guys keep piling up, and Harry gets more and more and more injured (and nobody gives two-fifths of a shit).
A fun, wickedly intelligent neo-noir romp with more hysterical dialogue (seemingly about 50% ad-libbed) than can be gleaned on a single viewing, this might be one to own and re-watch again and again. Funny as hell, and mostly devoid of convenient stupidity, its only flaw might be Harmony's sitcom-worthy level of obliviousness to insults (or hypersensitivity to perceived, but non-existent ones) and to serious danger, not quite enough Shannyn Sossamon (sure, she named her kid Audio Science, but she sure is foxy), and Harry's Jack-Bauer-preternatural ability to never need to engage in normal human survival pastimes like eating. But still - Gay Perry makes up for everything. I wish RDJ and Fat Val would do another movie together; they go together like habañero and lime.
Also provided a moment of excellent "Hey, It's That Guy!" when I correctly recognized an unrecognizable Corbin Bernsen!
June 28 and 29 2010, DVD, home living room, from library
Yes, I still use the library to check out movies and watch them! Now and then.
Many years after countless glowing recommendations, I finally settle in and watch this ridiculous little gem from director Shane Black and everybody's favorite crazy-in-recovery, Robert Downey Jr. and find it to be just as good as everybody says. I'd love for this to become a quote monster like LEBOWSKI, IDIOCRACY, or ANCHORMAN because it's at least as full of hilarious one-liners and retorts as those slabs of comedy genius. Maybe the lines just don't sound as good coming out of people who aren't RDJr, the fairly luscious Michelle Monaghan (damn, Iowa turns out some good-looking people!), or the voluptuous horror of Val Kilmer, who - you know what? - I have never stopped believing in. Val Kilmer is money in the fucking bank. He has never once let me down. Now I have to watch ALEXANDER, even if it's awful; it might be enjoyably awful. I'll make sure I'm good and high and have some grapes to peel and maybe soft toys to throw at the TV, and maybe a good friend who can co-heckle. But dammit, I want to see Fat Val do some crazytime. He is utterly fantastic in KKBB as "Gay Perry", and maybe I'm just a giant badazzled softy, but I thought he did a great job of really being a fully rounded, genuine, out gay guy, complete with snark, bitchery, protectiveness, and impatience with stupidity. He's not camp; he's just ... this guy. Who likes dick. Y'know?
Anyhow. RDJr, to be redundant, is superb here. This was one of his first major post-recovery films, and he looks great and is utterly at the top of his game - but when has he ever not been? Even his biggest detractors will admit that the guy is a goddamn professional who never gives less than his thespianic best. Here he's Harry, a hapless, impulsive, brave, horny, in-way-over-his-head petty crook posing as a Hollywood actor posing as a private detective. He rediscovers Harmony Faith Lane, the girl of his hometown adolescent dreams (Monaghan), who is an aspiring starlet who hasn't done more than one major commercial, but ends up at the right parties and nightclubs anyway. There's a plot about her sister having hired Harry to investigate some crooked actor guy (and an even deeper, somewhat out-of-place subplot about the sister having been sexually abused by their father), and Harry takes on Gay Perry to teach him the ropes about the P.I. business. Of course things are way more complicated and deadly than they first assume, and there follows an exhausting romp all over Hollywood as the bodies of nubile girls and anonymous tough guys keep piling up, and Harry gets more and more and more injured (and nobody gives two-fifths of a shit).
A fun, wickedly intelligent neo-noir romp with more hysterical dialogue (seemingly about 50% ad-libbed) than can be gleaned on a single viewing, this might be one to own and re-watch again and again. Funny as hell, and mostly devoid of convenient stupidity, its only flaw might be Harmony's sitcom-worthy level of obliviousness to insults (or hypersensitivity to perceived, but non-existent ones) and to serious danger, not quite enough Shannyn Sossamon (sure, she named her kid Audio Science, but she sure is foxy), and Harry's Jack-Bauer-preternatural ability to never need to engage in normal human survival pastimes like eating. But still - Gay Perry makes up for everything. I wish RDJ and Fat Val would do another movie together; they go together like habañero and lime.
Also provided a moment of excellent "Hey, It's That Guy!" when I correctly recognized an unrecognizable Corbin Bernsen!