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I'm a fan of James Ellroy so I really enjoyed this movie. It's fairly faithful to the book which I love. Great for fans of the time period and cop dramas.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
Why didn't they just write the true story in detail instead of attaching this predictable fictional story? They ruined it and their integrity as far as I'm concerned.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Elizabeth Short has been portrayed many ways in the six decades since her body was dumped in two pieces on an empty lot in Los Angeles: Manipulative playgirl. Aspiring starlet. Above all, time has immortalized Elizabeth Short as the pin-up girl of Los Angeles Noir. The Black Dahlia. Fascination with her life, and especially her death — her gruesome, violent, unsolved murder — continues to this day. The story of the unemployed 22-year-old waitress has inspired dozens of books, Web sites, a video game and even an Australian swing band. The quest to pinpoint her killer has become a hobby for generations of armchair detectives. And this fall, Hollywood will recast her tragic plight in a star-studded Black Dahlia movie. The Los Angeles Police Department has all but given up hope of ever closing the Dahlia case; the department has more urgent crimes to investigate, and the killer has likely been dead for years. Yet, it is precisely the unsolved status of Elizabeth Short's murder that gives it such an enduring allure. We need to emphasize here that the case is so cold, the information so musty and bungled, that it's difficult to get a lucid picture of Elizabeth Short's brief life, much less her grisly death.Read full review
After watching The Black Dahlia on DVD, I was left with many unanswered questions: Who decided to let Brian DePalma direct the adaptation of a great, sprawling, complex book again after his famously disastrous version of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities? Who thought that Josh Hartnett had the skills to overcome his ultra-contemporary looks and manner and make us believe he is James Ellroy's 1940s jazzbo/boxer/noir hero Bucky Bleichert? What the hell was going on in Mark Isham's head when he scored the film? The music seemed like it was about three minutes out of sync, swelling in odd places and generally getting in the way, something a soundtrack should never do. Who wrote Scarlett Johansson's dialogue? For a director who supposedly demands that film students write scenes without dialogue to force them to write visually, DePalma piles on the chitchat in this one. The result is unintentionally funny lines coming out of the mouths of genuinely talented people like Johansson. Finally, what combination of factors allowed another film based on an Ellroy book, LA Confidential, to soar while this one crashed under its own weight?Read full review
I bought this specifically because I am an avid Mia Kirshner fan. The movie was OK. I had seen parts of this movie several times occassionally before on TV and was not impressed. I watched this DVD with close captioning on, (sometimes I like to do this to make sure I hear the dialogue exactly) and was surprised to interpret much more of the back and forth scenes of the movie. It was much a much better movie, in my opinion, after viewing this way. Surprised me! Nice extras on the DVD; gives the information and background of the actual murder which I had never known.
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