Over the weekend I was at a Circuit City browsing around and found a copy of the 1992 Laurence Fishburne film Deep Cover for six dollars. Being a Cupcake who appreciates everything and anything that is deeply discounted, especially something as badass as this film, I scooped it up like Baskin-Robbins. I was introduced to this film a long time ago by my compadre Isaac and had forgotten how well done it is. Put is this way — most of the time there's nothing better than, as Jules Winnfield once said, "a bunch of gangsters doing a bunch of ganster shit."
Watching this film over the course of the next couple days, it began to occur to The Cupcake that films involving the City of Angels are never easy endeavors. Even the comedies carry with them a sense that L.A. is a less-than-forgiving place wrought with desparation and depression. So, following this epiphany, I began an internal debate over my favorite L.A. films. To properly do this, however, I first established four simple ground rules:
1. This is not a "Top X" list - I hate "Top 10s" (with maybe the exception of Letterman's) and made a 2008 resolution with myself to get away from rank-ordering things; it's trite and too subjective. This rule will also absolve me of having to include every film ever made that had some connection to L.A. Instead, this is just a selection of films from my collection that I personally like. So, no need to roast me for not including L.A. Confidential or Terminator 2.
2. For a film to be included, L.A. needs to be the setting's focal point. This means that, theoretically, Die Hard cannot be considered an "L.A. film" since 90% of it takes place inside Nakatomi Plaza.
3. Because celluloid depictions of L.A. are usually so desparate, desolate (morally, anyway), and depressing, I've assigned each film a depress-o-meter rating where 1 means it's fodder for Disney audiences and 10 means "fasten your seatbelts for Requiem for a Dream-style anxiety."
4. All genres count.
Here we go, in no particular order:
Collateral (2004): Tom Cruise with gray hair, cool suit, and a very difficult job (hitman). Jamie Foxx with almost no hair, sweat suit, and a very difficult job (cabbie). Way better than Heat (see below) in my opinion since it dispenses with the pleasantries and extraneous character development and instead moves at almost-real-time through a meticulous night of witness "tampering" on behalf of a Colombian drug king pin. Cruise, despite his tendency to annoy, is flawless as Vincent. And Michael Mann uses the city of L.A. visually in a way that is superior to any other film on this list. Depress-o-meter says: 5
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