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I loved the movie, but I'm finding it very hard to unpack a lot of the stuff I got from it. I probably have to watch it again, and I don't normally feel that way... when I think about it I mostly remember a lot of the funny details. I love how all the notes Sportello takes when interviewing clients are dumb bullshit, i.e. him just following the "vibes" of the case; I think the last note he writes is literally "something in Spanish." Sportello is clearly portrayed as clever (the scene where the DA arranges his first talk with the federal agents is hilarious: "I like to think we're on the same team here." "There's no need to be insulting!"), but it seemed like most of his detective work essentially just consisted of bluntly asking people stuff while being a fundamentally good person (or just into the same drugs as them). I guess when Coy (Owen Wilson) makes that point about people just wanting to hear what they already know from someone else, it kind of applies to the whole mystery. By the end it feels like the big conspiracy is kind of mundane; it was important to Sportello partly out of curiosity, but in the end it only really mattered in that he was able to help Coy. The feelings I got watching this reminded me a bit of Synecdoche, New York, in the somewhat-literally insane way the plot escalates and builds on itself. Much more uplifting though.
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Feb 22, 2015 16:27
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:39 |
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Nitevision posted:Doc's definitely meant to be a pretty competent detective despite all the weed. You see him talk his way into the Golden Fang building in the film, and in the book there's a few other parts like that where he's subtly outsmarting people and using his image to get their defenses down. The Adrian Prussia shoot-out at the end, also, is drawn out longer and much more menacing in the book, and it's impressive when you're inside Doc's head seeing how he actually thinks under pressure. He just blunders in, even though he really should know there's some serious danger, and then pretty much specifically tells this dangerous guy that no one knows he's there. Doc doesn't even have any questions for him, he just kind of feels like he should go there.
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Feb 23, 2015 01:40
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