1. L.A. Confidential - Winners: Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami - Iran) & The Eel (Shohei Imamura - Japan)
Curtis Hanson has proven that film noir isn't dead. It's just not the same as it was during the golden age of film. Neo-noir is modern film noir. Gritty, daring, and intense.
L.A. Confidential epitomizes all of that. Sex, seduction, betrayal, rape, murder, and corruption only bring the story to a certain level. The performances by Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger, and James Cromwell turn it into cream. It rises to the top. No matter how a detective investigates a case, whether it's by the books like Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) or bringing justice by any means necessary like Bud White (Russell Crowe), they're relentless. Don't mess with the bull, you'll get the horns. Smoke is always coming out of White's nose. And standing by your ethics strengthens your backbone. Women beaters attend the rodeo. But you can't be like Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum and slap a woman with the back of your hand, or the front of your hand for that matter. Under the glitz and glam of Hollywood, there's crime. Making money illegally like pimping hookers who have gone under the knife to look like celebrities such as Lana Turner, or on the side tipping news publishers to attract more readers. As long as it's off the record, on the QT, and very hush hush. Film noir was able to work when it did due in part to the Great Depression and America's crime wave, which gave birth to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
L.A. Confidential gives nostalgia to movie viewers of the Silent Generation and a taste of everyone else what they weren't alive to see. Modern crime fighting and law enforcement is so advanced, technical, and sophisticated, that
L.A. Confidential may be the breed of an endangered species. Let's hope it doesn't become extinct.