To Live and Die in L.A.

Every week, I've decided, this blog will recognize an "oldie, but goodie." I hope that I can choose some more obscure titles, titles that may not be obscure to cinephiles, like myself, but could be new discoveries for the everyday, normal filmgoer.

There's no real criteria for a flick that qualifies it as an oldie, but goodie - it just has to be old in some sense of the word, say, at least 10-15 years - and I will offer my humble commentary on it in hope that it will convince someone revisit it or see it for the very first time. I realize that some people might just hate the flicks I choose and I don't really care. See the flick, hate it, and write me to tell me about it. Maybe I will be swayed.

Before I start, I would like to consider the word "old" as it relates to movies. Personally, my cutoff age for a flick to be considered old is around 40 years. When talking to my friends or co-workers, old becomes 10, 15, maybe 20 years. I've discovered that some people simply will not watch movies that are much older than those ages. Except, perhaps, movies that they coveted when they were children. Movies like LABYRINTH, THE GOONIES, and INDIANA JONES. Sometimes people will reference GREMLINS or ET, but generally, I never hear people go much further back, even when I talk about JAWS, RAGING BULL, and ORDINARY PEOPLE. I don't know why people may feel this way, but movies of the seventies are amazing. I mean, I can't even begin to start a list, as there are just too damn many to consider. I urge people to check out flicks remastered on DVD. It is worth it.

Anyway, on to this minor classic from 1985 - TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.. I think this is the coolest fucking title in all of moviedom. I really do. I mean, you just cannot plug in any other name and achieve the same effect. To Live and Die in Chicago. Blah. Fuck that. To Live and Die in New York. are you serious? And I live in New York. Its not the same. Life and death just can't seem to coexist in the same breath with a city like they can with LA.

People who have heard of TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA have probably heard about it because of the car chase that the flick is built around - and it is a damn fine car chase - but the movie works for other reasons too. It has a super creepo villain played by Willem Dafoe, who likes to bang androgynous chicks all decked-out in leather. He plays a counterfeiter who only seems to work while listening to Tangerine Dream. He is cold-blooded as hell. The flick also has a HERO who is potentially more nasty than the villain and he is played with cocky, almost abrasive confidence by William Petersen. I mean, the guy calls everybody "amigo." How mid-eighties, badass cop is that?

The movie is dark, but filmed with an eye for "Miami Vice" neon-lit settings, and it has a very stark, Michael Mann vibe to it. In fact, Mann, who is friends with William Friedkin (director of LA and The French Connection, and The Exorcist) accused Friedkin of stealing story concepts for LA. The flick play a little like an extended Miami Vice episode, but much dirtier and much more violent. The film has almost no redeeming characters. There's something fascinating about watching a film populated only by the ultra-sleazy. Its like walking on the wild side because you eventually have to root for someone and everyone here is nasty, so, in essence, you become an advocate to the sleaze-fest.

Anyway, the flick has a cool plot. Petersen plays a CIA agent trying to bust Dafoe for counterfeiting and for killing his partner, who was (shocker) days away from retirement. He doesn't have the backing of the CIA, so Peterson goes rogue with his new, young, awe-struck partner, and decides to rip off a drug smuggler of some cash in order to set up a deal with Dafoe. Little does he realize that the smuggler is an undercover FBI agent - who dies in the robbery, which leads to the AMAZING car chase - and Petersen is basically on the run. Cool stuff.

So, check out the movie. Some people absolutely hate it. I love it. Hated it at first, but love it now.