Mulholland Falls v L.A. Confidential

"L.A. Confidential" had way more money to work with and it showed in the production design. This is the rare case where money really does become a deciding factor on how good a film was, these period films need to sell us the time period. BTW, don't get me wrong, "Mulholland Falls" is a pretty impressive film and I really enjoyed it. It's just there wasn't much to sell me on the fifties time period except the period cars and the military sequences.








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LA Confidential takes it by a nose. I really liked both films, and Jennifer C. is
unbelievably hot in Mulholland Falls (far more so than Kim Basinger in LA Confidential, IMHO), but LA Confidential is the better film by a bit. I'm in the middle of a "Noir" bender right now, and I can't get enough of this type of film.


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I think Mulholland Falls is a far more authentic and realistic drama of the period, rather than the over-praised LA Confidential.

It has better acting as well.

I said I never had much use for one....never said I didn't know how to use it.

L.A. Confidential is full of itself, it tries too hard to be 50's and noir-edgy whereas Mulholland Falls is subtle but more effective.

I go with Mulholland Falls as the superior film.

L.A. confidential had the edge.
for example, when spacey bought the farm.
No warning; total shocker.
Good movie that.

"Both have great casts"

I thought so.

- For me I liked Mulholland Falls better. I enjoy old fashioned crime mysteries. I don't mind that they take their time and that they don't become action movies. The focus in this kind of film is the mystery about the crime and having the detective figure it out.

- I remember that the critics loved Kim Bassinger in L.A. Confidential but I didn't think she gave an Oscar caliber performance.

- L.A. Confidential also has a big shoot out scene at the end. This is popular for lots of the audience who enjoy action. For me that action movie style scene got in the way of the story.

* But Mulholland Falls was not as popular with L.A. Confidential. Imo MF not only didn't have as much action but MF also shows some parts of the US military in a negative way. I think some of the audience did not appreciate that. I was OK with the military backstory of MF because I knew it was based on real events involving atomic bomb testing.

BB ;-)

it's just in my opinion - imo -

Falls isn´t bad necessarily, but L.A.Confidential is indeed superior in pretty much every department one can think of. The story of MF doesn´t ultimately add up to much and the little eccentrities it insists on employing from time to time - like all that Palminteri´s psychiatrist stuff and bizarre behaviour exhibited by some characters - is just silly and distracting. It´s also ridiculous how a 50-year old Nick Nolte is made into an action hero seemingly capable of beating up an entire army single handedly. But, yeah, it´s at least pretty look at and reasonably engaging most of the time. Worthy of something like a 6,5/10 rating.



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L.A. Confidential. And I never even really liked L.A. Confidential.

Simply put, LAC has charisma and relies more on the actors than set design and costumes. It has a story that's gritty in a way that goes beyond a nostalgia piece or cheesy vanity project. It feels like an original film made for adults, whereas Mulholland Falls comes off as remake of some long forgotten film noir rewritten with some nudity to make it palatable for modern audiences.

I don't know, something about Mulholland Falls feels empty. Shallow where, with so much talent on the screen, there should have been depth. The whole way through it felt like each scene began just after the director finished reminding the actors they were playing a movie set in the 50s and instructing them to 'make it feel classic-y'. Something about MF feels seems disingenuous, almost as if Dragnet had tits and swear words and nothing more.

Now frankly I never thought LAC was the masterpiece many said it was but in a side by side comparison with this, it's a modern classic.

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