AS WELL-WRITTEN AS CHINATOWN
The Hospitall (1971)
Network (1976)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
EXCEPTIONAL DETECTIVE/MYSTERY MOVIES
Murder My Sweet/Farewell My Lovely (1944/1975)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Out of the Pastt (1947)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
The Parallax View (1974)
Cry Uncle (1971)
Raunchier and in much poorer taste than the others, but still entertaining.
“In the same vein” means similar. It has nothing to do with quality.
Aside from the time period in which they were released, please explain to me the similarities between Young Frankenstein and Chinatown.
mmm
Carnal Knowledge
Cuckoo’s Nest
Fantastic… Half of these are available with my cable subscription for free as it is… looks like this weekend will be filled with snacks and lethargy. Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I can’t get enough of watching a quality movie… I used to think they were hard to find, not so much anymore.
Have you looked at the AFI 100 list?
THE BIG SLEEP (1946)
THE THIRD MAN (1949)
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1949)
KISS ME DEADLY (1955)
THE KILLING (1956)
All great and well-written crime/noir flicks. Don’t invite your friends – they’re all black and white, and they’ll think you are nutsy-coo coo.
The noise Bert Young makes when he sees the pictures of his wife getting porked in the row-boat in the park and Igor taunting the horses. 
I thought we were talking about “older movies”, as in, the '70’s.
If you love Chinatown, you owe it to yourself to watch the DVD of Ask the Dust with Robert Towne’s commentary turned on. The film itself is not that great, although I enjoyed it, but the commentary has little to do with the action onscreen. It’s all about Towne’s love of Los Angeles and the period depicted in Chinatown. The commentary itself is a worthy documentary about L.A.
Good one. It was only later that Burt/Curly could look for fulfillment as a beard. Also, Johnny Marlin is in both movies.
Speaking of the same vein, how about Mean Streets.
A couple early Scorsese movies, Mean Streets (1973) and** Taxi Driver **(1976), are definitely worth your while as is Peter Biskind’s 1999 book, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, which is a page-turning study of the rise and fall of New Hollywood from the late 60s to the early 80s.
Vigilante Force (1976), a Western character study set in present-day. Small town oil boom results in a spiraling crime rate with roughnecks wreaking havoc all over town; sheriff deputizes mercenaries who turn out to be worse than the roughnecks.
Special effects were difficult in the old days so movies need to have plots and dialogue and some old stuff called ‘acting’.
I’m one who loves Chinatown and loathes The Two Jakes. Nicholson directed the latter film, which is probably why.
Re: The Last Detail. As a career Navy guy, it really rang true to me. I laughed out loud when the three of them were standing out in the freezing winter cold and drinking cold beer. Been there, done that.
Cuckoo’s Nest is one of those films where you suddenly recognize actors who went on to be big names, like Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito. Great film.
I like the old noir movies, and the Bogie and Cagney films like Petrified Forest and Public Enemy.
QFT!
The car chases in Bullitt and The French Connection were great because they were filmed on location. CGI would have sucked.
Well, for Bullitt, with CG the Charger wouldn’t have lost 7 hubcaps during the chase. And you wouldn’t keep seeing the green Bug and the white LeMans so many times. And the chase might have made geographic sense.
As if anyone noticed those things. As for the chase itself, they went for the best most scenic shots…not a trip tic. Almost no one knows the Bay Area anyway.
Along with seeing the same cars parked in the BG, the complete lack of pedestrians is also noticeable in* Bullitt*. This was rectified in The French Connection and The Seven-Ups (imo, the best car chase scene ever). All three flicks were produced by the same guy (Philip D’Antoni) and prominently feature the stunt driving of Bill Hickman, wheelman of the Charger in Bullitt and the Pontiac Grand Ville in The Seven-Ups, as well as doing most of the stunt driving in The French Connection.
San Francisco made them film the car chase scenes on Sunday mornings to avoid disrupting neighborhoods. Does anyone actually miss pedestrians when we have the awesome scenery to enjoy?
Seconded.