# How to not make a movie(Black Dahlia)(spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 2, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684 "2008-11-02T05:32:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/1 "2008-11-02T05:32:06Z")
What methhead came up with this worthless assinine script? Insane Movie Maker: So I’m thinking I will try to rip off L.A. Confidential. wolfman: Well that was a pretty good movie, I know some people hate it, but I liked it, I hope your’s is near as good. Imm: Yeah It’s going to be two L.A. Cops in a kind of buddies, kind of rivals, film with action scenes and a love triangle and a mystery in Film Noir Los Angeles setting! w: yeah that sounds pretty much like an L.A Confidential rip off. IMM: But I’m going to make it about the Black Dahlia! w: That is an interesting subject matter matter, so what is your angle on the story? IMM: It will be a movie about the Black Dahlia that has nothing in the plot that has anything to do with the Black Dahlia, except oblique references and pointless cut scenes. w:Hmm, A movie about something iconic, but only uses that as a backdrop. It has been done before, but takes great deftness of script to work, let me know what you got. IMM:Okay they are Boxers, they meet in a boxing match. w: So boxing is a theme of the movie? IMM: No not really, it’s just the opening. Anyway so the boxing leads to the two becoming partners. w: Well, I guess it’s as good a way as any to set up partners, I’m still listening. IMM: So the new partners, set out to round up a real nasty character. w: ahh so there there is a character development oportunity as they look for the ‘nasty Okie’? IMM: no, we just ignore him until he dies offscreen without consequence much later? w: ummm, what is the point of that? IMM so we can set up a scene where our heroes kill four ‘negroes’ hehe. w: Ooooookay, so we movie into a civil rights kinda of area? IMM not at all, after we point out that four negroes are dead, then we find out about the Dahlia! w: and that’s promotes the plot by…? IMM: we meet the Hot chick part of the love triangle. She was brutally assaulted and maimed previously. By Some random dude who is about to get out of prison. 2nd cop is obsessed by it, and wants revenge. w: Ok, now I think I understand, the 1st cop helps the second cop with his obsession. IMM: no no no, we ignore the first cop with the obsession, and throw the main cop into a relationship…WITH LESBOS!!! w: I thought you had said you were setting up a love triangle? IMM:But now we have sex and we have LEBOS!!! IMM, her mom is a prescribed druggie, and her dad is an asshole crook with an accent. w: I’m confused, is the plot going into some kind of social commentary? IMM So now we switch to something showing the 2nd cop is obsessed about the Black Dahlia, he has lots of pictures. w: but didn’t we skip the first obsession totally?, and now we have a second? How does that develop. The Okie was killed I bet you forgot about that guy, didn’t ya? w: Well it was so much forgetting as not giving a shit. and was the original point of that sub sub sub plot anyway? IMM:We deflect interest, with a tender scene in which we find out she’s a LESBO!!! w: WTF, So this relationship is important? IMM: But the second cop has a drug problem! w: are you fucking kidding me? This guy now has two obsessions, and a drug problem, and he hasn’t been on screen but twice for bare cameos in 45 minutes??? IMM: No now we deal with the first obsession, the guy is getting released. w: Ok what the hell I can almost follow that, so we deal with the evil released guy now, and develop something from that I hope. IMM: yep he dies, so does the first cop, from secret guys in the shaddow aint I brilliant!!! w: you have got to be shitting me, two obsessions, a drug problem, and the main freakin plot Love triangle thrown away never used, just because, plus other crap thrown in now? IMM: so we can have have a scene where the ‘good’ cop watches mob guys cover up the crime by burning the bodies and disappearing it all. w: Okay one last chance you moron, he has something of a moral awakening realizing what he has cotributed too. IMM: nah, he’s cool with it, so he goes to dinner… w: CLICK. There was no way I could watch the last half hour of that piece of shit, I don’t care what thell they did to tell it all togther with some demonic ducktape in the last 10 minutes. The whole thing was a crime against the art of story telling, what absolute dreck, it reminded me of the combination of a film school student being surreal and a retarded 3 year telling a joke as he thinks things up . ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/2 "2008-11-02T05:37:40Z")
Oh dude, the last half hour was the worst part! You should watch it, just to see how truly bad it is. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/3 "2008-11-02T06:08:33Z")
I said it before, and I’ll say it again, [even naked lesbians _couldn’t_ save this movie.](http://65.69.77.33/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17077) And the last half hour? Well, here’s part of it: > [@](#): > > It turns out that the weird guy who was trying to kill Aaron was a friend of her’s and is, in fact, the father of Swank’s sister. Weird guy watched the porno being made and became obsessed with the Black Dahlia, so daddy arranges a date (daddy having figured out a long time ago that weird guy and mommy were boinking and disfigured the weird guy because of it) with the Black Dahlia for the weird guy. The weird guy starts feeling up the Black Dahlia (who’s pretty creeped out by the whole thing) in the shed. Mom show’s up and whacks the Black Dahlia in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Then the two of them torture her, before killing her. Mom then pulls a small gun out of her bra and blows her brains out. > > Nope. Not the ending. Some time later, Josh is sitting in his dad’s apartment, pulls out his pack of matches and spots Swank’s info on it. He then realizes that he handed the pack to Aaron (when it had fewer matches in it, BTW) and suddenly everything becomes clear to him. He goes to Swank’s place, and her sister answers the door. She makes a smart assed remark, and he demands to know what she knows about Aaron. Next we see Swank and some GI getting out of Swank’s car at the No-Tell Motel. Josh sticks a gun in the Gi’s back and tells him to get lost. The GI runs away like a scared little bitch. > > Josh then joins Swank in the hotel room. He gets Swank to spill the beans on everything. Aaron, it seems, was blackmailing Swank’s daddy (that’s why he didn’t show up to give the dude his written apology, if you can remember that far back), so she and weird guy set up Aaron, weird guy started to garrote Aaron, and she slashed his throat. Swank says that Josh isn’t going to do anything but screw her, so why doesn’t he put that gun down and start fucking her (or something like that). Instead, Josh shoots her and heads over to Scarlett’s place. The end. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/4 "2008-11-02T07:42:56Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Insane Movie Maker: So I’m thinking I will try to rip off L.A. Confidential. > wolfman: Well that was a pretty good movie, I know some people hate it, but I liked it, I hope your’s is near as good. > Imm: Yeah It’s going to be two L.A. Cops in a kind of buddies, kind of rivals, film with action scenes and a love triangle and a mystery in Film Noir Los Angeles setting! > w: yeah that sounds pretty much like an L.A Confidential rip off. The novels of _L.A. Confidential_ & \*The Black Dahlia \*were both written by James Ellroy. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/5 "2008-11-02T13:45:15Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > The novels of _L.A. Confidential_ & \*The Black Dahlia \*were both written by James Ellroy. The difference is that the _screenplay_ for _L.A. Confidential_ was written by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland, who received rave reviews from the talented Mr. Ellroy himself. The screenplay for _The Black Dahlia_ was written by Josh Friedman, who decided to tinker with the source material, and directed by Brian DePalma, who cut about an hour out of it, which apparently was the hour where the film was supposed to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/6 "2008-11-02T13:55:04Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > The difference is that the _screenplay_ for _L.A. Confidential_ was written by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland, who received rave reviews from the talented Mr. Ellroy himself. The screenplay for _The Black Dahlia_ was written by Josh Friedman, who decided to tinker with the source material, and directed by Brian DePalma, who cut about an hour out of it, which apparently was the hour where the film was supposed to make sense. Poor Mr. dePalma. He used to be so good. What the hell happened to him? Early onset Alzheimers? Heavy drug use? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/7 "2008-11-02T16:16:33Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > The difference is that the _screenplay_ for _L.A. Confidential_ was written by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland, who received rave reviews from the talented Mr. Ellroy himself. The screenplay for _The Black Dahlia_ was written by Josh Friedman, who decided to tinker with the source material, and directed by Brian DePalma, who cut about an hour out of it, which apparently was the hour where the film was supposed to make sense. Oh I know. _LA Confidential_ was a masterpiece & _The Black Dahlia_ was crap that made no sense, but the similarities between the two were because they were by the same author, not because one was a “rip off” of the other. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/8 "2008-11-02T16:42:01Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Oh I know. _LA Confidential_ was a masterpiece & _The Black Dahlia_ was crap that made no sense, but the similarities between the two were because they were by the same author, not because one was a “rip off” of the other. An Author/artist can rip-off himself. Going right back to the same well, to try to reconstruct the same sucessful story is a rip-off no matter who does it(ie: David Eddings, Jim Croce) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-not-make-a-movie-black-dahlia-spoilers/470684/9 "2008-11-02T18:07:00Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Poor Mr. dePalma. He used to be so good. Uh? Did he have a Golden Age after _Dressed to Kill_ and _Body Double_ that I missed?