![]() ![]() His rejected application to the Academy confirmed just how many people he had pissed off: a requirement for new Academy members was to have “two produced works of substance and merit.” At this point, Black’s credits included Lethal Weapon 1 & 2, Monster Squad, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Last Action Hero, The Last Boy Scout. The movie bombed, and Shane Black kind of disappeared. Long story short: Shane Black sold his script for the Long Kiss Goodnight for $4 million in 1996 and pissed off a bunch of people. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang came together after Shane Black’s decade-long retreat from moviemaking. The language of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the banter of the pulp-fiction detective, of comedy, often silly or seemingly meaningless, but at its most fundamental, the film is a mystery and a story of friendship and the love story of broken people. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and its aesthetic convey pulpy fun, from the title sequence evoking Saul Bass with a touch of Mitchell Hooks, to the Jonny Gossamer book covers illustrated by Robert McGinnis, Gossamer himself inspired by Brett Halliday’s Mike Shayne stories. Lorrie Moore once said that the texture of the world is comedic, but the world’s underlying story is not, and this tension pervades all Shane Black movies. ![]() This is where we find the characters of Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, in a lonely place where they’ve gone to pretend to be different people. ![]() And maybe there’s hope - even in Los Angeles, a city so sprawling it seems to be on the run from itself. There is magic in it, and quiet, and sadness. You remember the ways you’ve screwed up, the dreams you put aside, what you lost - who you lost. during the holidays, its twinkling lights that can feel like little neon beacons or make the city seem more like a fever dream. But if you have nowhere to call home, loneliness comes into sharp focus against the backdrop of L.A. “In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.” - Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of MurderĬhristmastime: when people return home, when they feel that they belong, warmth in the snowless cool of Los Angeles. ![]()
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