Over the weekend, horribly alone and irritable, I watched SUNSET BOULEVARD and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.  Yes, I know, I'm behind the watching curve.  Let me be terse in my assessment.  William Holden was corked back in the day-- kudos to him.  Gloria Swanson gives an endearing transformation from fizzled-out actor to downright loon.  I could say the same blah, blah, blah statements about the acting chops of Crowe, Basinger, Pearce, Spacey, DeVito in L.A. CONF-- nice work, definitely.

But much of the acting was lost on me because I was too busy checking the scenery.  As Sid Hudgens V.O.s in the opener: "Come to Los Angeles!  The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch for as far as the eye can see..." et cetera.

There's something romantic about the "old city of angels".  When I saw Holden's apartment up in Hollywood, I wanted that beat-up flat.  Here's a guy toting on a cig, slapping at the typewriter, the breeze floating over palm trees and through his window-- what more is a writer's life to be? This happened repeatedly in both films, instead of watching the actors I was starring at Pantages or the gates at Paramount or Sunset or Formosa Cafe or a place I couldn't recognize but a place I felt compelled to think, with even the slightest amount of confidence, that's somewhere in L.A.

There's a class about the fifties that sells it too-- the suits, the swag, the smokey-noir feel-- but in the end, the scenery does it for me.  Location, location location so they utter.

I recommend both, CONF more that BOUL but that could be my youth click-clacking.

Beat, beat.