Liberal Talk Radio

Over the holidays, I tend to spend the wee hours of the morning voraciously consuming my parents’ 400 channels of digital cable, a trend that will only accelerate when my Dad inevitably buys a Plasma TV and home theater setup.

After 7 years of catching bits and pieces of Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential during those late-night TV sessions, I finally caught enough of Act I to finally understand the whole movie! It’s a great flick, and if anyone hasn’t seen it, do yourself a favor and rent the DVD so you can watch it in order (though I have to admit there’s a certain post-modern, fragmented effect that’s achieved by multiple partial viewings over several years, like a Picasso painting).

It’s a remarkable feat, the way it pares down the novel to its essence without missing a beat. The editing is so tight it crams what could have been a 4-hour epic slog into a crisp 2:20. Good stuff.