Screenwriter Shane Black talks to the Sacramento Bee about his new film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a hard-boiled detective comedy that stars Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. Black wrote the screenplay for the film and is making his feature film directing debut. He set his first two films in L.A. at Christmastime:
Lethal Weapon (1987) and The Last Boy Scout (1991). He talks about his love affair with Los Angeles, and why it's such a compelling city to use a backdrop for a story.
"It feels to me like it's a big trick. You come here," Black says, referring to Los Angeles, "for magic, and you get snake oil instead. It has all the glittery lights, and it's very bright. It’s like a big, grinning idiot of a city. It beckons you and then just doesn’t deliver."
"It's not the edge of the rainbow, but it's certainly the edge of the continent," he says of Los Angeles. "It's the last bastion of the American dream, the place where hurt people come, the place where failed people come, hoping to be fixed and loved, hoping that this city – this magic place – will afford them the kind of opportunity they didn't have elsewhere, to find redemption. ... I still believe that in the barrenness of L.A. there is magic. I wouldn’t live there if I didn't."
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is currently in nationwide release.
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