James Ellroy's Problem is That He's Too Good For Scarlett Johansson
Life's not exactly what you'd call a bitch for James Ellroy, Los Angeles crime novelist extraordinaire and co-screenwriter (for the first time) of next week's Keanu Reeves/Forest Whitaker cop thriller Street Kings. Nevertheless, as evinced by today's LA Times profile, the new film is one of the few Ellroy projects — after one hit (LA Confidential) and a succession of misfires (The Black Dahlia) and lost causes (White Jazz) — for which anyone has sustained any hopes coming out of the gate.
We have our own theories about why Ellroy adaptations have yet to explode the author's cult, but we defer this morning to noted industry observer Scarlett Johansson, who seems to suggest that kids these days just don't get it:
Johansson, who played '40s vamp Kay Lake in Black Dahlia, talked about how difficult his words were to put across. "As a modern actor, we made this movement that started in the 1970s. ... Realism and the gritty kind of natural technique. It was interesting to pair that with the dialogue so stylized and impossibly unrealistic, saying things like, 'How could you, Dwight, how could you?' We never say those things. That kind of dialogue is so dated."
"Interesting" naturally meaning "impossible," if you've seen Brian De Palma's atrocious Dahlia adaptation. In any case, it doesn't pay for Ellroy to comment on the curse that's afflicted the majority of his films; during an interview prior to Dahlia's release in 2006, he told me, "Money is the gift no one ever returns," and God knows his aggression won't extend to elliptical, snappy second-guessing of Reeves' leading role in Kings. We know it's business, but why must Ellroy — and his adaptees — always leave us wanting more? And not in a good way?
