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.