Chinatown

Chinatown is currently listed as #52 of the greatest movies of all time on Netflix. That and the fact that it's one of Jack Nicholson's earliest leading roles made me interested in seeing this film. It's set in 1950-ish Los Angeles, which is interesting since the main focus of the movie is one of the same issues that is near and dear to anyone living in LA county now - water. Aside from that and stellar performances from both Nicholas and Dunaway this film is good but not great. The story is pretty much run of the mill and anyone that's watched a lot of movies has already seen the area around LA a zillion times. I guess it does not help that I was born there either, but it's hardly an exotic local. Since I watched this between the incredibly detailed Apocolypse Now and the beautiful landscapes in Brokeback Mountain the salt pans of LA county just don't hold up. Still it's got some great performances, is well paced and very interesting to see how social interaction worked in the 50's (where it was "ok" for a man to his his wife for cheating on her and cops took a business card as a form of ID).

I'd give it a B+