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The Insomniac’s Movie Review: The Salton Sea

By Bud White on December 13, 2008 at 2:30 AM in Current Affairs

vincent_d_onofrio_17_sized
Crime movies set in L.A. tend to show the dark world that exists beneath
the sun-drenched paradise. In Chinatown, Jake Gittes opens up a can of worms by investigating an adulterous husband. In The Salton Sea, there is no illusory paradise; it is L.A. as the post-apocalypse city. Although this movie shares the same atmospheric Miles Davis-inspired trumpet music as Chinatown, as well as its lingering cigarette smoke, it’s nearly void of any redeeming characters or resolution.

The Salton Sea is the classic revenge story. In this regard it shares a similar story line with Quentin Taratino’s Kill Bill movies, but it lacks Taratino’s cartoonish quality and humor. Tom Van Allen (Val Kilmer) witnesses the murder of his wife by masked men at a desolate house near the Salton Sea. The couple were there to score drugs. The trauma remakes Kilmer into a full-time methamphetamine addict (referred to as “gak” by the characters) known as Danny Parker. But all of this is told as a back story.

The incomparable Vincent D’Onofrio is Pooh-Bear, a gak dealer who lost his nose as a result of his drug habit. In one of the most demented scenes on celluloid, we are introduced to Pooh-Bear as he and his friends re-enact the JFK assassination. They use three snipers, a remote-controlled car as the presidential limo, and pigeons as sit-ins for the presidential party. One bird wears a pink pillbox hat, à la Jackie Kennedy. After a blast of bullets, the car lands as a mess of blood and feathers at Kilmer’s feet. Nice to meet you, Pooh-Bear. I rank D’Onofrio’s Pooh-Bear as one of the creepiest bad guys in the movies, in the ranks of Willem Dafoe’s Bobby Peru in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. The JFK assassination scene below:


In addition to being a meth addict, Kilmer’s Danny Parker is a police informant, who is tipped off that drug lords are out to get him. He attempts to flee L.A., and attempts to make one good deal prior to disappearing. This deal is set up with the help of his friend Jimmy the Finn (played by Peter Sarsgaard who sports a mullet hairstyle. Sarsgaard is superb, arguably one of our finest actors). The film is sympathetic to drug users’ pathos — to a degree — the message being is that it’s the brutality and grief of life which leads to drug use. But make no mistake, these are world class losers.

Of course Parker’s plan goes awry. In the ensuing chaos, we find out that the good guys are the bad guys and that Parker is Van Allen. Layered on top of this basic plot, however, is a world so bleak, desolate, and nihilistic that even daylight has the foreboding of a permanent midnight.

B.D. Wong adds humor as a “real” Asian cowboy, named Bubba. He is fond of calling Parker “hoss,” and walks with the swagger of a rodeo wrangler. But it’s clear that Bubba is tweaking a stereotype.

The story is unrelentingly bleak. The dialogue could have been better but not the acting, which is as good as it gets. For that reason The Insomniac gives it 4 out of 5 Ambien.

Who do you think is the creepiest bad guy of all time? What are the best L.A. apocalypse movies (Blade Runner)?

h/t to OBAMA IS A FRAUD for this recommendation.

  • touchet
  • ProudLiberal

    I guess hate is blinding your eyes against what the Republicans have done to the Car industry? I guess it makes you proud that you are still on bigoting on a bout “Chicago Politics”.

    Here is what should happpen.

    Auto plants should close starting with the Saturn plant in Tennessee (Sen. Corker), then the Bowling Green, Kentucky GM plant which makes Corvettes (Sen. Mitchell).

    Plunge tens of thousands of pointy-headed, gun-luvin, God fearin, NASCAR-lovin, Repub voting bubbas out of work right before Christmas!

    All in the name of being anti union. All in the name of blame it on the workers.

    It took you Freepers only 20 years to accomplish what it took the Romans, the Catholic Church, the Dutch and the British each 50 to 100 years or more to achieve; The corruption and destruction a world wide empire from within, by using stupidity, corrupt Religion and raw greed.

    • touchet

      Thats fine with me, then give the 750 billion dollars to the people who loose their jobs unemployment benefits and use some of it to assign case workers to help them relocate or find other jobs in the area at equal pay.

      You sound like a sounding board for the media. You are the perfect slave.

      • ProudLiberal

        The $700 billion went to the Banking Industry. The City Bankers were not asked to take pay cuts.

        The car deal was $14 billion. A tiny part of that and no where near the trillion you claim.

        One of the ways Repthugs have cost the car industry jobs. Not having “socialzed medicine” for a start, unlike almost all of their major competitors.

        • jbjd

          Another decision out of the hands of the line workers. Stop bashing the people with no say in the decision-making that led to their obsolescence.

  • pamOBSP

    Just came back from Politico and reviewed the list of donner for the “committee.” Does the MSM finally realiz that roses smell like shi_? No, they created this and they will defend until they can’t anymore. BO may have done the right thing in the latest play to pay scandle, but maybe they will finally realize in the words of Rev. Wright, BO is just another politician. Me like several of the people I use to consider friends, sat across from the “chosen one” at a table at Orginal House of Pancakes in Hyde Park and was told that we had to support him (Emil said we had to)for the Senate and this was in 2002. We all did ae part and most will be awarded for their blind support. We worked for Rod and got him elected to have a clean and transparent goverment in Illinos (does not sound familar?) I sent all this information to the media during the primaries and only got insults. This is the greatest story “ever sold” and even people outside of IL are finally realzing it. Most of the people on this site became aware of these people after Iowa. But, I saw it coming after Oprah’s was on Larry King, after she told everyone to support the Bo and not her for POTUS. He is a media creation the anti Hillary the anti Bill and we tried to tell Hillary this on December 10, 2007 at the Drake Hotel and she did not listen. There were people on that date and time telling her to compare him to “W” but she would not listen to us. Oh well, it’s over and as my son told me tonight, I was part of the BBC (Bitter Bitches Club). So as he heads off to DC next month for the “party of his life time” ( I did play his 1st birthday tape for him) to no avail which in the past, he considered the event of his life. So now ladies and genetlemen celebrate! You may get to meet Halle Bary (she’s on the list) or my Ex who gave me the greatest gift ever, my beautiful baby boy! (he’s 6″4 now) And, as I write this, maybe I am am a certified member of the BBC.

    • jbjd

      Touching vignette. Makes me consider other acronyms (b**** is civil rights word with me; I never heard of a man beating a woman without calling her a b****). Maybe the CMC, Canary in the Mine Club, referring to the practice of bringing a canary into the mine shaft during excavations to detect when the air is , enabling the workers to safely escape.

  • touchet

    I for one am tired of people ignorance. The bickering between the two parties of government is ridiculous. NOone is going to help the american people. All i see is a celebrity superstar, a bias media, and congress giving trillions of dollars away to CEO’s with the propaganda line that they are doing it so that, what the number now? 1000 or 10,000 can loose their jobs. In the meantime, people still are loosing their jobs even with the companies that do get money. Oh, i guess that story just got lost in the short term memory of the media soundboards.

    Lets do the math now. How much could lets just say 40,000 people lost their jobs due to these companies closing with 1 trillions dollars. Thats 250,000,000 dollars a person. Lets me rephrase that. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS A PERSON. You would have to be a complete FOOL to buy the line that the government couldn’t help these people with the amount of money they are throwing at these businesses.

    Lets make no mistake. They are giving this money to the people that help elect them. Plain and simple.

  • touchet

    If these politicans didn’t get that money from their buddies, guess what. You would have to vote for politicans that weren’t corrupted because they coudn’t afford to run a 750 million dollar campaign. Don’t you dare use another mediabite on me. No way did Obama get that money from normal people. “small campaign contributions” doesn’t mean normal blow joes like you an me. It just means he got that money in small increments instead of big ones.

    I am done with whole stinking mess. Republican, Democrat, it doesn’t matter to me anymore. If you are a politican in favor of ANY money going to big businesses, you are corrupted. END OF STORY.

    • pamOBSP

      I’m also tired, but the alternative is?

      • jbjd

        The alternative is, visiting the local district offices of your elected federal officials and demanding every adult citizen 18+ receives a check for $40,000 to stimulate the economy. That’s 200,000,000 people, instead of $700,000,000,000 to (how many) CEO’s of the failed enterprises? Unlike the press, THESE PEOPLE WORK FOR US!

  • http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Basic-Parenting-Styles&id=744499 Northwest rain

    These sort of films are just not my cup of tea — or rum on the rocks.

    I read the reviews and then just don’t bother.

    Now China Town — I did see that one. Ha. It also involved a missing nose (or actor with bandage over his nose).

    However — seeing the Asia concept of “cowboy” — that would be interesting to see. Hawaii has a lot of Asian tourists. And one thing they come to Hawaii to do is to shot guns at indoor target ranges. The writing on the outside of the gun shoot gallery is mostly in Japanese. I’m told that the Japanese males love to come to Hawaii and play out their sharp shooting fantasies.

    • http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Basic-Parenting-Styles&id=744499 Northwest rain

      It’s late

      shot, shoot, shooting — as in guns. Japanese like to shoot guns in Hawaii — because guns are outlawed in Japan.

      • Baba Rum Raisin

        They ARE a bit sensitive in Dai Nihon RE: sudden, loud BANG! sounds.

  • elise

    Your description of The Salton Sea was really very wonderful, but I didn’t like the movie too much.
    Why is it that Val Kilmer doesn’t receive much notice for his performances?

    He has played so many gritty roles and he is always great. Wonderland was on a cable channel recently and I had never heard much about, other than the subject. And his roll of Jim Morrison in Doors was so amazing I felt I was watching the man himself.

    And Tombstone is my favorite westerns principally because of his portrayal of Doc Holiday.

    • bert

      “Why is it that Val Kilmer doesn’t receive much notice for his performances?”

      Becasue, elsie, he is a jack*ss on the set. He is difficult to work with.

      He did do Morrison well. He also did a good job in “Heat.”

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  • elise

    I forgot to ad my nominee for the creepiest. Laurence Olivia in the Marathon Man as the German dentist. “Is it safe yet?”

    • http://budwhite.wordpress.com/ Bud White

      Yes, very creepy!

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