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Filming Location: Los Angeles

Films in this library shot in Los Angeles, the city that plays itself more often than any other, and doubles for everywhere else. Location data is sourced from Wikidata property P915, which records where a film was actually shot as distinct from where its story is set.

Kay Lenz in a dance club scene from the 1987 film Stripped to Kill, wearing performance attire under stage lighting.California

Stripped to Kill (1987) Review

Stripped to Kill (1987) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Katt Shea's first film as director, made for Concorde under a brief requiring a fixed number of dance sequences, and she used the constraint to build something…

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Betsy Russell as a young woman in 1980s clothing, looking serious or determined.California

Avenging Angel (1985) Review

Avenging Angel (1985) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The sequel recast its lead, aged the character to university student, and converted a squalid character piece into a revenge picture with a real estate conspiracy. It is…

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Kurt Russell as Detective Eldon Perry in a scene from the 2002 film Dark Blue, wearing LAPD uniform in an interior setting.California

Dark Blue (2002) Review

Dark Blue (2002) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurt Russell plays a third-generation LAPD officer who plants evidence as a matter of routine, set in the week before the Rodney King verdict. James Ellroy wrote the…

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Donna Wilkes in school uniform and streetwear, reflecting the film's central contrast between student and sex worker.California

Angel (1984) Review

Angel (1984) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. New World Pictures built a film around the tagline about a high school honour student who works Hollywood Boulevard at night, and the premise is the problem. What is…

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Nicolas Cage as a private investigator in a dark room, watching film reels on a projector in a scene from the 1999 thrillerCalifornia

8MM (1999) Review

8MM (1999) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Joel Schumacher directing Andrew Kevin Walker's script about a private investigator tracing a snuff film, with Nicolas Cage restrained and Joaquin Phoenix excellent, undone by a third act that…

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A nighttime Los Angeles street scene with multiple cars and pedestrians, suggesting the interconnected urban chaos centralCalifornia

Crash (2005) Review

Crash (2005) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Paul Haggis assembled a multi-strand Los Angeles film in which every character holds one racial attitude the plot then corrects, won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, and has spent…

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Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam stands in a grey, rubble-filled environment, wearing his superhero costume. TITLE: Black AdamGeorgia

Black Adam (2022) Review

Black Adam (2022) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Dwayne Johnson spent fifteen years getting this made, declared that the hierarchy of power in the DC universe was about to change, and the studio he was in…

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Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in a 1920s Hollywood scene from Damien Chazelle's film about the transition from silent to soundCalifornia

Babylon (2022) Review

Babylon (2022) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. It does not belong on a page called Modern Movie Slop and I am reviewing it here because that is where it was ranked. It is a three-hour failure…

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Christian Bale stands with Margot Robbie and John David Washington in a 1930s-style scene from the film Amsterdam. TITLECalifornia

Amsterdam (2022) Review

Amsterdam (2022) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. David O. Russell assembled one of the largest casts of the decade to tell a true story about a 1933 plot against the American government, and buried it under…

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Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in a blue refrigeration suit with ice-themed armor and helmet against a neon-lit GothamCalifornia

Batman & Robin (1997) Review

Batman & Robin (1997) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Warner Bros. told Joel Schumacher to make it more toyetic, and he did exactly that. Schumacher later apologized publicly to fans, which is a rarer and more…

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Dwayne Johnson in a scene from the 2006 film Southland Tales, looking anxious and troubled.California

Southland Tales (2006) Review

Southland Tales (2006) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Richard Kelly took an unfinished cut to Cannes because nobody turns down a competition slot, was booed, recut it, and watched it earn under four hundred thousand dollars.…

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