It's listing season in Los Angeles, not just because it's the end of the year, and not just because it's Oscar season, but because lists don't even require us to write complete sentences.
Give us a break. Writers have shopping to do too.
Witness the many top-10 headlines in our largest local newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, which features everything from the usual Top 10 movies of 2008 to an assortment of galleries that sort the best and worst of 2008 into categories like TV moments and disses.
In the interest of hopping aboard this bus, I compiled a list of my own that doubles as both a Top-10 assortment of movies set in Los Angeles, as well as suggested stocking stuffers (because all are available on DVD).
In each of these films, the city was more of a character than merely a setting:
Chinatown -- It will whet your appetite for LA history.
L.A. Story -- Because we're, like, like this.
Collateral -- The city never looked so good at night.
Falling Down -- It becomes more relevant everyday.
Heat -- From Kate Mantellini on Wilshire, to LAX, another love letter to LA from Michael Mann.
Short Cuts -- Raymond Carver stories. Need I say more?
Swingers -- And not just because I still use The Club.
City of Angels -- If only our beaches were lined with robed figures every day at sunrise.
L.A. Confidential -- Another bit of LA history.
Get Shorty -- The stereotypical Hollywood dream and a hit man.
