ACTION-PACKED SUMMER: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (w/ Lindsey!)

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CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of misogyny, child sexual abuse, homophobia, violence, murder.

Lindsey Nelsen of Historical Hotties is joining us this week for a movie that is mostly important because it resurrected Robert Downey, Jr.’s career and possibly got him the role of Iron Man. We shouldn’t pretend that wasn’t one of the reasons this movie became a semi-cult legend after RDJ was restored to movie star status. But this movie has some serious bona fides behind it. Shane Black of Last Action Hero and Lethal Weapon fame takes on the screenplay and directing for this movie, and as far as quippy noirs go, it’s not the worst. Val Kilmer is outstanding in a role that demands coolness and razor-sharp timing, and RDJ is a fairly bumbling, unlikeable character that nevertheless is scruffy and charming enough to keep us engaged. But this movie is very much of its time in 2005, and its pretty forward statements on women, romance, homosexuality, and child sexual abuse is both standard fare for the time and also incredibly awful. If this were a better movie, it would actually investigate those tropes and really uproot them - but this isn’t that movie, and it’s pretty galling that everyone was A-OK with the messaging here. It’s time for us to reckon with an otherwise fun movie as we watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

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Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from “Main Titles” for the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, composed by John Ottman and performed by The Northwest Sinfonia. Copyright 2005 Warner Bros, Inc.

Clips taken from the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang are © 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt taken from “Playing With the Boys,” written by Kenny Loggins, Peter Wolf, and Ina Wolf, and performed by Kenny Loggins. Copyright 1986 CBS Inc.