For The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman successfully transports Philip Marlowe, incarnated by Elliott Gould, to the over-privileged, full-color 70s. Marlowe is lonely and shabby, yet does not seem an anachronism in the contemporary world. Unlike Bogart's Marlowe, this is a not especially tough Marlowe. He's a bright, conscientiously solemn nut, a guy who hopes for the best but expects the worst. This particular Philip Marlowe, despite evidence to the...

In this sequel to Chinatown, it is 1948 Los Angeles and private investigator Jake Gittes must solve a case of suspected adultery turned murder that's tied to a grab for oil and to Jake's own past.

Denzel Washington has charisma to burn as the jobless ex-GI Easy Rawlins, who sees a chance to make some quick cash when he's recruited to find the missing lover of a wealthy mayoral candidate in late 1940s Los Angeles only to find himself embroiled in murder, political intrigue, and a scandal that crosses the treacherous color lines of a segregated society. "Ezekiel 'Easy' Rawlins, a decorated African American war hero, returns home to the segregation...