The Blair L.A Project
While watching this movie, I noticed that the star, Joshua Leonard, looked very familar. So I looked up the movies that he was in and not only did I find out that he was the hippie dude in "Two Days", he's more famous as "JOSH!!!!! JOSH!!!!!!! JOSH!!!!!!" in "The Blair Witch Project". So much for based on a true story.
Anyway, JOSH!!!!!!! plays Nick Peters and the start of the movie has him being shot at while he handcuffed to a couch. A bullet is heading for him and it freezes in midair while Nick narrates and flashbacks to the past three days in which were the most miserable three days of his life.
It all started in New Jersey where Nick takes a painting class to shack up with the art teacher. It turns out the class is a graduate class and you have to know your shit to be in the class. Nick gets a call from Chris, his super crazy cousin played by Andy Dick. If that isn't typecasting, I don't know what is. Chris asks Nick if he could fly out to L.A and spend a few days with him. Nick says no, but Chris already got the tickets and really wants him to come.
Nick talks to his mom and she gives him his Dad's credit card to use. On the flight, he meets up with Kiki, a reporter chick flying to L.A to cover a series of murders that's been going on by this guy they named "The Collarer" because he chokes people by using their collars. And, oddly enough, this is the reason why Chris wants Nick to come out to L.A.
After meeting Chris' roommate Rodman who is a borderline pyromaniac (More on that later) and three superfical L.A chicks, and a pizza delievery guy who goes running from the place, Nick meets up with Chris in the garage where he is holding Rodman's Farrari hostage. Why is Chris doing this?
Because Chris was at a party and he saw a guy dressed up like Death point at him, which, in Chris' mind, means that the Collarer is gonna kill Chris next. And Chris suspects it's someone within his social circle.
And those people include Rodman, the three chicks (They have names but they don't really do anything as individuals so no need to give them individual names), this black British dude named Charles, a fat Jewish dude named Jack and his wife Cynthia, played by Tyra Banks, and a Southern Belle named Della.
Things start to go back for Nick when suddenly the rental car, a convertable, is found on fire. And he didn't get insurance. So he has three days to pay $28,000 or else he's gonna get arrested. Chris tells Nick that he'll pay for the car if he finds out who the killer is.
Charles invites everyone to a party, including Nick and there Nick is suppose to figure out who the killer is. He runs into Kiki and they go back to her place and she's into the dominatrix tying up thing and she handcuffs him to the bed where the maid finds him the next morning.
I probably should mention this is kind of a weird movie, in case you didn't get that impression.
Charles decides to run for mayor so he's out campaigning. Oh, and to impress Kiki, Nick tells her and everyone else that he's a very good painter and EVERYONE either wants to buy one of his paintings or have him do a painting of themselves. Jack is one of these people and he offers $200,000 to do a painting, which Nick accepts cause he needs the money. Jack tells Nick that he wants his painting to be done in the same style as this famous painter named Poliero. He's a spanish painter so Nick goes to the Spanish side of L.A where he immedately runs into Angela.
Angela wrote a screenplay about her life story and wants to turn it into a movie. But she and her "homeboys" need to get the script back by doing a drive by. Nick says forget this and gets the hell out of there.
Maybe I need to shoot up a few houses to sell one of my screenplays.
Anyway, Nick notices that Rodman is constantly chasing fire trucks and staring at video images of houses burning down and thinks this is weird. He goes to a party that Della is throwing because she has a Poliero painting and he wants to know how he paints. Nick finds out through an old friend named Vinny that Della is really Nick's old babysitter named Debbie who left New Jersey because she won the lottery and is only pretending to be a rich bitch from Kentucky. She shows him the Poliero and all it really is is just drawings of stick figures, which Nick can do easily.
He meets up with Kiki where she finds out the truth about him by a loud mouth punk chick who works at the art class in New York and Kiki takes Nick back to her place, where she chains him to the couch, then Death appears, The Collarer appears, kills Kiki and the Collarer is none other then....
Ok, I'm gonna ruining the secret here. If you wanna find out for yourself, stop reading, rent the movie because I'm gonna say later on in this review that I love this movie and the reason I love it is because it's really weird and bizarre, which pretty much sums up my personality. Ok, warning is over with, here comes the spoiler.
The Collarer is Chris and the guy in the Death outfit is Rodman. Rodman's been going around burning places left and right, including Nick's car. Now, it's never explained why Chris is doing this or why he made Nick come all this way to solve a case that doesn't need to be solved, but I think that explaination was cut short by the arrival of Angela and her "homies" and they start shooting the place cause they think Nick "dissed" them.
And we go back to the bullet heading towards Nick but it doesn't hit him, so he's alive. Chris and Rodman shoot back and kill the homies and Angela. Before she died, she made Nick promise her that he'll make her movie.
So, Nick paints Jack's painting, he likes the stick figures and gives him the money. He pays for the car, buys a new one, and gives the rest of the poolside Chicks, who turn out to be prostitutes, except the one named Daphne, she's an "heiress", which is probably a joke on Paris Hilton, so they can make Angela's movie.
Nick runs into this runner chick that comes by periodically throughout the movie and giving him the finger, they actually hit it off, and she wants to go back to New Jersey with him. The end.
So, yeah, besides the whole not explaining why Chris was killing people and having Nick come out to "figure it out", this was a pretty cool movie. I like bizarre off the wall movies and because it's a bizarre movie I'm sure there are a few things I didn't mention but I'm sure you get the gist of it and you're armed with the knowledge about this movie and what I think and, let's be honest, that's all you really wanted to know.
Now back to my impersonation of "The Blair Witch Project".
"JOSH!!!!!!! JOSH!!!!!!!! JOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOSH!!!!!!"
4 stars.
"Larceny" on IMDb.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251179/