#GAfilm Review: "The Nice Guys" (***½)

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling star in "The Nice Guys."

“The Nice Guys” jostles your funny bone and warms the part of your heart (the top right half, I think) that stores all your nostalgia. It makes you admire a time, or even a mentality, that you didn't know you missed. I wasn't alive in the 1970s and I'm not a violent person, but this is a time/universe I want to occupy (minus the guns and danger), even if only for a day.

It’s indubitably a Shane Black film—dialogue that sizzles and jokes that zing. There’s also some violence, raucous behavior, perfectly 70s outfits, and lots of glorious vinyl. Black directed as well as co-wrote the script with writing partner Anthony Bagarozzi. 1977 is as much a character in this film as its two stars, the moralistically misguided Jackson Healy (played by the talented and surprisingly bellied Russell Crowe) and the shambled mess of a detective, Holland March (Ryan Gosling, handsome even in his drunken stupor).

Gena Rowlands, Matt Bomer, Analeigh Tipton among honorees at 2014 Savannah Film Festival

The 2014 Savannah Film Festival honorees clockwise from top left:
Gena Rowlands, Matt Bomer, Analeigh Tipton, Asa Butterfield

Out of all of Georgia's film festivals—and there are now more than ever—the Savannah Film Festival is the most star-studded. Every year, a bevy of Hollywood's biggest and brightest names come to Georgia's first city to showcase their work and be honored by the now 17-year-old film festival. Last year, Jeremy Irons, Alexander Payne, Natalie Dormer and Abigail Breslin were honorees. Gena Rowlands, Matt Bomer, Analeigh Tipton and Asa Butterfield are this year's special award winners.